And we have complete cloud cover as is the case during any astronomical event.

She helped a lot

I’ve always done everything myself including building my own house. My wife is the same. Her father and brothers were in construction so she just assumed every man knows how to do all this stuff. Her father was staining his deck when he was 94 while in a wheelchair. My father was the same . I would go visit him and find him on a ladder or on the roof when he was in his mid 80s. I’m getting pretty old myself now, 72, but I just can’t bring myself to hire people to do work at my house. It’s not the money, it’s just something I like to do myself. My wife and I are always amused when we see people that don’t know how to do anything. My sister and her husband can’t do the simplest task. They recently hired a plumber to change the hoses on the back of their washing machine.

This would be much better than plywood which would be hard to fasten and keep flat.

Have someone hold a heavy hammer near the end for backing as you drive the pin out with a hammer and appropriate sized punch.

A deep socket with an extension and a ratchet will take off that long nut that is holding it

And you will never find it again when you need it. Possibly the day after you buy another one

Find the left side of the stud, then come from the other side and find the right side of the stud. Then mark the middle. You won’t hit wires stapled to the stud. Wires that are running through the stud in drilled holes should be deep enough that you won’t hit them, or they should have a metal plate over them for protection. The key word here is should

My first house was built in 1841. None of the studs were the same spacing. In their defense, there wasn’t any 4x8 plywood or anything like that, so they just put the studs wherever they worked out with the wood that they had.

Remove existing legs. Buy some metal hairpin legs and install them

This is the way I’ve always done it. I don’t like anything attached directly to basement walls. This way has several advantages. First of all by using 2x4 studs ( wood or metal) you have an easy way to run electrical wiring. You can use relatively inexpensive regular insulation. You can position the wall to cover pipes, ducts, or anything else ( install access panels for clean outs etc. ) No chance if mold forming.

An angle grinder is going to create a tremendous amount of dust that you definitely don’t want in your house or lungs. Grinding concrete will produce dust that can cause silicosis . If there is any black mold there, you don’t want that spread through the house. Is the paint lead based? Probably not, but it’s not a bad idea to get it tested. I would just scrape it as you are doing and spray it with a cleaner, and wipe it down. If you are going to paint it with DriLock, you don’t have to get every little piece off, just the loose stuff

What are we going to do with all the chips that we swept up off the floor at the end of the day? Bag ‘em

He needs a basin wrench

And your page was printed out on a 9 pin dot matrix printer

I’ll see your 3.5 and raise you a 5.25 floppy . A real floppy

C:\ Is all you saw when you turned it on.

Aluminum cans came out in the late 60s. They were steel before that like this one. You opened them with a “ church key” as they were called

I have a few photos of our grandkids picking our blueberries when they were 5 years old. We have big blueberries, but they don’t look anything like that in their hands

There are drain holes in the bottom outside of some sliding windows to drain water from the bottom track. Make sure they aren’t clogged with debris.

There is one at Home Depot too. I once needed 50 feet of 3/4” rope for a safety line. I told the girl working there how much I wanted and she started pulling it. I went to get something else I needed while she was doing it. When I came back, there was a huge pile of rope on the floor and she was just finishing. I said that I only needed 50 feet. She insisted that it was 50 feet and put a label on it. I took it to the cashier and checked out. When I got home I measured it. Over 300 feet. It must have been slipping when she pulled it.

The only thing worse than no railing is a railing that is not securely anchored. You must find a stud to screw it to or cut out the drywall or plaster and secure some wood backing between 2 studs.