c/albuquerque-diy-renovations

That guy at Sunport Lumber saved my tile job with one sentence

I was ready to rip out $400 of uneven backsplash tile last Saturday when a worker there told me to try a $15 rubber mallet and a level instead of just scraping. He said most adhesive issues come from not tapping tiles flat within 10 minutes, and he was right, all it took was 30 extra seconds per row. Anyone else had a store employee talk them out of a full redo?

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charles508•6h ago

Peeling paint after 3 weeks, did I skip a step or is the primer at fault?

Painted my garage door frame in the North Valley last month and it's already peeling in big flakes. I used a bonding primer from Kelly-Moore, then two coats of latex, but it sat through that heavy rain on the 12th. Some say I needed to sand the old oil-based paint first, others swear the primer is garbage. Have any of you had this happen with older stucco houses around here, and what did you do to fix it?

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rileyw72•5d ago

I finally stopped hating on the $12 paint sprayer from Harbor Freight

I was convinced those things just spit clumps and make a mess, but after using one on my 6 foot fence in the North Valley last weekend, it actually laid down a smooth coat. The trick was thinning the paint way more than the label says, like 15% water. Has anyone else gotten one of these to work without cursing the whole time?

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jasons63•5d ago

Lifted a trick from the hardware store guy about mixing mud

Was grabbing some compound at the big box store off Coors and this older employee told me to add a splash of water and let the bucket sit for 10 minutes before mixing. Tried it on my kitchen ceiling patch and the texture came out way smoother, no more clumps. Also he said to use a drill with a paint mixer attachment instead of the hand tool, which I always skipped. Has anyone else tried letting the mud hydrate like that, or is there a better trick for smaller batches?

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grayjohnson•8d ago

The plumber who called my drywall patch 'cute' at the supply house

Last month I was grabbing some 2x4s at Builders Warehouse off I-25 when a guy in a dirty work shirt looked at my hands and asked what I'd been up to. I told him I just finished patching a 4 foot hole in my hallway after a pipe burst, and he laughed, said 'cute,' then showed me a photo of his own patch job that looked like a smooth glass table. He spent ten minutes explaining how he uses a hot mud base coat and then a thin setting compound layer, not the premixed stuff I'd been using. I'd never thought about how the drying time changes the way it sands, so I tried his trick on the bathroom ceiling that had been bugging me for months. It came out way flatter than my usual effort, though the whole bathroom smelled like sulfur for two days. Has anyone else had a random stranger at the hardware store drop some knowledge that actually beat what you'd find on YouTube tutorials?

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gray_perez52•10d ago

A contractor told me my stucco patch looked like bubblegum, so I changed my mix

Back in 2019 I was patching a wall off Central Ave and this old timer walked by, said my batch had too much sand and it looked like pink bubblegum. I switched to a 3 to 1 mix with a drop of dish soap for workability, and the texture finally blended in with the original. Has anyone else gotten a random sidewalk critique that actually stuck with them?

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tylerlane•12d ago

PVC glue failed on my main drain line, sewage in the crawlspace

Two weeks ago in my 1962 Nob Hill bungalow, the main drain backed up. Plumber pulled the cleanout cap and found the old PVC joint had never been primed. Just glue over dirty pipe. He said it was a ticking bomb from whoever did it. Cost me $780 to dig out and redo. Anyone else find lazy pipe work in an older ABQ house?

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gonzalez.rowan•12d ago

My $29 laser level from Harbor Freight now runs my whole kitchen reno

I used to hang cabinets with a bubble level and a prayer. Took me all weekend, ended up with a 1/4 inch slope on one run. Then my buddy in Rio Rancho lent me his green laser for a day and I swear I redid 3 years of bad habits in 6 hours. I bought my own cheap one from the Harbor Freight off Coors Blvd and now I use it for everything, even putting up towel bars. You ever calibrate yours after dropping it on concrete twice?

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dakotal16•14d ago

Caught the wrong wall before paint and saved $220

I was about to knock out a non-load-bearing wall in my 1973 house off Central Ave, but something felt off so I checked the attic first. Turns out it was holding up part of the roof truss, and the extra beam I'd need to fix it would've cost more than the whole project. Has anyone else found surprises up there that changed their whole plan?

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mary_schmidt•15d ago

Leveler lied to me and my laundry room floor fought back

I spent 5 days last month retiling my laundry room in Nob Hill and it was a complete disaster because I skimped on self leveling compound. The bag said it flows out flat but I got lazy and didn't use a gauge rake, ended up with a low corner that made the last row of tile pop up like a seesaw. My neighbor who does concrete work came by and just pointed at the bubble and said 'you know you can't fix that with more thinset, right?' So I had to tear out 80 square feet and start over, wasted about $200 in materials and a whole weekend. By the time I finished the second pass it was flat enough but my back was shot for a week. Anyone else get burned by trusting those leveler claims or is it just me? What do you use to check floors before tile goes down?

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ray_carr•16d ago

Rent that tile saw, do not buy the cheap one from the Depot on Coors

I spent 130 dollars on a $179 tile saw that wobbled so bad my cuts looked like a toddler drew them with a crayon. It took me three evenings to redo the backsplash in my kitchen off Juan Tabo, plus two trips to return the cracked tiles. Save yourself the grief and rent the wet saw from the rental counter on Menaul for 60 bucks a day. Has anyone else had luck with those smaller handheld wet saws for tight corners?

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thomas_roberts•17d ago

Cracked a load bearing wall stud with a nailgun, fix took all weekend

So I'm redoing the hallway in my 1978 house off Central and I'm framing a new closet. I fired a 3 inch nail into a stud and heard that sickening crack, split the whole thing top to bottom. Turned out the wood was dryer than a popcorn fart and there was a knot right where I hit. I had to sister on a new 2x4 alongside it, which meant cutting out drywall on both sides and running to HD twice for longer bolts. Took me about 6 hours each day and I still have to mud the patches this week. Anyone else had a stud split on them and just swore under their breath for an hour?

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emmam32•18d ago

Hit 500 square feet of tile work this weekend, way faster than I expected

I laid out 500 sq ft of porcelain tile on a rental flip in the North Valley and finished in 2 days, not the 4 I budgeted for. The key was using a 1/2 inch trowel on this old slab instead of messing with self-leveler. Has anyone else found that bigger notches speed things up on uneven adobe floors?

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river_rivera45•18d ago

Sandbag trick for leveling uneven tile on old adobe floors

I was tiling my laundry room off San Mateo and the floor had that classic 1/2 inch hump from the old adobe settling. Leveling compound was going to cost me around 90 bucks and a full day of waiting. So I tried something random, I mixed my thinset a bit stiffer and used a few 50 pound sandbags I had left over from a retaining wall project to hold the tiles down while they cured. The sandbags pressed the edges down perfectly flush with the surrounding tiles, and I did not have to shim anything. Two weeks later, no lippage, no hollow sounds when I tap them. The lesson is that sometimes gravity and weight beat fancy tools, especially on uneven mud floors. Has anyone else used sandbags or similar heavy things instead of leveling compound in this town?

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lindareed•18d ago

My old technique for stripping texture was wasting hours until a rental house job

I used to wet down popcorn ceilings with a pump sprayer and scrape with a 10 inch blade, took me like 3 days for a 1200 sq ft place. Last month on a rental in Nob Hill, I switched to a drywall texture remover solution and a 14 inch floor scraper, cut it down to one afternoon per room. The trick was soaking sections twice and letting it sit 15 minutes, plus the bigger blade saved my shoulders. Anybody got a faster method for heavy acoustic texture without renting a sander?

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the_sarah•20d ago

Plaster patch turned into a two day project in the North Valley

I was fixing a crack by the kitchen window last Saturday, thought it was a quick skim coat job. Turns out the old plaster was loose behind the crack and the whole corner crumbled when I touched it. Anyone else deal with that older adobe-style plaster that just keeps flaking off no matter how much bonding agent you use?

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william407•23d ago

My neighbor's 30 year old level was dead on, my new one was off by a quarter inch

He told me to trust the old beat-up Starrett over my digital one last week, and after cracking a tile on the guest bath floor, I checked both and he was right, has anyone else had a brand new tool read wrong?

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rayc89•25d ago

Rant: The tile layout at the Big Lots on Menaul is driving me nuts

Stopped by the Big Lots off Menaul last week to grab some shelving paint and noticed the floor tile in the entryway. Every third row is off by a half inch, like someone just gave up on the chalk line halfway through. I get that it's a discount store, but this is the kind of thing that makes me double check my own work when I lay tile at home. Has anyone else bought a house here from a flip where the previous owner did the same sloppy spacing? How do you even fix that without tearing everything out?

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veraw47•27d ago

My 8-year-old kitchen cabinets look new after one weekend of sanding

I finally got sick of the bubbled veneer on my upper cabinets near the stove. Last Saturday I pulled all the doors off, used my orbital sander with 80-grit then 120-grit, and wiped everything down with TSP. The heat from cooking had turned the cheap factory glue to mush, so the veneer was peeling in big sheets. Two coats of primer and a satin enamel later, the whole kitchen reads brighter. Has anyone else fixed bubbled veneer on particleboard, or did you just replace the doors outright?

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park.tara•27d ago

That $40 floor scraper I ignored for years finally earned its spot

I used to think floor scrapers were a gimmick, figured my $15 putty knife was fine for pulling up old vinyl in my kitchen near Nob Hill. Last month I rented a buffer for the living room and the adhesive had this weird crusty layer, my arms ached for days. Out of desperation I grabbed a cheap scraper from the hardware store and wow, it cut through in maybe 20 minutes what took me 3 hours before. Kind of beat myself up thinking about all the back-breaking afternoons I wasted on past jobs over the last 5 years. Anyone else had a tool they swore was unnecessary until it saved a whole weekend project?

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quinnj24•1mo ago

The grey water pipe I found in a wall off Central

I was demoing a closet in a 1950s house near Nob Hill last weekend and found an old washer drain pipe that ran straight into a flower bed through the foundation. The thing was still hooked up and dripping, so the soil underneath had this weird swampy smell and a bunch of mystery green slime. Has anyone else run into abandoned plumbing like this, and did you just cap it or dig it out?

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lucas_grant83•1mo ago

A chat with my neighbor about adobe brick repair made me rethink my whole approach

I was out front last Saturday patching a crack in my 1950s adobe wall on Mountain Rd, and my neighbor Rosa came over. She's lived here for 40 years and said I was using the wrong mud mix, too much cement. She told me the old timers use mostly sand and clay with just a pinch of cement, and they let it cure slow under wet burlap for a week. I always thought modern mixes were better, but her walls have zero cracks after all those monsoons. Now I'm wondering if I've been over-engineering every repair on my 3-bedroom place. Has anyone else switched to traditional methods and seen better results long term?

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rowanw31•1mo ago

Why does nobody talk about the dust from abq stucco work

Last month I tried to skim coat the exterior patch on my adobe wall and the dust got everywhere, my neighbor's car looked like a ghost. I spent 3 days cleaning the garage and my lungs still feel weird. Everyone on here talks about the look of the finish but nobody warns you about the mess. Am I the only one who tarped everything twice and still found dust in the kitchen sink?

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the_shane•1mo ago

Appreciation post: the $12 harbor freight shop vac that outlived my $400 dust collector

Last month I finally retired that little blue wet/dry vac I bought back in 2019 from the Wyoming Blvd store, it survived two bathroom remodels and a full kitchen gut. Meanwhile my fancy dust collector with the cyclone separator died after 2 years, the motor bearings went out. Anybody else find the cheap stuff just keeps chugging while the expensive gear gives up first?

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ray_carr•1mo ago

Stripped out a wall anchor 10 minutes before concrete set

Was mounting a big shelf in my Nob Hill adobe and the tapcon grabbed wrong, spun clean out of the mud. I shoved a wooden shim in the hole and drove it home, shelf is still up 4 months later but I'm wondering if anyone else has a better fix for those crumbly plaster walls.

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