Success: digging out and leveling the whole previously hilly and uneven front section of the house, then weed proofing and filling in with stones, trimmed with bricks and a pathway. And a little corner space for low maintenance plants like a prickly pear tree and aloe types. Also a couple of pots. I guess that’s pretty cool. I like it.

Failure: definitely the bit of roof that I waterproofed. Which then leaked anyway and wrecked the ceiling. Which was then followed with even more waterproofing and the ceiling being repaired. Which leaked again during the next heavy rain. But not enough to completely waste the ceiling this time at least though. And now the roof is like 90% waterproofing materials and the leak seems to finally be actually gone.

I redid the baseboards and doorframe in one of the rooms in my house. I call it ‘rustic’ and it looks like ass. The guys replacing the carpets a few years back had a laugh at it.

I realized my cuts were off by the sawblade lengtg and I stacked the gap into the most noticeable spot. And then I installed the vertical boards for the doorframe crooked twice before replacing one board when I realized how warped it was. Then I mismeasured the replacement noticing only after installing once the top board tilted up about 1 cm on one side.

Renovated my home, overall success but I learned the hard way that concrete is a thirsty bitch and it WILL crack if you don’t fucking drown it 24/7

One day I will redo that cracked part but it’s not really critical as it is not load bearing.

spray-painted a mouse, doesn’t look tool great (esp. on the underside) and I borked the sensor :(

building a strange little contraption where it was a hexagonal box with six separate compartments, and a button in the middle lit up an random LED to randomly choose one of the compartments. In short, my measurements weren’t good and I ended up having to use a lot of hot glue to put it together. Also, I put the LEDs in a really awkward spot on the side rather than the top, which wasn’t a great idea at all.

Success: building guitars. Disasters: Covid tanked my business… building guitars.

Got a robot vacuum that couldn’t climb over a particular threshold. Fortunately, it was made of wood and attached with a few screws, so I took it out. Now the robot is able to roam free. Well, now I can also see bare concrete where the threshold used to be, and that’s no good.

I went to the local hardware store and bought a slim aluminum threshold. Oh, it doesn’t fit. Well, I guess it’s time to try those cut-off wheels I got with my knock-off dremel. I reshaped both ends of the new threshold so that if fits perfectly. Time to screw it on.

Turns out, the screw holes don’t line up perfectly. Well, at least it’s held by 4 screws, but now there are also 2 vacant holes. It’s not perfect, but it is better than what I started with. I’ll count that as a win anyway.

I mean… I did build a large chunk of the house I live in, I’d count that as a success :3

Got a new (to me) car a few weeks ago. I’m really satisfied with the purchase, and the dealership was excellent enough to offer warranty as if the car was new instead of 6 years old. (It’s a reputable “official” Volvo dealership).

The only thing that warranty didn’t cover was the “sport key”, as the battery was inly designed to last three years. Basically it’s a contact less key that, if you keep it on you, you can open and operate the car without the much larger standard key fobs. Quite handy, as it fits perfectly in that tiny pocket inside normal pocket on standard jeans, and it’s waterproof.

I really wanted mine to work, and getting a new one programmed would cost me roughly 400 EUR. I decided to attack mine with various tools of violence tosee if I could sort it out myself.

And yep, I could. It was a standard CR2032, and after applying a new battery, some tinfoil, and a bunch of epoxy, it worked like a charm. It’s probably no longer waterproof down to 60 meters, but I don’t really need to remember car keys in the morning anymore.

Repaired our dryer extending its life by a couple of years. Major success because my wife apparently finds it sexy when I do stuff like that

Almost everything I do is a mix of both.

I’d argue the biggest failure AND success was trying to replace the brake master cylinder on my car when I was in college. I rounded the brake line fittings right off, and ended up breaking the hard metal line as well. Then, drove it to a brake shop (yes, with no brakes), so they could laugh at me, but not only did they fix it, they gave me the friend rate. Likely out of pity, but it was such a nice gesture I remember it to this day.

I learned SO much from that. Biggest was that there’s special brake line wrenches specifically for these fittings. But also a lot about how to fix the unfixable. Turns out, just because you don’t see the solution, doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t been in this exact situation before and had to figure it out. And although it doesn’t come up often (fortunately), I’ve had to replace entire metal brake lines since. Now that I know what I’m doing, it’s gone from ‘impossible’ to ‘can do’. Which I find awesome.

Diy success: building my own solar system that works over a year later.

Diy failure: upgrading a computer with new GPU as a young teenager, not understanding different graphics card sizes and case limits, getting a three fan to replace a two fan, forcing it into the case (I forget how I modified things to fit) and having the whole thing blow up a few months later.

Diy success: wiring up a cheap induction heater board when I couldn’t afford a nice one.

Diy failure: not giving a shit about proper project boxes. Also using electrical tape, heat shrink, splicing screw caps, and quick disconnects instead of soldering (I fucking hate soldering and welding hate working with molten metal liquids man). I’ll never be able to flex my project online without fellow electrical engineers rightfully calling me out on my lack of code following, could-go-wrongisms, and general poor layout.

Diy success: turning a old gaming computer into a local model engine server.

Diy failure: when I was just learning how to use a voltmeter I acidentally put the probes into the house outlet while testing amperage. It got fried.

Where I live buying another door would be cheaper than having a pro show up at all. Travel pay already would be more than a door lol.

Success: Fully renovated (roof to floor) my detached garage entirely on my own in a single summer (zone 3b climate, so that’s a 5 month window before COLD) Including a fancied up tired cracked and pitted garage floor with a hard black tar basically. Built work benches myself too from scrap found at our local dump. They don’t care if you take things here so long as you aren’t being a dick and bringing attention to it. That and pallet scrounging. Saved lots. The white paint and new lights go a long way on their own vs the water stained browning 70’s drywall and 2 naked 60w bulbs for a 2.5 sized garage.

Failure: The worst isn’t so bad. An expensive computer had a lemon motherboard and it fried a lot of out of warranty reused parts plus an impossible to find GPU. Spent hours cramming it into a stylish mini case only for it to die a week later and kill a very expensive covid GPU.

Successes: Repaired a hole in the wall, painted TV stand, simple sewing. Disasters; Simple sewing, trying to fix a leak under the sink.

It was a short lived success, and probably ill-advised - but it felt great when I took the sound board from a Game Gear that had sound but no video, and put it into a Game Gear that had video but no sound.

Of course, the real repair would be to fix the capacitors, would be a lot more involved… But I at least made it work. Felt good to tinker and get something going without directly following a guide.

But like I mentionded, it didn’t last long. A few months later one or the other went out regardless, and I eventually just bought a professionally re-capped GG on eBay.