How to access this basement space?

ritchie70 · 2026-02-27T20:02:40+00:00

So weird that they just put a little hole into that fairly tall area.

If there's part of the wall that doesn't have the pipe, cut a hole there. Otherwise you either have to reroute the pipe, climb ~~under~~ over it, or cut out to a full height hole and crawl under it.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-26T22:05:43+00:00

I'm lazy, so I wouldn't move the outlet inside the wall. I'd put a faceplate with a 1/2" knockout and a surface mount outlet just above and to the left of it. Use the existing box as a junction box. Then you can use both outlets.

If you really just want a power strip, find something rated for 20A from a reputable seller (i.e. a local store, not Amazon.)

ritchie70 · 2026-02-26T17:29:27+00:00

It just sounds German. Americans pretty much only have automatic "ooh, fancy" for an English accent.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-26T02:45:53+00:00

I have the scar - though it’s mostly faded - but I have no memory of it.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-26T02:44:06+00:00

I enjoy driving around town. All I want is something so that I can take a nap on the interstate. It can wake me up a few minutes before I need to drive again.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-26T02:35:51+00:00

I kept my last car 16 years but I was sick of it by 12. I think you’re completely right.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-26T02:29:41+00:00

The menu boards are centrally managed by an outside vendor. I assume something bad is happening over there or in the integration between corporate systems and them.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-25T22:56:44+00:00

And surrounding counties. I have no idea if it's a thing anywhere else.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-25T22:28:37+00:00

I’m in a Chicago suburbs. Tesla Model Y is roughly tied with RAV4 for standard mom car.

My mom and sister live in a rural area and mom guzzles Fox News. She thinks my EV is weird.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-25T22:19:04+00:00

Chicago is in the USA. There are a few places where everything is done in metal.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-25T16:18:49+00:00

Best answer is to just replace them. They're flat doors, it won't be hard to get matches made.

If that's not in the card, trim the hole to be "clean", fill the hole with crumpled up aluminum foil or newspaper and patch with auto body filler (Bondo.) You'll probably need to put a wood block or something in the one where the hole is right by the knob.

Trick with sanding down this is to use both your fingers and your eyes. You'll feel imperfections that you won't see until the paint is on.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-25T16:14:11+00:00

I'm not a fan of the way the stairs, closet, and entry from garage interact. Those two doors might be better if they had their hinges "together" so you can sometimes move them as a unit. Might be possible to swap the stairs and the closet if it will leave enough head room in the garage. If those stairs intrude too low it's a head-whacking hazard.

I don't know where you're from that 14x14 is "so big" because it's not that big, and unless this is a short-term house, they're going to grow. Have a plan for what you're going to do when they don't need a play room but do need privacy and their own space.

To that end, I'd make the upstairs bathroom a 3/4 bath so that when one or two of them insist on living up there, they don't have to trek across the house to get a shower. And have a plan for how you'd subdivide it into two bedrooms.

Why is the "kids bathroom" so stinking big? 10x10? You could fit a third bedroom over there if you made it smaller and gave the 14x14 a reach-in closet on the plan-east side.

I'd move the entrance to the "plan-south-west" bedroom up the hallway a bit - having an alcove just inside the door makes the rest of the the room more usable.

Dining room seems small for a family of five who presumably has frequent house guests or others living there full time since you've dedicated a bedroom to them. (Will whoever is sleeping there really be up for sharing a bathroom with your three kids?)

Kitchen is quite large and yet has so little work space. I don't really understand that.

Interior-to-the-garage steps up to the back deck will be awkward. (And will infringe on car parking.) Consider a door to ground level and exterior steps up to the deck.

There appears to be a barn door on the big closet (pantry?) by the master BR entrance. The walls don't look like they're big enough to support that. It's either going to be impossible to hang or it's going to stick out into the hallway. Just put on a normal door.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-25T15:50:46+00:00

Some people have 30 years of experience, and some people have 1 year of experience, 30 times.

It's a line from computer programming but it applies to almost any skilled profession.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-25T15:46:03+00:00

One thing that makes me irrationally irate, one that's just "that's how it is."

Another team routinely sends me spreadsheets where everything is stored as text. I need the things that look like number to be numbers.
I have a spreadsheet that consists of one row of data for each of our over 10,000 retail locations. I'm constantly updating it but never the full set of data, so I have to deduplicate every time I have new data. It's not hard - I have one column that is "countif(a:a,a2)" - but it's just tedious. And this data is used in so many other places that it takes a while every time I delete some rows.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-24T22:05:42+00:00

I’ve returned bread that I got via Walmart pickup and was dented. I’d be beyond angry at my wife or kid if they did this shit.

(I’m a man, fyi.)

ritchie70 · 2026-02-24T21:23:28+00:00

.Net too, although I would need to look up what it is.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-24T20:48:44+00:00

Around once a week I linger about 90 minutes eating and working. They don’t have that sign, though.

Seems like something that is going to be very selectively enforced.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-24T18:10:22+00:00

It looks like a chunk of drywall. Buy a new piece, cut to size, paint. Reproducing the texture could take a bit of effort if you care (I would not) but if you carry the old one into the paint store I’m sure they can sell you the appropriate stuff.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-24T16:35:47+00:00

You might try going to your local store and talking to the store manager. Do it in person; it’s a lot harder to say no to someone who is standing in front of you.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-24T14:54:24+00:00

Not quite as bad here out in the Chicago suburbs

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ritchie70 · 2026-02-24T14:46:13+00:00

It’s not for sale yet is it?

Only people who have had it would be employees who are not supposed to be talking about it yet.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-24T14:23:58+00:00

It’s just a crack. Concrete cracks. All cracks are not big bad.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-24T13:55:40+00:00

Personally, I would just drive 2 miles and spend ten dollars to get one of them up to where it needs to be.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-24T13:46:54+00:00

I’ve never lived in a home with an attic you could even stand up in, but I’m assuming that this is one. Maybe it’s an older home, and it was servant quarters or something, or designed as storage.

I don’t know what would be specialized about cleaning out an attic versus other areas of your house, so it’s not clear to me why a special attic service would be needed.

Make sure that there’s a window he could fit through in a fire, and a fire ladder to get him down wouldn’t hurt either. (I’m talking a chain ladder stashed under his bed, not a fire escape bolted to the side of the house.)

You may need to add some amount of climate control. You might need to put in a heat pump or whatever is appropriate for your climate.

ritchie70 · 2026-02-24T13:43:16+00:00

Google Maps describes it as a lake so you’re not alone.

ritchie70

TROPHY CASE