Thursday, October 4, 2012

Cover & Protect Procedures

 
We are all too happy to work around the larger items that a Homeowner may not have room to relocate.  In this event we'll completely encapsulate the items with plastic to protect them from dust.  The floors will be completely covered, as usual, and the A/C vents taped off.  This makes cleanup a snap and assures the Homeowner that their belongings will be protected.
 
 

Monday, September 10, 2012

Meet The Contractor (Video)


Getting Creative To Save The Homeowner Money

This 1960’s constructed shower pan failed (as many do) causing a lot of perimeter water damage.  In particular it damaged the exterior wall sheathing.  Commonly used in that era was exterior gypsum (think drywall); when that stuff gets wet it crumbles. 

Fortunately for the Homeowner only the lower portion got wet.  So in this particular case, it wasn't very practical to remove & reinstall a full masonry brick exterior wall just to replace fewer than 20 square feet of sheathing.  So we had to get creative.

We installed treated 1x2 blocking and wedged the new treated sheathing behind it.  The new sheathing has a small finger sized hole we drilled into it.  This gave us a way to hold the sheathing in place so it could be attached to the 1x2 blocking.  We had to work in small sections, but this approach was very effective and it saved the Homeowner a lot of money.
  
Also of interest, the exterior brick wall was tied to the existing wall framing so we couldn't remove it or risk damaging the brick.  So the newly installed treated wall studs were attached to the old ones so as to transfer the load of the brick ties over onto the new wall framing.
  

SHOWER SIDE
 
BEDROOM SIDE


VIDEO

Friday, August 24, 2012

Wall Mounted Vanity Faucets

The homeowner of this guest bath has opted for wall mounted vanity faucets. These will be gorgeous, but require a lot of careful planning to layout and install. For starters, you can see the existing wall framing had to be cut out and new framing installed for the valves. The valves also needed cross blocking and must be perfectly level. You can see in the above elevation that these valves have a precise finished destination; so we measured more than twice! Check back soon for what will be great finished photos.
 


 


Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Hand Scraping Hardwoods! (Video)


This is a labor intensive process but there's nothing quite like the look of a genuine hand scraped hardwood floor. 

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

BUY. FILL. GONE.





I've been looking for the right opportunity to try Bagster on a smaller demolition project.  This is a 3-yard "bag" that serves as a dumpster.  The bag is sold at your neighborhood big box hardware store.  Once full, call them and they'll send the truck out to haul it off.  It worked great and I'm impressed by the amount of weight it handled.  This is a very user friendly service that would also be ideal for the DIY homeowner.  Just be sure and verify the service is available in your neighborhood by visiting their website below.  www.thebagster.com

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Tile incorrectly installed directly onto sheetrock!

We recently demolished this shower inside a semi-custom production home built in the 90's.  On the left side you can see where the original builder of this home decided to install tile directly onto sheetrock.  Those tiles fell off the wall during demo like butter.  Interestingly enough, on the right side, they installed the tile over green-rock which did not allow any moisture to get through to the layer of sheetrock below.  In fact, we could not even break the tiles off of the green-rock and the entire wall of tile stayed in tack.  The fact that the builder used green-rock on at least one side shows that this builder knew at least one acceptable construction method and chose to cut at least one corner.   

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Before and After

Heights Park kitchen and living renovation. This project was a lot of fun and these Clients were a joy to work with! Walls demolished = a truly open layout for some serious entertaining! More photos coming soon.