In the course of remodeling, you might have to “furr out” (or build/shim out) a wall to make it match the plane of another wall.
Typically this is done when a new wall needs to match up to old plaster and lathe or something similar.
Everybody will happily tell you that you can just use strips of sheetrock to do this build-out.
…except the cabinet man. … finish The Right Way to “Furr Out” a Wall
How do you handle this situation:
You tell the kitchen designer what you want and s/he gives you a bid. The price is great! You do your best to check over everything on the bid, but you’re not familiar with all the terminology and how to interpret the drawings, so you end up assuming the best and writing the down payment check.
Then you get that sick feeling in your stomach when … finish Bid Errors Found After Making Kitchen/Job Down Payment
Friday I started a kitchen installation in an industrial building that was being turned into a residence. Very cool. I’ll try to put up a case study video of the project before long.
Anyway, the mastermind of the project showed up mid-morning. He was in his 60’s and had the bearing of someone who had been around construction for many years. … finish Motivating Tradesmen
If you’re having prefinished flooring put down this summer or fall, this is for you. … finish Be Proactive about Prefinished Flooring Defects
I just had an interesting conversation with an old client. He is now retired but was formerly the VP for sales at Jenn-Air.
He called to ask about me doing some custom cabinetry relative to a new wine rack/cooler or something, but he happened to mention that all of his appliances were black because…
“We (Jenn-Air) did extensive testing and research on the fingerprint problem with Stainless Steel. We never could find a workable solution.”
Okay, so it’s been a month since your project was complete.
They finished the checklist, and you cut them the last check. The General Contractor (GC) drove away and you breathed a big sigh of relief and exhaustion.
But about two weeks later you noticed a problem.
Joist - the large beams that give the strength to your floor system.
Scourge - A source of widespread dreadful affliction and devastation such as that caused by pestilence or war.
Okay, okay, that’s probably an overstatement, but it makes the point:
Never, never skimp on joist sizes to try to save money. In fact, I strongly urge you to go up to the next larger size from what is recommended.
My story for today is really heartbreaking.
Today I was installing a kitchen in a lovely new custom home across town.
At some point I became aware of cigarette smoke coming from the painters. Sure enough, some of them were smoking.
Now, I don’t know the homeowners very well, but I feel that I know them well enough to know that they don’t smoke. Yet I noticed that, when they visited the house today to check on progress, they didn’t say anything about the smoking. Why not? Isn’t it a well-established fact that smoke lingers in the porous materials of a house, meaning that the house will have a hint of smoke residual from the month-or-two of construction crew smoking? … finish “Workers are Smoking on the Site of my Remodel or New Home. What do I do?”
If you’ve ever used a steel beam in a remodeling project, then you may consider yourself an advanced practitioner of the trade.
Probably most homeowners aren’t aware that steel can be the best choice for a support beam in a remodel project, especially in this age of impressive LVL joists.
But steel beams can make things possible which otherwise could not have been. This is because the density of steel is somewhere around 20x that of wood, and its strength per weight greatly exceeds wood.
Probably the most common situation where steel is used would be when a load-bearing wall must be removed, yet the support must be provided by a member that is very shallow. This is a very typical situation with old houses whose joists may be a true 2×6 or even 3×6, so we only have 6 inches of height to provide support to the ends of many joists. In this case, only steel provides a solution which satisfies the structural and aesthetic requirements.
Here’s the view with the studs and joists exposed from the lower floor:
Want to have real hardwood floors, yet avoid the high cost? You may want to consider using a prefinished, plywood-core hardwood. As always, you need to reckon with the drawbacks, but in this case there is actually a benefit of going the cheap route.
