Dadvice Weekly #38 / Spring Projects
Dadvice Weekly - #38
This past week I definitely felt the shift into spring. The snow (mostly) stopped threatening, the sun stuck around past 7pm, things are waking up. And now I’m finding a ton of stuff around the home and yard that needs attention. The fence needs paint. The lawn looks like it gave up (definitely following Skyler’s advice last week for that). The garage accumulated a winter’s worth of “I’ll deal with that later.”
When it comes to home projects, I find that jumping in without a plan tends to make things harder. When there’s no order to things, you end up spending more energy figuring out what to tackle next than actually making progress. I’ve been there enough times to know the pattern. Having no plan makes me busy, but little gets done.
So now I map it out before I touch anything. Just a calendar and some honest thinking about what’s realistic.
Here’s how I approach it:
Write everything down first. Get everything out of your head and onto paper. Fence, lawn, gutters, garage, shed, etc. Don’t filter, just list.
Sort by what needs to happen before something else can. What on your to-do is dependent on something else? You can’t reseed the lawn before raking out the dead growth. You can’t paint the fence if it rained two days ago. Some projects have a natural order, and working against that order just costs you weekends.
Estimate your time, then give yourself a buffer. I consistently underestimate how long things take. If that sounds familiar, try doubling your estimates and see what happens. It’s a small adjustment that makes a real difference in how the weekends actually go.
Put it on the calendar like it’s a real commitment. A list of projects is just a list until you attach a date to each one. “Paint fence: last weekend of April” is a plan. “Paint fence: sometime this spring” tends to become next spring.
The goal is just to avoid standing in the garage on a Saturday morning wondering where to start. A little structure up front makes the actual work feel a lot more manageable. What’s your method to planning and tackling home projects? –KC
Amazon AI for Price Alerts
Amazon has a built-in AI assistant called Rufus, and it has a great price tracking feature. If you need something but don’t need it right now, you can ask Rufus for the price history on an item and then set an alert for when it drops to your target. It’ll notify you when you hit it — and if you want, you can even tell it to just buy the thing automatically at the trigger price. I’m using it right now to track oil filters. I committed to doing my own oil change for the first time (3,000 miles away, so no rush), and I’d rather not pay full price for something I have months to wait on. Set it, forget it, save a few bucks. –KC
Harbor Freight Sales
Harbor Freight can sometimes have a bad rap for quality, and honestly, there’s truth there. But I’ve come around on them for a specific reason: if you need something niche for a one-off project, they almost always have it at a reasonable price. I wandered in recently looking for vehicle ramps and happened to catch their Spring Black Friday sale and picked up a set for $40 that usually costs $60. The sales are frequent and good. They run tent sales roughly once a quarter, and sales for bigger holiday events like Memorial Day and Black Friday. If you’re doing spring projects and need a tool you’ll use twice in your life, it’s worth checking their sale calendar before you buy anywhere else. In Colorado Springs, at least. –KC
Pre-Germinate Grass Seed
It’s funny how the last few issues I’ve been talking about grass in some form, I promise after this week I’ll take a week or two off. But this time of year, a lot of people are thinking about planting new grass seed, aka overseeding. The last few years I’ve done this I’ve mostly learned through trial and error how to actually get grass to grow without using a ridiculous amount of water. One thing I’ve learned the hard way is that when it comes to overseeding, the seed needs to stay wet literally all the time, and if you try to take a shortcut, it just doesn’t work. One thing that’s been a game changer is pre-germinating your seed, and this video is a great walkthrough. The idea is simple, you soak the seed in something like a 5-gallon bucket for a few days to kickstart growth before it ever hits your yard, which helps it establish faster and cuts down on how much you have to water once it’s spread. I’ve done this myself, and it’s 100% worth it if you’re tackling a lawn project this spring. -SW
Just for Dad: Buy the Tool
“If you have six hours to chop down a tree, spend the first four sharpening the axe.” That quote is attributed to Abraham Lincoln and applies perfectly to home projects. When it’s time to get something done, sharpen the axe, whether that means learning the right way or having the right equipment. Watch the YouTube video, actually buy the product in the link in the description, and get yourself set up before you start. I’ve tried to cut corners too many times, and it always leads to multiple trips to Home Depot, wasted time, and unnecessary frustration. Buying the tool is inevitable. Do yourself the favor upfront, prepare properly, and the job gets a whole lot easier. -SW
Dadvice Weekly is Kyle and Skyler—two friends in their thirties, living in Colorado, settling into fatherhood and trying to stay sane. Every Tuesday we share what’s working in our homes: gear we use, routines we’ve tested, ideas we’re trying. It could be a recipe, a product that solved a problem, or just what we’re thinking about as dads.
If you have a tip, tried something we mentioned, or just want to say hi, reply to this email or message us on Substack. We read everything, and we’re always looking for what works. Glad you’re here.