"New" garage organization technique

 First, I didn't reorganize the garage because the stocks kept rising. I hope they stop so I can cash in to get brush nickel finish steel cabinets all around the garage walls.

Then I hope the stocks rise again so I have the money to reorganize the garage properly.

Next I am not sure if I still want the house so it was fruitless to revamp the garage.

Finally, I learned to work with what I have, including the wooden shelves and on-wall planks that the previous owner or his tenants built many years ago. I also have many things brought over the years but never put them on, including two pegboards.

I never use the pegboards much. Say if I took five tools out for the weekend, I wouldn't have remembered where and how to put them back in the same place. I know the usual technique is to draw an outline of the tool on the pegboard but that's too inflexible. I fix sprinklers, do oil change and customize curtains. I need to be able to organize as I go along.

My garage is in a mess because without a plan, I am afraid if I put something out of sight, I would not be able to recall where it is.

In the end, I think I nailed it with the help of computers. Computerization is one big possible solution since the 60's, but the difference is, nowadays it's so easy to take pictures. You have the phone all the time and it's linked to the cloud. The cheapest smart phone will give you enough resolution for documents without scanning, just what spies do.

It's not just building a database. It's like unifying the paradigms, virtually and in real life.

So my pegboard isn't just pegboard, but pegboard with icons! I bet nobody posted those pictures yet. Each icon has a pinched hole for hanging on the pegs. No glue and totally flexible.

For power tools, they are on a horizontal "pegboard". I borrowed the idea elsewhere that is like a long box with partitions. Since I have wall shelves, I immediately got the top and bottom of the box without doing anything. I don't need no partition as they are just for the cords.

I was thinking of many ways to fix the tools in position. Metal brackets are too expensive at over $2 a piece. Can use PVC but I need one PVC plug and coupling for each vertical fat peg. I don't do woodwork since I do not have the space to put up with a table saw. Then it dawned on me that I can simply use long nails! In the picture you can see 4 nails for each tool driving into the wooden shelf board at an angle. The icons have punch holes that hangs on the nails.

It is surprisingly flexible. If I want to change position, I can just pull out the nails. Come to think of it, why we need pegboards in the 1st place? Can we use nails instead of pegs?

The problem with professionals writing DIY articles

Looking professional

The article looks good, professional, and the article is written by a different professional writers too. As a result, mostly likely it doesn't accept comments. Any comments would make the article seems unworkable, too difficult for DIYers. So here I am writing this to response to all those who don't accept comments.

Instead of taking time to explain to inexperienced DIYers that have a job to do, these articles have to look professional with a fluent flow of words. Who cares? Under the disguise of plain everyday English, these are concise well written instructions suitable for technical journals and trade magazines. Who cares when I just brought a few dollars of screws and want the job done yesterday?

Too often, the final writer doesn't understand a word what the professional is saying, and sacrifice the content to give the article a professional look - that's how they make money. This is true about all the instruction manuals in the world. The Europeans got rid of words in manuals. The Chinese use their kids to write something that no one will understand anyway, since you ask for it.

Jargons

How many knows what is a door jamb? Do I have to look at the dictionary or Wikipedia or Google every time I came across a term? I know you have a term for everything. But that comes with experience. Since I don't have the money to hire you, can I skip the experience? Is the word jamb necessary? Do I have to learn every part of the door to fix it?

Unnecessary jargons should be avoided. Also a standalone diagram will be great. Some articles seem to be written on the dawn of the internet. They try to save bandwidth by not having diagrams to explain simple things. A pic worth a thousand words. And they may point you to some encyclopedia for the diagrams that's good if you want to get into the trade. I don't.

Two-dimensional thinking

Come on, it's a three-dimensional world. You may have a preferred plane of reference in your trade. But to us mere mortals the world is 3D. What is the center? Of what?

Thinking inside a box

All articles of fixing a sagging door seems to come from the same source. It recommends replacing short screws with 3" ones. It's impossible to screw it in without a pilot hole, I tried. But then you can't find a 3" drill for screws that size. Not in the chain hardware stores. What a waste of time!

That's all for now ...

Homemade carpet cleaner so good that it remove stains

I have a so called carpet steam cleaner.  It's too big too heavy and too troublesome to use.  And it's not that good.

People put baking soda on their carpets to clean.  People put vinegar solution on their carpets.  Some people put both.  The question is how good it is and how practical than carpet shampoo and steam cleaners.

After hand wash using microfiber cloth only, it's as good as oxiclean!  And I tried at the heavy traffic area that looks almost black.  Originally it's beige. We use to use oxiclean solution to remove stains.  The problem is that it will create a light spot on the old carpet.  After the baking soda and vinegar treatment, it's the same color as the oxiclean treated spot.

Now the practical process.  Sprinkle baking soda all over the carpet.  Work the power evenly with a brush, or use the electric brush of a steamer.  Spray the carpet slightly wet with a solution of 1 part warm water and 1/4 part distilled vinegar.  Then use a brush to clean like a shampoo, or use the electric brush.  Work more on the stains.  Wipe away wetness and lift the dirt with a microfiber cloth.  I don't even have a brush so I did everything with a microfiber cloth.  It doesn't look much when finished.  But when it's completely dry after a while, it will look the same as treated by oxiclean.

I don't know what's the long term effect on the carpet.  And you should try in a small area first.  But our carpet is almost black and worn out at the high traffic area.

Baking soda is mildly alkaline and itself a good cleaner for grease and water stains on the bathroom.  If you leave it on the carpet it will absorb odour.  It is also an abrasive power but it's too fine and soluble to damage any surface.

Vinegar is mildly acidic, and a good cleaner to dissolve grease and water stain.  You should dilute it because of the smell, and the cost if you buy it from the supermarket.

When they react, carbonic acid is first formed with heat giving out.  I would think that provide extra cleaning effect.  The carbonic acid should be stronger than vinegar and highly reactive.  The carbonic acid will then disintegrate into water and carbon dioxide.  What left is sodium acetate, a salt that is also used to replace salt and vinegar in fish and chips.  A salt is like common salt, which is transparent but white when in power form.  It will not turn into anything or change colour.

I use a microfiber cloth to lift the dirt because in repeated use, the microfiber cloth is less dirty than say cotton.  If the cloth is not too dirty I rinse it once in water.  Once a while I put it in the washing machine.

Update: It is always a mystery of using both baking soda and acid. Actually the reaction absorbs heat. When you combine both you neutralize each other. But many people swear they saw better results and so do I. Now my thinking is that the extra cleaning effect is not chemical, but physical. It's like you rub acid into hard to reach areas of the surface. And the fine baking soda powder do the rubbing.

Awesome green paving and patching material

My lime sand mixture is going places, more awesome than I thought. So awesome that I think that's why you cannot buy hydrated lime in hardware stores, anything but.

In building supplies you can get 50 lb for less than $15. If you keep it dry and from air in a plastic trash bag, it will last forever. Sand is free. Now I have the habit of bring back from vacation a cup or two of sand, and immortalize them in my pavement or part of the house. Any cheap sand in hardware stores will do. Lime will dominate the color - brilliant white.

The new dry paving technique for gap filling. You just mix dry sand and hydrated lime (white power) together, and pour the mixture onto the gaps. Then you use a push boom, or small brush, to put the mixture neatly into the gaps only, and take away excess mixture. Then you spray water on the mixture with a spray bottle for example, enough to keep the mixture from blowing away by the wind, and not to much to avoid rinsing away the mixture. The next day you can pour water on it gently to finish the re-hydration process and start the recarbonate process.

The bad. There will be a brilliant white haze on the paving slabs. It will blind your eyes like snow if you live in sunny areas. I don't know how long will the haze be worn down by walking and the elements - basically it's lime stone if left for long. May be months or years. Certainly acid can cleanup the haze with little damage to the gaps. There is the biodegradable CLR. I have no idea how effective it will be. The white haze is a small price to pay.

The gaps will be brilliant white. Is it a good or bad thing compare to gray?

The mixture will take a long time to dry and harden. It doesn't matter for paving. You can walk right after as long as your slabs or stones are securely fixed. Light rain doesn't matter. It will probably heavy rain proof after a few hours. My gaps hasn't been hardened yet. Using the wet technique with water added into a paste, the mixture will harden like any other mortar, after days or weeks.

The good. This method is lighting fast. The mortar is permeable - the green way to go. For me that's a way to drain water away without having a level and flat pavement.

You can fill pretty large gaps economically and easily, as long as the lime mortar don't carry stress. It can be hard as limestone, but it takes a long time.

It's natural. Lime is from limestone, and will return to the limestone state gradually if left on it's own. It's non-toxic (but strong alkaline). It's safe for the environment, because it was the environment. I wash the tools confidently in the bathroom sink. There's the cancerous label but I think that's for breathing the dust in long term. Wear a mask and only mix it outdoors.

What is the lime and sand proportion? I have used pure lime. It shrinks and crack a lot when dry. It doesn't matter because no strength is required. The wet mixture in previous post is a guide. Basically, imagine the lime powder glue the sand particles together. So you just put enough lime in the mixture, but not too much.

You can use it on tiles, but they have to be horizontal.

Now for patching work. It has to be the wet mixture unless your holes and gaps are horizontal. Basically you mix lime with water into a thick paste without falling off walls. Then you add sand without too heavy on the mixture. The surface will be sand rough and permeable.

I have used the mortar for outdoor patching, to fill the cracks from ants entering. If not for the ants I'll leave it as it is anyway. So permeability is not a problem. If you have a base that is non-permeable, it doesn't matter. And you can always paint it with a non-permeable paint. You can always add some Portland cement to make it like concrete, but that's a complication. And you are better off buying ready mixed patches.

Perfect imperfection: Lime Sand permeable paving mortar

There's no permeable paving for residential use. Those permeable concrete and asphalt are ugly and hard to install. Usual permeable paving for the home are stone (or similar material) slabs, relying on the gaps between stones to drain water.

Why you want permeable paving? The big issue is to prevent urban runoff, with the rain and storm carrying dirt into the ocean. Soil around your home absorbs the excess water, and then release it up on sunny days.

But for the home owner, leveling a pavement is the big issue. That's impossible if you pave an old path or area with things there at different levels over the years. I tried to lay the stone directly on grass and let the grass die and let the stones sink a bit into the soil at different degrees. If your pavement or patio is not perfectly level (with a few degrees off to drain water), water puddles can form every time after rain or washing.

For home paving, you make a level bed of rocks and sand, then add the top layer of stones, brick or other slabs. Finally you fill the gaps with something.

I'm using like thin tiles of stone modules hold in place in a plastic grid. The untended side effect is that it can go up and down to fit my irregular base. With some modifications it would be a pleasure to install. Though you still need a good base. Sadly, the current design is unpopular because of a few flaws. I managed to get it cents for dollars.

Permeable gap fillers are aggregates of stone fragments or sand. If you don't fill it it will be filled with soil or dirt. The problem is that you can't brush it, you can't hose it. And if you don't fill it, insects such as ants like it very much.

Other ways to fill the gaps are more like mortars. The popular way is to use polymeric sand, easy to apply and some retains it's soft sealing property. But they are not permeable. I found about two permeable types on the web, but only available in Europe or commercially.

Modern mortars are impermeable, they will make sure of it to prevent water seeping into the whatever base.

My perfect permeable mortar is lime and sand mix, which is actually used for old buildings. Here it is:

1 cup water
2 cup Type S hydrated lime (~$14 / 50 lb)
2 cup washed plaster sand (~$3 / 50 lb)

Type S hydrated lime is the most common lime you can get from building material suppliers, except for the home improvement hardware stores because they don't think people will mix their own mortar. Any hydrated lime will do but you ,may have to vary the ratios. Standard lime allows the builders to mix consistence mortars.

Any sand will do but beware that if they are not properly graded (filtered), any large particle will block your grout bad tip, and you have no easy to unblock it but to empty your whole bag. Sea salt will affect the long term chemical reaction of lime reverting to lime stone, but you probably don't really need that. Play sand is probably OK - washed and safe to play on. Paving sand will not be OK because my grout bag was blocked.

The exact ratio is not critical. The above amount will give you mortar for some 10 sq ft of 5 mm shallow gaps. Add 1 cup of water to 2 cup of lime will give you a soft paste that will not drip. Without sand the lime will be very soft. More sand the finish will be rougher, may be stronger and may be more permeable.

Features

The mix is brilliant white. The color of sand is immaterial unless you have a very high proportion of it.

The lime sand mix is soft. You can crack it with your finger nails. But you can brush it or hose it without anything noticeable falling off. That's a big advantage over any aggregates. Even if you brush a little lime (and a little sand) off the surface, it just lime stone and sand, perfectly environment friendly.

The lime sand mortar is strong enough to glue lose stone or fragments into position.

I cannot guarantee that the mortar is permeable. But for me it's highly permeable. The mortar do not have strong adhesive properties attached to the stone, and pure lime shrinks a lot when dry leaving a lot of tiny cracks. As a result I tend to create a lot of tiny cracks during the filling process. They look beautiful with my natural stones anyway. If you use pure lime with little sand, the minute cracks due to shrinking when dry will certain be highly permeable. The other extreme is to use very little lime so basically it's all sand so it must be permeable.

Procedure

You have to use a grout bag, like apply cream to a cake. Lime will stain everything brilliant translucent white. Lime is soft and the stain will eventually fall off but fine dust takes time.

For 5mm gaps or larger, the tip of the bag should go inside the gap and you should fill the gap without the mortar overflowing out of the gap.

Then use a pointing knife to "point" the mortar. It's basically a sharp object to smooth out the mortar. If no mortar overflow outside the gap, you are done. Or you have to remove the excess mortar with a putty knife, which is like a pizza server, or anything with a thin strong edge. Excess mortar will stain the edge with a white haze. It doesn't look bad and it will wear off with time.

You should let the pavement from sun and rain for a couple of hours or days. The proper way is to keep it moist under a wet blanket. I don't do any of these, which defeats the purpose of easiness. The mixture dries out in a few hours at most, and good enough to brush and rinse the next day for certain. The carbonate process is a long term process.

Unused mortar dries very slowly with a lid on. You can do a little bit everyday or every weekend. The tools are easily washed clean with water. There's no environment impact because it's lime stone and sand. I pour the used water into other parts of the permeable pavement.

Hydrated lime is very alkaline before turning back into lime stone with carbon dioxide in the air. The lime is fine as dust. Maybe for this reason the package says there are cancer causing agents. I doubt if they have to add any chemical to lime.