Remodeling Professionals MUST Be Resourceful!

Remodeling is very much like performing surgery on a house.  You can’t just tear into it and hope for the best.  Often times you’re trying to match materials that may or may not be available.  Sometimes you have to get creative to tie the elements together.  Sometimes you just get lucky.  Either way, as a Remodeling Professional, you have to be resourceful and you have to put forth the effort to find the matching components whenever necessary.  This resourcefulness doesn’t take decades to develop, but it does take effort. 

 



As you can see in the photo above, the family dog took issue with this beautiful wood casement window.  We could replace the entire unit (very expensive) or attempt to repair the existing window (with no guarantee we could find the matching trim).  So we set out to find the matching trim in order to make the necessary repairs.

Photos of the existing trim were e-mailed to our various suppliers.  None were positive they had a match, so the next step was to visit a few showrooms.  An older window sample in a Kolbe showroom yielded a match.  However, they no longer made that profile.  Luckily there is a Kolbe warehouse in Dallas which gave us some hope.  In the back, hidden behind the newer style trim, was the match we were looking for!  Comparing it to the new 1x4 wood (bottom right photo), you can really see the old trim had been sitting (yellowed) for quite some time.




 

Just Like New Without The Added Expense! 

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.

 

 

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

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.

 

 

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. 

New Yard Signs have arrived!