2018 has been a busy year and we have taken on a huge array of jobs and projects. Following are some of the more interesting jobs we have tackled.

Garden Bench Restoration

A client located in Haberfield, inner west Sydney asked us to to a ‘makeover’ on an old garden bench. The bench looked to be at least 30 years old and was constructed from wrought iron and ‘dressed’ with hardwood slats that were just about rotted through. Some people would probably have thrown the bench out in the inner west council clean up day however the client was very attached to the bench, having owned it for over 25 years themselves. To restore the bench we first unscrewed the dilapidated timber slats attached to the seat and back rest of the bench. We then set about removing any rust from the frame with a wire brush attachment fixed to our Makita drill. This made the job of bringing the metal frame back to life relatively quick and easy. Next, we used a quality metal primer to thoroughly prime the entire metal structure, and left it to dry for 4 hours. We then applied, over a period of 3 hours, 2 coats of a high gloss metal paint in Brunswick green colour – very fetching! We were able to source some replacement hardwood slats from a nearby timber yard at Lilyfield and cut them to size with our trusty drop saw. We used some Watyl solarguard paint that the customer had on hand (in the same green colour) to apply 2 coats to the slats. Once dry we attached them back onto the bench frame with new stainless steel self tapping screws – stainless steel or galvanised fasteners are essetial for any jobs exposed to the elements.

Fixing Internal Doors That Refuse To Close!

Many homes in Sydney’s inner west are well over 100 years old. Brick homes built on clay soil can tend to experience cracking of the walls over time and as the house and foundations ‘move’ slightly, this can sometimes result in  internal doors not closing correctly. This is a very common call out job for a handyman! We had such a job at Summer Hill a few weeks ago. The client lived in a lovely Federation period home. They had 3 internal doors that would simply not close properly. These doors were very solidly built, as is generally the case in older homes. It is very hard to rectify this issue without removing the doors, which we did. The screws attaching the hinges to the doors were very stubborn and took a lot of effort to remove them. Once removed, we took the doors outside, set them up on a couple of portable saw horses that we carry, and then used out electric planer to remove about 4 mm from the top of the door, where the ‘sticking; was occurring. We used new screws to reattach the door to the hinges, which we oiled at the same time! Job done. The door now closed nicely.

Hanging Small Pictures In A Pattern On A Wall

The last project we will discuss in this update was a job a client in Balmain asked us to do recently. She had 5 smallish framed prints (approximately 20 cm by 10 cm) that she wanted arranged in a very particular ‘pattern’ on her lounge room wall. This is quite a common request when it comes to picture hanging and requires attention to detail to get it ‘just right’.

We market out the positions on the wall where our client wanted each print. We then had to take into account the picture fixings – in this case small hooks screwed to the centre of the back of each print. This ‘offset’ distance then needs to be factored into where we needed to drill (in this instance, into a gyprock wall), to attached the picture hook. In handyman work, what can seem like a simple task can actually very often require a lot of thought to get the job done properly.

We used used drywall anchors to screw the picture hooks into and then hung the prints in exactly the manner the customer requested – another successful handyman job completed!