Remodeling and Home Repairs With Peter Bales

Upgrade Your Crawlspace Door

2010-06-05T06:52:00.005-05:00

I see a lot of homes with a crawlspace door that is either completely disfunctional due to water damage, or just insecure, perhaps held closed by a brick. Sure, it's just a crawlspace, but I'd prefer a door that is secure- so no one can steal all your copper pipes (I've heard horror stories about this) and various animals won't make a home under your house.

I got to work for a few days recently at an incredible home in the old part of Lockeland Springs in East Nashville. The home had been completely remodeled.

At the back of the home was a large plywood crawlspace door that was somewhat adequate, however, the homeowners had been using the space under the house for additional storage and they wanted something more secure.

I was to build a new door.

To begin with, I wanted to use only materials that would handle water fairly well. Crawlspace doors are notorious for getting water damage, so I started with a frame made of pressure treated 2x4's.

To cover the frame I picked up a large 4 x 8 piece of James Hardie exterior sheet siding. It's similar to their popular lap siding, but it comes in these large pieces that are great for siding a shed or making a door. You can get them with a textured wood grain surface or with a smooth surface, which I used for this project.

I hung the door before adding the trim and installed the deadbolt. Once I knew where the hardware would end up, I added some 1x4 cedar boards around the perimeter to dress it up and hide the nails that hold the Hardipanel to the frame.

A door like this can be quite heavy so make sure you use larger hinges and screws so it won't sag on you later. It will get painted later, but in the meantime, a little rain won't hurt...

Easily Install a New Lamp Post

2010-05-19T05:28:00.001-05:00

Want to add some light to your yard and character as well? How about a lamp post?

Some clients of mine in Inglewood wanted me to install a lamp post that they had purchased to illuminate some stairs leading to a parking area at the side of their home. The light will help them not fall down the stairs, and look great in the daytime as well.

Installing a lamp post is actually fairly simple. The most complicated part is probably the wiring. It's much like wiring any other light fixture. If that's above your head, of course, call an electrician.

Here are the basic steps:

1. Find the perfect location for your new lamp post and dig a hole. Follow the recommended depth in the pole's instructions, but mine was around 18".

2. Put the post in the hole and fasten it to something so it will remain plumb while you do the concrete.

3. Figure out where you want the wire to go. In our case, we could go nearby into the home's basement. I dug a small ditch and buried a 14-2 waterproof wire. (It's the grey stuff). (If you're lost, call an electrician...) Think before you dig so you don't bust a water pipe or something.

4. Connect the wiring. In this case, the lamp actually has a sensor that will turn it on when it gets dark. I guess you wouldn't have to even have a switch for this. Even still, I installed a switch near the front door so the homeowners could turn it off if they wanted to.

5. With the electrical done, let's add some cement to that hole. Go get a bag or two of fast setting concrete that you can use to set posts without mixing. It's great. You just pour the bag into into the hole, then slowly pour around a gallon of water on top and let it seep into the mix. Within approximately 40 minutes, the concrete will set up and you can remove the supports.

That's about it. Expect to pay $100-150 for the post and fixture, and maybe another $25 if you don't have a post-hole-digger.. :)

-Peter

Leak? Check the Roof Vent Flanges

2010-05-18T21:15:00.003-05:00

First, I'm not a roofer.

There are many usual suspects when it comes to roof leaks. I'd say the most common that I see are either a lack of roof flashing, or a faulty vent flange as was the case for this repair.

One of my clients was noticing a water spot on the drywall above the vanity in their half bath. Stepping outside, it was easy to see that it was in the vicinity of a 4" pipe that vents the plumbing system through the roof.

Once I got up on the roof to get a closer look it was obvious that the old rubber flange had deteriorated and had large cracks that was letting water get into the house with little trouble.

Time for a new flange.

The key to this is to be careful- not only to make sure you don't fall off the roof, but to carefully loosen and lift the shingles surrounding the old roof flange so you can lift it off of the pipe, install the new one and then nail the shingles back down. The top side of the flange goes under the shingles above the pipe. I can usually do this without damaging the shingles and all is well. However, if you break a shingle, you may need to replace that as well.

I like to seal around the new flange with some good roofing cement, especially the two exposed nails at the bottom of the flange. You can see that this one fits more snugly around the pipe and will keep the water out.

-Peter

Kitchen Upgrade With Laminate Flooring

2010-05-10T05:21:00.001-05:00

While I was working at the most serene jobsite (see this post :), I was transforming a kitchen by upgrading the flooring to a new high-quality laminate.

Laminate flooring these days refers to a type of flooring that is often meant to resemble some type of wood flooring, even though it is not. It's quite thin and is actually fairly easy to install. There's much less labor involved than with real hardwood or tile, making it a lower-budget alternative.

The flooring actually 'floats' which means it's not nailed or glued down to the subfloor. This is important because the flooring is expected to expand and contract with changes in weather and humidity. For this reason, I left at least a 1/4" gap all the way around the edges to give it room for expansion. This gap is easily covered with shoe moulding.

The change in this kitchen from the old vinyl is amazing. The homeowner is going for the cute cottage look but didn't want to go to the expense of tiling the kitchen. Laminate is a great and affordable choice for quickly transforming the entire space.

This particular flooring was called "Casual Living" from Pergo. I think the homeowner bought it at Lowe's. Anyway, I wanted to report that it went in well and made great connections throughout. With any pre-finished flooring, I think that you tend to get what you pay for most of the time. Some of the less expensive brands tend to have more gaps because they don't fit together as well, at least that's been my experience.

There's a small stairway off of this kitchen that leads down to the basement stairs and the backdoor. Installing the laminate flooring on the stair required a fancy piece of trim called the stair-nosing. The trim has a notch in the back to overlap the flooring and curve around the nose of the step. This trim had to be special ordered and wasn't cheap! However, if you want it to look right, this is the way to go.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Help! The Shower is Spraying on the Walls!

2010-05-08T05:41:00.000-05:00

It's not that unusual to see an older home with a bathroom originally designed to have just a bathtub with no shower. Often, these are also right in front of a window too, making it that much more fun, right? (See this post)

This bathroom was built with just a tub, but a shower head was added later. The problem was that the upper walls were still just painted drywall. The homeowner asked me to extend the old bath surround up to the shower head with matching white tile.

Before laying the tile, I installed Schluter Kerdi over the drywall. It's a waterproofing membrane that will protect the drywall from moisture. It's the same material that is often used when tiling a shower (See this post). It also saves the mess of tearing out dryall and replacing it with cementboard in this case.

I was prepping to lay out the tile when I realized that those old tiles were not exactly the same size as my new ones. The old ones were 4 3/16" while the new tiles are 4 1/4". This is only a 1/16" difference, however, this is enough to really mess up the grout lines and change the entire layout. I called Louisville Tile to see if they still made tiles of the smaller size and they said I wouldn't be able to find them anymore. The solution- cut a 1/16" off of every tile!

Thankfully, the height of the tile was fine because I wasn't matching any old tile on the sides. I just had to cut off 1/16" from one side of each tile. I set fence on my tile saw the right dimension and set out to cut close to 200 tiles. (Not that I was counting, right?)

With that figured out, the tile went in very quickly, and I was on my way. I grouted it with unsanded white grout and sealed it after that. As expected, you can tell where the new tile starts, but at least the walls will stay dry!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Most Serene Jobsite Award Goes to...

2010-05-07T05:30:00.001-05:00

I love spring. I always get the landscaping fever and end up ordering unusual plants to put somewhere around our yard. This year the weirdest is a giant plant called "Dinosaur Food". :)

Anyway, I was working last week at an home in the older part of Old Hickory that has to get the award for one of the most pleasant places to work. The yard was just full of all kinds of well-groomed and cared for plants. All of this next to a front porch that spanned the entire front of the house with a very inviting porch swing.

I was working right in the middle of it all, mixing grout for tile and cutting some flooring for the kitchen.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Makeover the Bathroom With a Tile Floor

2010-05-06T06:18:00.004-05:00

This recent project involved laying a tile floor in a new home that was originally built with vinyl around the toilet/tub and carpet around the vanity. This is quite common in newer homes, and it's any easy spot to upgrade and completely change the feel of the room.

The vinyl and carpet had to get ripped out and then I worked on a layout for the tile. The home was built on a cement slab so there was no reason to add extra cementboard before tiling. This makes the project move along quickly and saves the homeowner a little money as well.

These were 12" tiles, but this shade comes in various sizes. You can get as fancy as you want if you mix others in to come up with a pattern.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

How About Some Tile Above the Surround?

2010-05-04T21:12:00.006-05:00

Many newer homes are built with a standard fiberglass bathtub surround. It still works so you hate to remove it, but maybe you'd like to spruce it up a little. These homeowners asked me to add some tile around the top of theirs as I was working on their floors.

The bathroom had been wallpapered, which looks nice, but sometimes tends to curl up around the shower because of moisture. Some tile above the surround will help this as well.

To start, I removed the wall paper down to the drywall. The tile I was installing were 4" x 4" squares that matched the tile I would be laying on the floor next. The homeowner had picked up a handful of accent tiles that I staggered around the surround.

The result was nice, but will be even better when I get the floor done, and that's coming soon!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Grouting Porous Tile

2010-04-29T07:00:00.005-05:00

One of the things that the homeowner loved about the tile I used for the backsplash (see this post) was the look of the porous tumbled marble. Most of the tiles were very textured, with some having decent sized impressions and holes in them. It's always recommended that you seal the tiles before grouting to help keep the grout out of the tile, however, with porous stone, the grout will still fill all those voids. So there are a couple of ways you can approach grouting these tiles.

ONE WAY- FILL THE HOLES

Probably the most common way is to just grout it all and fill the holes. They will still have the character of the porous stone, but the deeper pores will be mostly filled with grout. This is usually the best method because if you don't fill the pores, they will eventually get dirt in them or even food particles if it's around the countertop. These will be a major headache to try to clean later if they aren't grouted.

If you're filling the pores with grout, I'd suggest using a grout color that matches the stone. If you use a highly contrasting grout color, the filled pores may not look as natural.

ANOTHER WAY- DON'T FILL THE HOLES

Okay, you probably aren't going to be able to keep grout out of all the pores, however, you can use painter's tape to cover the faces of the tile if you want to keep the grout out. If you've got the desire and the time, you could actually tape the face of every tile.

I used this method with the backsplash to cover the pores on just a select few tiles that had the most character, trying to have some consistency throughout the backsplash. I used some larger blue painter's tape and cut it with scissors (rather than tearing it). This makes a clean cut that lays flatter against the stone making it easier to grout over.

After taping the stones I wanted to preserve, I grouted as normal right over the tops. I removed the tape after I had already sponged off the grout a couple times. The tape worked great and the homeowner loved the texture that it left in the tumbled marble.

Of course, when you're finished it needs to be sealed again, this time focusing on sealing the grout.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

A Tumbled Marble Backsplash Spices Up This Kitchen

2010-04-20T05:54:00.008-05:00

Sometimes a kitchen can be quite nice and still lack a little 'wow-factor'. It was time to add some of that to this kitchen with a new tumbled marble backsplash.

The homeowners have great taste and had picked out a handful of various tiles that they liked. We talked over the layout and tried a few combinations before coming up with the final design.

The bottom 6" features a mosaic pattern made up of various shapes and colors of the stone. Above that I would use 4" square tumbled marble set on the diagonal. I was excited to get started.

The backsplash tile can be installed right over the drywall, provided that it is smooth and not damaged. This saved some prep time and I jumped right into getting the layout right. With this many different tiles involved it's tricky to not end up with small pieces of tile somewhere in the layout.

I laid the tile out on the countertop with spacers to get an idea of the design and measure the actual size of things. Then I installed the mosaic tile all the way around. It actually came on a 12" x 12" sheet that I cut in half. The slowest part is always cutting all those pieces that go around the outlets.

With the bottom tiles ready, I started laying out the top tiles on the diagonal. The second row of 4" tiles would alternate between the natural white and a chocolate-colored tile to add more interest. I wanted this to lay out so that the spacing of the accent tiles would not look awkward.

I used a sanded grout to finish it up. This is recommended because even though some of the joints are 1/8" or less many of the spaces are much larger because of the rough, uneven edges of the tiles. I sealed the tiles with two coats of sealer before grouting which is supposed to help the grout not get absorbed into the face of the tiles as much.

In the end, the backsplash looked remarkable and the colors blended perfectly with the maple cabinets and the solid surface counter.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Tile and Finish the Shower Floor Repair

2010-04-12T20:45:00.011-05:00

I covered the basics of waterproofing a shower using the Schluter Kerdi system in my last post (click here). Now it's time to lay the tile and grout it all.

The goal of this project was to just to replace the bottom rows of tile and the shower floor. The older system was leaking and needed to be torn out (see this post). In addition to leaking, the old tiles weren't looking very good and some dirt had been collecting in areas that had been caulked several times in an attempt to fix the leaks.

The layout for the tile was already dictated to me by the original tiles that I didn't remove. I would be using a rounded base tile at the intersection of the bottom of the wall with the floor. This piece would get cut to fit after I installed the wall tiles.

In this case, I would need to start laying tile at the top and go down from there. If you start at the bottom, the weight of the tile is supported by the floor. Starting at the top, I had to tape each piece to the tile above so that they wouldn't slide down the wall and out of place.

One great thing about the Schluter Drain is that is a 4" square. It's perfectly sized for most tile installations where you are using either 1", 2", or 4" tiles. In my case, I installed 2" square white tiles by cutting out the center of one sheet of tile and installing this first (see the picture below). Then I installed all the tile sheets around the perimeter.

The small ledge across the bottom of the doorway is called the curb. It keeps the water contained in the bottom of the shower. I used some curved edge pieces of tile on the corner of the curb to avoid any sharp corners.

After grouting with white unsanded grout and sealing, this shower was ready for business. Hopefully, it will last for decades to come with no more problems.

HINT: John Bridge (Tile guy extraordinaire at www.JohnBridge.com) says that for a maintenance-free shower, take a minute after each use to wipe down the tile with a towel. This will greatly reduce any mildew over time and keep it cleaner as well.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Waterproof the Tile Shower With Schluter Kerdi

2010-04-08T06:46:00.000-05:00

What the heck is Schluter Kerdi???

It's a fairly new system for waterproofing showers that involves installing a membrane (the Kerdi) throughout the shower and over their special Kerdi drain. When finished you'll have a completely waterproof, sealed shower. In fact, it's so waterproof that you can install the Kerdi right over regular old drywall. That says a lot.

Let's look at how I installed the Schluter Kerdi shower system when I was repairing and old leaky shower pan liner that was decades old. In my last post (this link), I tore out the old tile down to the framing. Next, I replaced the subfloor with new plywood and added 1/2" Hardibacker on the walls. (Yes, I could have used 1/2" drywall, but I had the Hardibacker on hand...)

INSTALL THE PRE-SLOPED SHOWER TRAY
The older method to doing a shower floor included making a sloped bed of mortar that would direct water toward the drain. This needed more time, labor and expertise. For this shower, I used a Schluter pre-sloped shower tray. It's made out of some kind of foam and is easily cut to fit your particular shower.

After cutting the tray to size, I dry-laid it in place to mark the spot for the drain. Once the drain hole was cut out, I covered the floor with unmodified thinset mortar using a 3/16" v-notch trowel. The shower tray sets in this. You can walk around on it to make sure it's well embedded in the mortar. Just be careful not to crush it with your knees as you are working- it is foam after all.

INSTALL THE KERDI MEMBRANE
I'm not going to go through every detail of installing the membrane. If you are interested make sure to get the Schluter installation DVD and check out www.Schluter.com. The DVD comes with the shower kit and is great at showing every step along the way.

Basically, the membrane is installed over a thin layer of mortar and then flattened out and embedded using the straight edge of your trowel. The edges must all overlap by a minimum of 2". I started by using something they call Kerdi-Band in all the bottom corners. (It's just a thin pre-cut strip of the Kerdi material.)

It helped to have two trowels or a putty knife so you can hold the membrane in the corner with one trowel while you smooth out the other side with the other one. It's important to have tight square corners so that your tile will fit together correctly.

Once all the corners are done I installed larger pieces of Kerdi on the walls that overlap the corner pieces. Smooth them out to make sure there aren't any air bubbles underneath. Schluter also makes special corner pieces that a pre-formed to fit into corners and over the curb corners.

INSTALL THE KERDI DRAIN

The walls are done- let's do the floor. I covered the floor with a layer of mortar and then pressed the Kerdi Drain into place. The flange has openings that will help it firmly integrate into the mortar. I spread a little more mortar around the flange and installed the Kerdi membrane, making sure to fully embed it, especially around the drain.

That's it! Let it set overnight and we'll be ready to install the tile.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Redo a Tile Shower Floor- Tearout

2010-04-06T06:55:00.007-05:00

Tile shower floors are nice, unless they are leaking! This is the case for a Nashville homeowner that asked me to repair their shower floor.

This was an old shower that was likely 40-50 years old. The way of installing a shower back then (and still today in some cases) was to first install a waterproof membrane that goes around 8" up the walls all the way around. Then, a sloped bed of mortar or 'mud' is installed before tiling the floor. A specific type of drain is used that makes a seal with the membrane.

Many people have the misconception that grout is waterproof. This is not true. Most of the water is deflected and just goes down the drain, however, a small amount is absorbed through the grout and mortar. When it gets to the waterproof membrane the water is funneled to the drain and through tiny 'weep holes' that send the water down the drain.

My guess is that the weep holes were clogged with this shower. This meant that the mortar bed was saturated with water and it was full enough that it was dripping over the top of the membrane around the sides. I saw evidence of this when I started removing the bottom tiles and water started pouring out from behind.

TEAR IT OUT

The homeowners didn't want to replace the entire shower and I can't blame them. This is expensive work. Instead I would just be tearing out the bottom few rows and installing a new waterproofing system called Kerdi from Schluter Systems. First, I had to get dirty.

Getting started was easy because many of the tiles were loose anyway and came right off. After that I went around with my hammer and a flat bar and busted out the tile. Of course, I was careful not to damage the tile above that I wanted to keep.

The wall tiles were set on a mortar bed containing wire mesh for strength. Below that was the black shower membrane that had to go. It all chipped away fairly easily exposing the thick mortar bed under the floor of the shower. This mortar didn't contain any mesh and broke apart into pieces that I could just scoop up and dispose of.

Finally, I had worked my way down to the subfloor that was wet and needed to be cut out. It wasn't long before I was looking into the basement and ready to start putting it all back together.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Finishing Up the Marble Floor and Steps

2010-04-01T06:32:00.009-05:00

I knew when we were first talking about this bathroom project that there would be some interesting details to think about as we proceeded. Adding a set of winder stairs to a confined place in the bathroom was at the top of the list, especially when I heard that the homeowner wanted to cover them with marble tile.

STAIR NOSING
Though marble is a natural stone and is very heavy and durable, it's also somewhat brittle. For this reason it was very important to protect the tile at the front edge of the steps with a piece of Schluter trim. If we didn't do this, it would surely wear down faster or possibly break and crack because of the foot traffic to the back door.

Schluter trim comes in a wide variety of colors and styles depending upon what your using it for. It's great for making transitions from horizontal to vertical surfaces or corners where the appropriate tile trim piece is unavailable. The trim remains permanently flexible so it's great for corners that might otherwise crack over time with just grout or caulk.

You can see a sample piece of the trim I used in the picture. It's easily cut with a hacksaw and then set into the thinset mortar just before I lay the tile. The grout fills the seams between the trim and the tile and provides a very professional looking installation as well as some protection to our lovely marble steps.

MITERED CORNERS
Mitering is a term often used when doing trimwork that refers to cutting the trim at an angle (usually 45 degrees) where the corner pieces intersect. This can be done with tile as well and is most often used where there is an outside corner that is receiving tile. With these stairs, I used quite a few miter joints where the angled pieces came together.

A mitered cut on tile is not difficult provided that you have a tile saw that has this feature. My smallest tile saw is an MK 4" benchtop model and even it will cut miters by raising the cutting platform up to 45 degrees on one side. My larger Felker saw has an attachment that holds the tile at 45 degrees on the sliding tray which makes the cuts fairly simple once you get the hang of it.

The marble floor is grouted and sealed and ready for business. It will be slippery, though, so the homeowner will want to have plenty of rugs for wet feet. :)

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

The Beginning of a Marble Bathroom Floor

2010-03-31T05:17:00.000-05:00

After adding a bathroom to this home (see these posts) by removing a closet and raising the floor, I had two small stairways to consider finishing. One, in the hall to the den, received pre-finished red oak hardwood flooring (this post). The bathroom, with a set of winding stairs to the back door, would get marble tile.

When I think of marble tile I think of luxury, like a Roman bath from ancient times, right? I guess that was the idea here as well. The homeowner picked out a black marble that had accents of yellowish-green throughout. I always enjoy using stone materials because of the amazing colors and hues that naturally occur in the rock. Most of the time it's covered up with dirt, but now we get to put it in our homes and enjoy it!

Using marble isn't that much different than any other tile, except that the framing does need to be stronger to support the stone material. I had this in mind as I framed the floor so there were no concerns with this on this project.

Stone tiles, like marble, slate, travertine or granite also call for a different kind of thinset. Be prepared, it costs nearly double the price of the cheap stuff! This is not the time to skimp, if I'm going to all this trouble to install flooring, I want to make sure I do everything possible to keep it looking great for many years.

I started by installing Hardibacker cementboard throughout to provide a solid foundation that would not be susceptible to expansion or moisture absorption the way plywood would. It goes down over a layer of thinset and is nailed throughout with galvanized roofing nails.

By far, the trickiest part of this project was how to approach the winder stairs. They were to be tiled all the way down to the backdoor. We would also be doing a 6" marble 'baseboard' all the way around the room on the walls. The tiles were 12" squares so I cut them in half to use as the wall tile.

A heavy-duty professional tile saw is really useful for cutting stone tile like this, especially if you need straight cuts!

In order to not 'tile myself into a corner' I needed to start at the top of the steps and make my way down and out the back door. I used a tile spacer on the treads while I placed the tiles on the risers and taped them in place. Then, I could take the spacer out and install the tread tiles as I worked my way down.

I gave quite a bit of thought to the layout because I didn't want any weird grout lines going down the steps. I preferred to have a whole piece at the top of the steps and was able to achieve this without having any tiny pieces around the edges of the room. In the end the layout worked great, even with those crazy steps!

To be honest, the steps took extra time to cut and install, but it was a blast! I enjoyed the challenge of making them durable and safe as well as looking great.

Tomorrow, I'll cover a couple other details that were unique to this installation- stair nosing trim, and the mitered corners.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Work Outside Rain or Shine with a Canopy

2010-03-30T05:51:00.004-05:00

With the spring rains coming, I new that I would need to get some weather protection or I would start getting rained out and my project would get off schedule. Nobody wants rain delays so I started looking into getting a small roof over my head, a.k.a. a canopy.

I was surprised to find so many offered. Most of them are called tents or 'wedding canopies' because they are most often used for outdoor parties. I just wanted a place to set up some tools so that I could still work, unless it was really storming.

I settled on the 10 x 10 Smart Shade canopy from Swiss Gear. They are the same folks that make Swiss Army Knives and their stuff is usually higher quality so I went for it.

I wasn't disappointed.

One day last week I needed to finish some trim and a light rain was forecasted all day. Time to give it a try! There was a break in the weather and I got it set up all by myself fairly quickly, probably less than 15 minutes. It would be easier with two people, but I was able to do it by going around and moving the legs out a little at a time. It didn't take long and I had a roof to keep me dry. It also came with a nice case that even has a couple wheels on it too.

I'm completely pleased with the purchase and thought I'd share in case you were considering one as well. I must admit that at first I felt like I was taping a TV show because they are always working under tents like this... :)

BTW- I'm also planning to use this as the summer starts heating up. I know I won't mind a little shade to keep me working with a smile.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Amazon.com Widgets

Open Up The Kitchen Please!

2010-03-23T06:33:00.004-05:00

Sometimes the biggest changes to your home aren't the most expensive. For example, you could spend $10k remodeling your kitchen and upgrade everything and still feel cramped in a small room. For these homeowners in the Brentwood area, their budget was much lower, but the change was remarkable.

The split-level home was built with a kitchen wall that divided the kitchen from the living room. The problem was that the wall seemed to 'stick out' and make the rooms feel too divided. The homeowners also wanted more room for setting up a large dining room table for family gatherings. The solution was to remove part of the wall.

Unlike a couple of my other recent projects, this wall was load-bearing, supporting the ceiling joists from the two adjacent rooms. This meant that I would have to carefully build temporary walls along each side before tearing out the old framing and putting in a beefy 2x10 header. The header would extend all the way across the space to the outside wall. To save a little money, we decided to leave the header exposed and covered with drywall than to cut out ceiling joists and conceal it in the ceiling.

There was very little trim to do because I finished all the edges with drywall, however, I did make a small shelf for the serving window out of nice piece of 1x6 poplar. I notched the ends so that the board would seem to extend wider than the opening and give the effect of a window sill.

After removing around 32" of the wall, there was a little bit of hardwood flooring to patch in. It's always tricky to match the color of 50 year old hardwood floors perfectly, but this one seemed to blend in well with a coat of "natural" stain on some red oak.

The change made an incredible difference in this kitchen which now seems more integrated into the living room and ready for family!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

How To Install PreFinished Oak Flooring

2010-03-20T05:12:00.002-05:00

It's time to install the hardwood flooring in the hallway outside the new bathroom that I added to this home in Donelson. The homeowner wanted to match the hardwood in the rest of the home as much as possible so he picked out some pre-finished 3/4" red oak flooring for me to install.

The process for installation is very similar to installing unfinished hardwood. Here are the basics:

PREPARE
Before you begin, get the hardwood ahead of time and let it acclimate to the humidity inside the home. It's important to have a flat and solid subfloor to install the hardwood over. Over the subfloor I installed 15 lb felt paper underlayment across the floor, making sure to overlap the courses by several inches. Staple it down in a few places and make sure there's not anything trapped underneath that will make a 'hump'.

LAYING THE FLOOR

It's time to install the first piece of hardwood. Measure out from the starting wall and make a chalk line. It's good to use the straightest or longest wall as your guide. In my case, I wanted to make sure the line was parallel to the bathroom wall where I would end up. Select the longest pieces that you have and face-nail the first run in place all the way along your chalk line. It's important that your first piece is straight because it will be the guide for the rest of the flooring.

What's FACE-NAIL? Face-nail means that you nail through the 'face' of the board or the top where it will be seen as opposed to most of the flooring that will be nailed through the tongue so the nails are hidden.

Before I start laying the rest of the flooring I like to sort a batch of it by length. Usually, I would sort a couple cases at a time. You can see in the picture how I would divide it up. This just makes it easier to grab the pieces that I need without sorting through a stack of lumber each time.

With the flooring organized, grab one of the longest pieces and then a series of pieces that are each 6-8" shorter. When you lay them out like the picture above, it will stagger the seams as they are installed. By the way, if you are working with a helper, one of you can organize the stacks and pull the right wood while the other person nails it down.

Here's a trick to measuring the pieces that need to be cut: Take a piece that's approximately the right size (from the well-organized stack, right? :), and flip it around so the tongue is on the wrong end against the wall. Then you can just mark the length on the piece where it needs to be cut. This method will save you having to use a measuring tape for this cut and it will go a little quicker.

For each piece of hardwood, I started at the end where the tongue is and used a small block to make sure the pieces are super-tight. The block is a small piece of flooring with tongues and grooves. Using this prevents damage to the pieces I'm installing. Nailing through the tongue with my angled finish nailer, I work my way toward the other end, using the block as I go to make sure everything is tight.

NOTE: When installing a larger area of flooring, you'll want to use a special flooring nailer. It's better in two main ways: 1) It uses special flooring nails that have 'teeth' on them that makes a very strong bond and 2) It shoots the nails when you hit it with a rubber mallet. The force of the mallet ensures a tight fit while you're nailing.

As you get closer to the wall, you won't have space to use your nailer so that last three courses or so will need to be face-nailed. To get a tight fit, I like to use a couple blocks and then use a small flat bar to pry against the wall and squeeze the pieces together. Make sure you don't pry directly on the pieces you are installing!

The last pieces will likely need to be ripped on the table saw. Consider how wide the baseboard trim will be so you don't have a gap left later.

One of the noticeable differences between prefinished flooring and unfinished flooring is that there will be slightly more imperfections. Before an unfinished floor is sanded and sealed, the small gaps will be filled with woodfiller to hide them. There's also a difference in the quality of some of the brands of hardwoods. The differences are in how well they are milled to fit tightly together. The low-quality (cheap) brands will probably have more gaps because the milling wasn't as good.

I'm not one to tackle installing a whole house of hardwoods by myself, but this hallway was a lot of fun. Mainly, it's just cool to work with finished wood and see the amazing colors and designs in the grain. It looks great and it will last for many decades and more...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Now for the Oak Steps

2010-03-18T10:13:00.006-05:00

When I added a bathroom to this home in Donelson I raised the floor from the den to match the rest of the home. That meant that there would be three steps to build going to the den (see this post).

The homeowner has decided to have me add hardwood flooring to the hallway, but before I do that, I need to install the oak treads and risers on the steps.

There's usually a section at the home stores where they sell all kinds of stair parts like the treads, risers and balusters in basic red oak. That would have worked fine, except that these steps were 51" wide.

To find the wider cut treads and risers I went to JeffCo Flooring downtown. It's the super-secret place where the pros shop for hardwood flooring, including stair parts. They had just what I needed.

I started with the bottom riser and worked my way up. These steps will not have any trim on the sides to cover any gaps so I had to be exact with my measurements. I usually cut the pieces a little long and trimmed it to make sure it fit well. I put it all together without any fasteners and then took all the pieces outside for a good sanding.

Some people finish the wood before installation, but I like to install them before I finish. After a healthy dose of liquid nails, the treads were nailed in place with the risers. The top step gets a piece called stair nosing that is rounded on the front, but the back has a groove where the end-tongue from the flooring will fit. The stair nosing is sold by the foot, so you can just buy as much as you need.

I put a little painters tape on the wall to keep from making much of a mess and then applied the stain. These steps were stained with a Minwax color called "Natural". It's nearly the same as just using a clear coat, but I thought it was a slightly better match to the pre-finished red oak flooring that the homeowner wanted to install in the hall.

Letting it dry overnight and lightly sanding between coats, the steps will get two more coats of polyurethane after this stain.

Next comes the hardwood flooring...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Inglewood Cottage Kitchen- Before and After

2010-03-15T05:09:00.001-05:00

The kitchen at my Inglewood Cottage project needed some creativity to get to the shape it's in today- fabulous!!

(Professional photos by Zach Goodyear.)

Here are some of the challenges that were overcome:
1. Open the wall up between the kitchen and dining area and make it an arch to match the other doorways in the home (this post).
2. Make a spot to install a dishwasher next to the sink (this post).
3. Add counterspace on the wall next to the range where there previously was none.
4. Build a cabinet next to the dishwasher and over the range to hold the new hood (this post).
5. Level the floor around the back door (this post).
6. Make it all look like it fits with the character of the house.

I'd say we accomplished our goals.

The old kitchen had some good parts, namely, the cabinets. They were build to last and there was no reason to replace them. Instead, everything else is new- floors, counters, backsplash- but the cabinets just got some fresh paint and new hardware. Actually the cabinets are probably better built than many of the budget cabinets available today.

The subway tile backsplash is one of my favorite parts of the renovation, as well as the cabinets I got to build for above the range and next to the dishwasher. Nothing fancy, but it was fun to build a new cabinet and try to make it match the old so well that you wouldn't think it was new.

In addition to the cosmetic changes, the kitchen also got all new wiring and plumbing. It's ready for business!

By the way, when we got finished the homeowners listed the home for sale on a Friday and had it under contract before the open house on Sunday! Wow! I new it would get some attention, but that's an amazing story, especially in our current real estate market.

Check out all the articles related to this project at this link.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Inglewood Cottage Bathroom- Before and After

2010-03-14T08:34:00.000-05:00

The project that I'm calling my "Inglewood Cottage" project has wrapped up and I wanted to feature a few before and after photos. Most of my work on this project was focused on two different rooms, the kitchen and bathroom. Let's look at the bathroom transformation first.

Professional photography (right) by Zach Goodyear.

This bathroom was nearly completely redone, however, most of the walls did not need to be gutted. However, I needed to remove quite a bit of the walls just to get that old cast iron tub out of there! The new surround was custom fit to go around the existing window that will let in natural light even though it will need to be covered with a curtain when showering.

When I started, there wasn't much appealing about this room. It did have a huge cabinet behind the door which we left alone and painted. Otherwise, all the fixtures had to go as well as the deteriorating vinyl flooring.

By the time I was finished, the bathroom had a lot of my favorite details- wainscoting, pedestal sink and small floor tiles. The black and white tiles turned out great and really fit the period feel of this room. In a room with so much white trim, the black tiles add some interest and are a highlight of the bathroom.

This bathroom is quite different than when I started and that's a very good thing! I really enjoyed being part of the changes in this small, but popular room of the house.. :)

See all the related posts to this project at this link.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Tile for the Inglewood Kitchen

2010-03-13T09:17:00.005-06:00

It's been a while since I wrote about the Inglewood Cottage project. I finished my part to let the homeowners get everything painted before they put it on the market. I wanted to wait until after they were finished to get some final pictures.

Somehow, this home from the 1940's has retained much of it's character by still having the original hardwood floors and even the unpainted trim and doors. (A rare thing in this part of Inglewood). To continue the character into the remodeled kitchen, the homeowners wanted me to install a white subway tile backsplash and a ceramic tile floor.

When I got to it, there was an old backsplash made up of 4" off-white tile with a laminate counter that had actually been installed right over the top of the original countertop! I took it all apart and installed the new high-grade laminate counter (see this post) over the new dishwasher and custom cabinet that I built to fill it out. (see this post)

The new flooring tiles are 12" glazed porcelain, but they have the look of marble. I think it's a nice look for this older home. Part of the floor had to be leveled before tiling (see this post) and that turned out great.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Open Up My Kitchen Wall- Before and After

2010-03-12T05:10:00.000-06:00

When I started, the kitchen and dining room were two separate entities, now they are combined into one open space joined by the fantastic maple countertop that rests on the new half-wall in the middle.

I say it all the time, but I enjoy projects like this that really transform a home and add to my client's lifestyle.

See all the articles related to this project here.

Now, on to the next project!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Add a Decorative Newel Post

2010-03-11T05:59:00.005-06:00

After the maple countertop was installed (this post), it was time to finish up by adding the trim. For the most part, I was able to reuse the casings and jambs from the old doorway that was here except for across the top of the new opening. In addition to the casings, the homeowners wanted me to add a decorative post at the end.

For the post, I used a poplar newel post that is normally used as part of a stairway handrail. Ahead of installation I cut off the ball on top and then primed and painted it.

I hated to write on or put screws into the beautiful countertop, but alas, it had to be done! First, I taped a scrap of building paper to the spot so that I could mark my guidelines and make sure that I didn't make any unnecessary pencil marks on the counter. I left this here through the installation and just tore off the paper after the post was in place.

I bought a 'newel post bracket kit' to install the post. The kit includes four brackets to attach the post and then some decorative trim that is pre-cut and meant to cover the brackets. (I painted these ahead of time as well.)

I cut the post around 1/8" short and then used shims underneath to press it snugly up against the top jamb. The gap on the bottom will be covered by the brackets and this prevents it from being so tightly fitting that I risk any scratches to that countertop. (Yes, I'm being very protective of that counter, they aren't cheap to replace!! :)

I fastened the top of the post with some finish nails and then covered the holes with putty and paint.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Install the Maple Countertop

2010-03-09T06:58:00.001-06:00

In deciding to open up the wall between the kitchen and dining room, you'll have another decision to make: What to do with the wall? You could remove the wall completely, make a serving 'window', or make a half wall with a countertop.

If you want to install a countertop, the next question becomes, "What kind?".

There are a multitude of options for countertops these days and for an application such as this where it is away from the water and food prep areas you can be even more flexible.

Some people might want to match their existing kitchen counters which are solid surface in this case. However, in my last three projects like this, the homeowners decided to instead have a custom-made wood countertop made just for their kitchen.

I get my friend Chris Barber at Barber Woodworking to craft these fine counters for me. He is an artisan to be sure with most of his projects involving custom cabinetry of some kind. If you'd like to see more of his woodworking art check out his website at www.BarberWoodworking.com.

At this current project, the homeowners wanted to coordinate the counter with their maple kitchen cabinets and a maple table in their dining room. Chris once again did a fabulous job and the homeowners were quite pleased with the result.

Now, it's time to finish things out with some trim and paint.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Make a Plastic Wall to Control Dust

2010-03-08T06:31:00.006-06:00

There is one thing that all of my clients are concerned about when I come into their home- THE MESS! Frankly, I don't like a mess either and I do my best to maintain an organized jobsite and put highest importance on protecting their home from the side effects of remodeling, including dust.

The most effective way that I've found to control dust inside a client's home is to basically build a wall out of thin plastic. If sensitive electronic items cannot be moved (like large TVs) I cover them first with a clean sheet of plastic in addition to building a plastic wall across the room. I use blue painter's tape to seal it all the way across the ceiling and down the walls.

Often, the jobsite can be contained in one room or portion of the home, so I can just put the plastic across the door way. The point is, that I try to build a contained work area so that the dust does not spread throughout the home.

TIP: When you're making the most dust, like during demolition or sanding drywall, turn off the HVAC system. This helps the dust to not circulate throughout the home as well as clogging up the ductwork.

In addition to plastic walls, I use a variety of floor coverings to protect floor surfaces. I'm a big fan of large canvas drop cloths in areas where I'll be working. I cover any carpet that is in my path with adhesive plastic that is meant for temporary carpet protection. Finally, a roll of brown construction paper comes in handy for covering hardwood floors or other smooth surfaces.

It can be a lot of work to prep a jobsite beforehand, but I'm a lot more comfortable working there if I know that I've taken the adequate steps to minimize my mess and the possibility of damage to the area.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Add Some Recessed Lights Over the Bar

2010-03-06T20:33:00.006-06:00

As I started rebuilding the wall between the kitchen and dining room that would transform into a half-wall topped with a wood counter, I had to consider the lighting that would illuminate the custom maple counter. This is especially important at this stage because the homeowner wanted me to install small recessed lighting.

This wall is completely non-load bearing and consists of studs placed 24" apart. Since it's not load bearing I won't need to install a large header across the opening. Instead, I'm thinking of it like a large soffit that will mainly hold drywall and contain the recessed lighting.

By the way, the kitchen side of this wall is covered in wallpaper. This means that I'll do all my work to the wall from the other side in the dining room and try to preserve the wallpaper as much as possible. I'd prefer to not hang wallpaper, and my client's would agree I'm sure.. :)

The fixtures that I'm installing are 3" recessed cans that are widely available. They can be used in new construction and hung with joist hangers or installed as part of a remodel where you only need to make a hole and then mount the fixture with the drywall clips.

To start, I measured my opening and marked the location for the lights so they would be spread evenly across the opening. I cut these holes out of the 2x4 bottom plate before I even installed it. Then, I went ahead and ripped a long piece of poplar 1x6 to the width of the wall (4.5") and cut openings out of that for the lights. This would go along the bottom of the opening and finish it off well.

The electrical connections are fairly basic if you know how to wire any light fixture. Thankfully, I had easy access to the attic to run a wire across the room to the switch, which was to be a dimmer switch, giving the homeowners more control of how bright the lights are.

By the way, recessed lighting is also much less expensive the most fixtures. For example, these 3" fixtures are around $10-15 each, while pendant lights would likely run $40-50 or more.

At 50 watts each, these lights will really help to show off the new Maple countertop that's coming soon.

Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Open up My Kitchen Wall

2010-03-04T06:33:00.005-06:00

NOTE: If you've been following along on my bathroom addition project (these posts), I'm taking a couple weeks away from that to help some other clients. I'll be back to the bathroom soon to add marble tile floors and some hardwood in the hallway...

I always enjoy projects that result in a major positive transformation at a home, especially when it adds functionality. This week I'm helping some clients in Smyrna who wanted me to open up the wall between their kitchen and dining room and install a wood countertop.

I've also completed similar projects for two other neighbors down the street in this newer community. See them here:

Project with Red Oak Countertop (click here)

Project with Heart Pine Countertop (click here)

Each project has been a little different. With this one, there are three main differences. First, the kitchen wall has been covered with wallpaper. This means that I'll need to work from the dining room side and be super-careful not to damage the wallpaper as I'm removing framing and opening up the wall.

The second main difference is that these clients want me to install small recessed lighting fixtures above the bar. Normally, you would have a beefy header across an opening like this and installing recessed lighting would not be possible without some major creativity. In this case, the wall is NOT load-bearing, so I won't need the header and I'll have room for the lights.

Lastly, these clients want me to add a decorative post on the end of the bar, not so much for structural reasons, but they simply like the look of it ( and want to do something different than their neighbors :).

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this project. Stay tuned to watch the progress.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

My Review of Milwaukee Heavy-Duty 33 Pocket/3 Piece Tool Belt

2010-02-27T07:55:00.002-06:00

Originally submitted at Hardware Sales Inc.

Milwaukee's Heavy-Duty 33 Pocket/3 Piece Tool Belt is made from water-resistant 600 Denier Ripstop Polyester Material. The Tool Belt features 33 total pockets of various sizes and shapes, large flat bottom pouches, builder's square pockets in each large pouch and a cell phone or 2-way radio...

The perfect tool belt for me

By CarpentryGuy from Nashville, TN on 2/27/2010

Pros: Holding Capacity, Comfortable Fit, Versatile, Durable

Best Uses: Multi-Purpose

Describe Yourself: Professional

I'm a contractor and I handle a wide range of projects from framing to tilework. I wanted a tool belt that had some pouches, but also had lots of pockets to organize my tools. My last tool belt had just a couple big compartments and my tools were always getting lost in the bottom.

I was pleased when I got the Millwaukee belt because of the number of pockets and how they were organized. I also love the two 'bottomless' pockets which will hold my small flatbar and my drywall saw. It's also easy to remove one of the pouches from the belt if you don't need all of your tools for a particular project and want a lighter load.

I'm completely happy with this tool belt, and the price made it a no-brainer.

(legalese)

Winder Stairs- Finish With a Handrail

2010-02-21T05:06:00.001-06:00

When you're framing the stairs, it's worth giving some thought to the handrail.

Often, the handrail can be attached to a wall, so this is the time to add some blocking so you have something solid to attach it to- in the right place.

In my case, I've got a wall, but this is a winding stair, which complicates things.

For this particular project. I decided to frame in a short wall which rises around 30" above the front edge of the treads which will be covered in drywall with a handrail attached on top.

The difficult part to this is getting the angles right. As I mentioned in my post about the layout (here), the narrow end of each tread is 6" across. With a 6 1/2" riser, we know that the angle will be close to 45 degrees. I found that a 48" miter worked for me.

My idea was to treat this similarly to a newel post that might have a handrail coming into it from one direction and then continuing on from another side in the new direction.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Winder Stairs- Build the Treads

2010-02-19T06:32:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I wrote about how I did the layout for my small set of winder stairs (this post). Now, let's talk about how I built the treads.

Often, you can build the treads as a series of platforms and then just stack them and secure them in place. I'm going to frame each one individually, frankly, because I didn't have enough extra plywood to make the platforms... :)

Before proceeding too far, of course, I needed to consider the height of each riser. The total rise of my stairs was 26" so each step would be 6 1/2" high.

The risers would be made from 2x8's and be the frame that supports the 3/4" plywood treads. To achieve this height I ripped each of the 2x8's to 6 1/2", except for the bottom ones that were 5 3/4". (The bottom of the stairs is always thinner by the thickness of one tread)

You can see the progression in the pictures as I framed each step from the bottom up.

One of the more challenging (and fun) parts of this was getting the angles right. Most of the angled cuts were 30 degree miters, with a few 15 degree ones involved with the middle step.

All of these treads are secured to the surrounding framing, with blocking added where necessary to secure everything. The treads are nailed to each frame after on a bead of liquid nails to seal everything together.

Next, I'll add an interesting handrail...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Winder Stairs- Layout First

2010-02-18T19:20:00.009-06:00

Raising the floor in the new bathroom meant that we would need 3 steps down to the landing at the backdoor. The problem was that there wasn't much space to work with. We needed to use the minimum footprint as possible. We also needed to make a turn to guide the user up into the bathroom to the right. This meant that a 'winder' stairway would be needed.

A winder stairway is basically defined as a stairway whose sides are not parallel. There are different codes that cover these stairs to keep them safe. Let's start this project by looking at how to layout this simple winder.

TIP: Need more info about all the code requirements to building great stairs? Check out this "Visual Interpretation" of the code from the Stairways Manufacturers' Assosciation. (Click Here)

1. I started with a large piece of plywood that I would be using to make the treads. I drew a square in one corner that was 36" on each side. My winder would end up being 36" deep, but 41" wide at the bottom step. Still, I started the layout by using a 36" square.

2. Draw a diagonal line from one corner to the other. (A black line in the picture) Then make a mark 18 3/4" from each corner on this line.

3. Draw two lines from another corner through both of these marks you just made. (The white lines in the picture.) By doing this you have outlined each of the three treads for the steps.

You'll notice that the narrow part of these treads is very small. Sometimes you'll see an old staircase that uses the treads like this. Of course, this is quite dangerous because there's not really room to place your foot making it more likely to slip and fall. So, the codes now say that the tread shouldn't be less than 6" wide at its smallest point.

4. Draw a line, square to the edge of the first step, at the point where the tread is 6" deep. Continue marking the other steps at this point as well like I did in the picture. Cutting this out can present a problem if you're turning a tight corner like I am. Often you can make a long turn around a corner but in my case I'm going to build a short wall in this place to support the required handrail. We'll get to that soon enough.

5. With the basic treads laid out, I wanted to consider the actual dimensions of my stairway. Mainly, I needed to make a new line at 41" wide because that's how wide my stairs are at the bottom.

6. Go ahead an cut out the treads. These will be the guide for building the platforms that will hold them. Let's cover that tomorrow.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Adding Some Steps Into the Den

2010-02-16T06:35:00.000-06:00

In conjunction with raising the floor to add the bathroom to this home, I would need to build some new steps at the end of the hall leading down into the den. For stairs, this is about as basic as you get. Walls on both sides with no turns or obstacles to consider.

With any stairway, I need to spend some time doing math before I start cutting any lumber. There are some basic guidelines to building steps and I covered them more thoroughly in this post.

The height of the new floor dictated that I would need 4 steps, each one with 6 1/2" rise. This is comfortable height so that works great. I would make each of the treads 11" deep.

I cut three stringers out of treated 2x12 boards. I fit them in place to test the fit before I nailed anything. Using a level, I could tell that the concrete floor wasn't quite level making one of my stringers higher than the others. To fix this, I shave a little extra off the bottom of the stringer and added shims where needed. In order to have level steps I have to have level stringers!

After the stringers were in place, I added some cross supports to add more strength under the treads that would be plywood and possibly covered with carpet later. I also applied a bead of Liquid Nails Adhesive before nailing the treads down. All of this helps to prevent squeaks later and give the homeowner a solid set of stairs.

Next we'll work on a set of winder stairs... stay tuned!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Out With the Old, In With the New Floor

2010-02-15T09:05:00.006-06:00

The room where we're adding a bathroom to this home was at one time a garage. It was converted a few years ago, but is still a couple feet lower than the rest of the home. The first phase of this project was to remove the closet and surrounding drywall that would be in the way of the new framing.

OUT WITH THE OLD

The closet was completely not load bearing and had been constructed with minimal framing, basically just enough to hold the drywall up. It came out fairly easily. When doing this kind of demolition work I always take it apart the way it was put together. First, I carefully remove the trim and doors and set them aside to be reused.

After the trim is out of the way, I do my best to remove the drywall in large pieces. Then I can bag the pieces and dispose of them. While I'm at it I like to go ahead and clean off all the studs by removing the nails or screws that had been holding the drywall. My goal is to reuse as many of these building materials as I can, but many of these studs aren't straight enough to make for good framing.

The closet had a lowered ceiling that I wanted to remove as well. Before taking off this drywall, I bagged all of the loose-fill insulation that was in the attic above. A dustpan actually makes a great tool for scooping this up and bagging it. I'll reuse the insulation later and save myself a huge 'blizzard' of pink insulation when I bring down the ceiling drywall.

FRAME A NEW FLOOR

Removing the walls reveals the floor framing for the adjacent kitchen that rests on the cinder block wall that runs around the perimeter of this former garage. I would be building the bathroom floor on this wall as well. Thankfully, the wall was nearly perfectly level, which is often not the case in old garages.

I will be framing the floor as one large platform first, and then add the bathroom walls that will rest on top of the floor. I'll also be adding two small stairways that will lead down to the old garage going into the den or at the backdoor.

I put a lot of thought into how the framing would work and where the walls would go before I got started. There are lot of factors in this particular project to consider such as the dimensions of the stairs and where the plumbing would go.

The floor joists would be 2x8 stock to match the size of the rest of the house, and provide plenty of strength to support the slate tile that the homeowner is considering for the bathroom floor.

TIP: Wondering if your floor will support tile or natural stone? Check out the calculator at the John Bridge forums here to calculate your floors deflection and see if it makes the cut.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Add a Bathroom to Your Home

2010-02-12T05:25:00.000-06:00

I'm embarking on a new project for a homeowner in the Donelson area. He just bought this home from the 1940's. Much of it was updated after a fire a few years ago, but it still had only one bathroom. It's time for that to change.

On one end of the home is a room that obviously started out as a garage, but was later transformed into a den with a large closet that probably held the laundry at one time. The idea for this project is to completely remove the closet, raise the floor to match the rest of the home and then add a 2nd bathroom.

This is a difficult one to explain, even if you're looking at my rough sketch (pictured below).

There are a couple tricky parts to this project. First, is the prospect of raising the floor. This room's floor is around 28" lower than the rest of the house. Thankfully, that's enough space for me to frame a new floor and still have an 18" crawlspace to access underneath.

Raising the floor will require adding two sets of stairs. One, at the end of the hall that will descend into the den. The other will actually be inside the bathroom. To make all of this work, the new bathroom will enclose the back door and have three 'winder' steps leading down to it.

It will be an interesting project with some very interesting parts that will have to come together to be a bathroom that is not only functional, but also up to code and built to last.

I like a challenge!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

One Fix For A Leaky Outdoor Faucet

2010-02-11T20:46:00.005-06:00

One of the most annoying things is a leaky faucet. I find it especially annoying to turn on an outdoor faucet and have water dripping everywhere. The most common problem, if you're using a garden hose, is that the small gasket is missing that goes between the hose connector and the valve.

But what if the water is dripping out of the valve instead of the hose?

Let's look at this example... The other day I was using a client's outdoor hose to mix mortar to lay tile. It was a townhome and the water valve was actually located in the garage. It dripped badly. Soon it was running through the garage and pooling just outside the garage door.

For a while, I didn't bother with it. After all, I was there to tile, not to fix the plumbing, right?

Then, I couldn't take it anymore.

The fix for a leaky valve is usually so easy it seems silly. Get out a wrench and tighten the nut holding the handle on. You can see how I did it in the picture below. If that nut gets just a little bit too loose, the valve will not operate correctly and water will drip (or spray) out of the handle.

Don't overdo it, but just a little pressure with a wrench and the dripping should stop. If it doesn't, it's probably too worn out and needs replacement. Usually, they are just loose and need to be tightened up.

At least you can give this a try before you call the plumber and spend the big bucks.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Upgrade to a Double Sink Vanity

2010-02-08T20:20:00.006-06:00

My most recent project was to help a family with some work around their beautiful older home near Sevier park in Nashville. The home was renovated a few years ago to include many modern upgrades including a small upstairs bathroom.

The bathroom was nice before, but it services three upstairs bedrooms and the homeowner wanted more capacity to keep up with their growing family.

When I started it had a pedestal sink and a small mirror that was hung to low to see your face without bending over. It was also quite dark and needed more light. On top of these things, they needed an exhaust fan to get more of the humid air out.

The solution for this homeowner was to add a double vanity. (And a bath fan, three lights and two bigger mirrors... :)

Adding a double vanity is a little more complicated than just replacing a sink. Often, each sink needs a separate drain pipe and supply lines instead of just one set for a pedestal sink. Thankfully, there is a small attic access panel in the closet that lets me get behind the wall with all the plumbing in it.

In addition to adapting the plumbing, I moved the wiring and added a couple more lights on either sides of where the mirrors would be located as well as adding a high powered, yet quiet, exhaust fan that will help get the moisture outside through a vent in the roof.

After a few days of work, this smaller bathroom was bright and ready to handle more customers. Of course, at this point, most of them are still under the age of two...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

New Tile for Two Bathrooms- Before and After

2010-01-29T15:26:00.006-06:00

At the beginning of the week I started a new project replacing the flooring in two bathrooms with tile. When I started, there was some 4" white tile in the wet areas around the shower and toilets. The rest of the rooms was carpet. The homeowner wanted it all replaced with new tile and I was happy to help her out with that.

After removing the old flooring I installed 1/2" Hardibacker throughout each room over a layer of modified thinset. This gives us a good foundation for the tile to rest on. I also removed all the baseboard and shoe moulding which would be replaced later as well.

I installed 13" tiles in the larger master bath. They are 'glazed porcelain' tiles which is a type of ceramic that has a glazing that makes it repel stains very well. As you can see in the picture there are quite a few angles and cabinets in the master bath to work around. Around cabinets I try to cut the tile so that I leave a margin between the cabinet and tile that's approximately the same width as the grout lines. Then, I grout this to match the rest.

With all those different items to tile around, I spent some time upfront to consider the layout so that I would minimize the small pieces around the perimeter. I always try to stay away from having pieces smaller than half a tile if I can help it. This layout worked out great with the only small pieces being behind the toilet where they won't be seen much anyway.

I also re-tiled the guest bathroom down the hall. It was much smaller so I used a 6 1/2" tile that matched the tile in the master. I think the smaller tiles feel more appropriate for a smaller room like this, but I guess it's just a personal preference.

It was fun to see the transformation in these rooms. I was quite happy with the result.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Repair a Broken Toilet Flange

2010-01-28T21:48:00.006-06:00

Toilets are not especially fun to deal with. This week I've been tiling a couple bathroom floors for one of my favorite clients and was ready to reinstall the toilet. Everything was moving smoothly until I noticed that the PVC toilet flange was cracked and broken.

Not cool.

This is a problem because the flange holds the bolts that, in turn, hold the toilet down. If I were to ignore the crack in the flange the bolt would not tighten down enough resulting in a toilet that will likely rock back-and-forth and possibly leak wastewater...

So, how to fix it?!

You don't have to replace the entire flange. Instead, head to the home store and get a repair flange. You'll probably find it next to where the normal toilet flanges are sold, somewhere on a top shelf where it's hard to locate. It's a fairly simple metal disc that is the size of the flange. It slips right over the old broken flange. You screw it down to the subfloor and it's ready to go.

By the way, make sure you use some kind of moisture resistant screws that won't rust and eventually break. (No drywall screws allowed here. :)

It's not a difficult fix, but can be frustrating if you're unsure what to do about it. So, be frustrated no longer...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Prepare the Door Jambs for Tile

2010-01-27T18:34:00.008-06:00

One of the marks of a professional tile job is how the door jambs look when you're done. The idea is to not leave any raw edges of tile showing. These should be covered with trim of some kind, unless it's up against a threshold or cabinet. Let's talk about how I handle the tile around the door, which can be a tricky spot.

To make the cuts to the door jamb or casing, I use one of my new favorite tools, a Rockwell Sonicrafter. It has a small blade that oscillates back-and-forth allowing you to make plunge cuts into wood that would be otherwise impossible, or at least, barely possible.

I used to attempt these cuts with a reciprocal saw which is crazy at best. It's hard to control and I would normally end up replacing all the casing after the damage I made...

The Sonicrafter comes to the rescue. It's nearly identical to the Fein Multimaster, but costs much less. I considered the Fein, but for the amount of use that I give it, I think the Rockwell tool will suit me fine. So far I'm thrilled with it and I'm sure I'll think of many more uses for it as time goes on.

Anyway, for this project, I laid the blade over a scrap of the 1/2" Hardibacker and a piece of tile and used this height to guide my cut. Adding to this the width of the blade, this will usually be exactly the right height to allow me to slide the tile in underneath later.

This picture shows how it looks after I've laid the tile. The marble threshold butts up to the inside of the door jamb, while the tile slides under the casing back to the wall. Any exposed edges will get covered up by the baseboard and shoe moulding.

For most bathrooms, I like to use a marble threshold (also called a sanitary sill) at the doorway. This should be placed directly under the door, but it's typically wider than the door. I prefer to notch the door jambs and slide it forward until it's flush with the door jamb on the inside.

If you don't do this, you'll have a small place in the corner that won't get covered by the door casing where you'll have a tricky cut or a very small piece of tile to deal with as you can see in this picture.

Grouting the tile and caulking around the threshold complete the job and hopefully leave the homeowner with a top-notch finished product.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Tile Upgrade for Two Bathrooms

2010-01-26T21:14:00.006-06:00

For most people I know, carpet in a bathroom is not preferred and that's putting it lightly. I'm not sure that carpet in any wet area is a good idea. My current project involves removing a small amount of tile and carpet from two upstairs bathrooms and replacing the entire floor with new tile.

The master bath is large and has a separate shower and tub with lots of interesting angles. You can see in the pictures that when the house was built they just tiled directly in front of the shower and around the toilet and bath. The center area is just carpet. I'm not sure if they were trying to save money or if they really liked it, but the homeowner is tired of the carpet and ready for a tile makeover.

The first day of the project started with cleaning out all the old flooring. I always try to dismantle things in the reverse order that they were installed. In this case, I started by ripping out the carpet and then went after the tile, which cooperated fairly well.

I removed all the staples and nails and tried to scrape off all the old thinset mortar that was under the tile backer board. Then it was time to start over.

The old subfloor was meant for carpet and consisted of only 3/4" plywood. It's best to have at least 1 1/4" of subflooring beneath the tile, so I installed 1/2" Hardibacker cement board throughout over a thin layer of modified thinset mortar. I'm a fan of Hardibacker because it's designed to be impervious to water. This means that it won't absorb moisture the way that wood does. It's also very flat and smooth, giving me a great surface to tile over.

I would normally secure the Hardibacker with galvanized roofing nails but my air compressor died and my new one hasn't arrived yet. I wasn't about to hammer all those nails the old fashioned way so I instead used screws designed to be used with the cementboard. It was a little slower to install than using the roofing nailer.

With all the angles in this room you can see that I had some interesting cuts to make. I mainly use the score-and-snap method of cutting the stuff, occasionally using my jigsaw equipped with a carbide tipped blade for cutting holes and notches. Read more about cutting Hardibacker here.

In addition to the master bathroom, I'm also re-tiling a smaller guest bath down the hall. There's only around 25 square feet of flooring in there so we're planning to use a smaller size tile to help the room feel a little larger.

Tile coming soon!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Install a Roof Vent for Your Bath Exhaust Fan

2010-01-25T20:56:00.006-06:00

Unless they've been remodeled along the way, most older homes don't have a nifty exhaust fan in the bathroom. Sometimes it can be a chore to add one, but they come in handy when you want to clear the air... :)

Adding a bath fan takes two major steps. First, is installing the fan and a switch to control it. The next step is venting it outside. You don't want it to vent into an attic space because the moisture in the air can cause mold or rot or numerous other problems. Don't worry, it's a fairly basic process, assuming you don't mind getting on the roof!

1. First, I like to go into the attic above the roof vent and locate a good spot for the roof vent from the inside. Steer clear of rafters and other items that would interfere. Usually, I can find a spot directly above the fan. I like to drill a hole through the roof at the center of the spot I've picked out.

2. Drilling a hole through the roof helps me locate the exact spot from the top side. I head outside, taking all the safety precautions so I live to write about it... I can find the hole I drilled and the use a jig saw to cut out a 5" hole centered on the spot.

3. Test fit the vent and cut the shingles so that the upper courses will over lap the flange and surround the vent like the picture. Once it will fit, you can put in in place and put a few galvanized roofing nails around the edges. Remember the upper nails will be under the shingles, while the bottom corners are nailed from the top.

4. Seal the vent with roofing cement around the edges, under the overlapping shingles, and on any exposed nail heads. Grab your tools and head back to the attic.

5. Now it's just a matter of hooking up both ends of the hose that came with the roof vent kit. I secured both ends with the included plastic straps and then covered each with aluminum foil tape to prevent any leakage. (sort of like duct tape, except it's really meant for sealing ducts and it seals much better)

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Apartment Kitchen Before and After

2010-01-20T20:26:00.005-06:00

This project has been complete for a while, but I thought I'd post some of the pictures showing the transformation from a den to a kitchen for this downstairs apartment.

To separate the living areas and make room for the kitchen, we would need to remove the stairs and close up this wall. This would be where all the plumbing and new electrical would be located.

It's an apartment, so there's nothing too high-grade here. The floor is tile and the counters are stock-laminate. Even using fairly basic cabinets and materials, the end product is quite nice, especially compared to a lot of the other places out there for rent.

Here's an interesting picture after we had removed the stairs and were ready to start framing the new wall. We saved all the pieces so that the stairs could be put back together someday if it was needed. (Someone will be thankful for our consideration, I'm sure.)

Just for fun, I sketched the kitchen out using the design program from IKEA. I didn't end up using any IKEA products, but this helped me get a good idea of how everything would fit together. Read more about that here.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Tips for Cutting and Installing a Laminate Countertop

2010-01-14T21:05:00.005-06:00

It's pretty amazing to consider the options you have available for countertops these days. From some of the most beautiful polished stone designs and custom concrete to solid surface or less-expensive laminate.

For my Inglewood Cottage project we wanted the high-end look without the price tag (who doesn't, right?) so the homeowners chose a textured black custom laminate top that had the look of a natural stone. My job was to install it. Here are some tips for cutting and installing a laminate counter.

CUT THE COUNTER LENGTH
This was a simple galley kitchen that would be just a matter of cutting the counter to the right length and then making a place for the sink. I measured the space and cut the counter around 3/8" short so that I have enough wiggle room to side it in.

To make the cut I first put painters tape across the counter. This serves two purposes: 1) It helps me see my pencil line on the black counter & 2) It helps prevent any chipping or scratches from my saw while I'm making the cut. I use a jig saw to first cut through the backsplash and the back corner. Then I cut the rest from the front.

After the counter is in place on the cabinets, it's very important to get it level. This is especially important because I'm tiling the backsplash and I want it to be level along the top of the counter. Leveling is a matter of securing the counter at the high point and then shimming the low points to bring them up to level before adding screws in those areas. It's worth the time to make sure it's level both left-to-right and front-to-back.

CUT OUT THE SINK

Cutting out the sink is a time to measure at least twice. If anything, make the hole a little small. You can always make it bigger... :) Usually, it is centered on the sink cabinet. Look inside and see if there are any braces that will get in the way. In my case, I wanted the sink to be as far back on the counter as possible. This would give me just enough room to get the sink in these particular cabinets.

I like to start by using a hole saw to make a hole in each corner. Sink corners are normally not square, so this allows for more of the counter to support the sink. I then use a reciprocal saw and carefully cut along the back before I use the jig saw to cut out the rest. However, before you completely cut out the sink hole, place a board across the opening and screw it to the piece that's in the way of the sink. This keeps it from falling or breaking off before you're ready.

Mounting the sink requires a little silicone caulk under the lip and sink mounting clips underneath. You can usually get these wherever you buy sinks, but make sure they fit your particular sink. I've had cases when I'm reusing an old sink and they need a unique sink mounting clip. Unfortunately, they aren't one-size-fits-all.

With the counter and sink in, I'm ready to think about the upcoming subway tile backsplash. Stay tuned for that,

Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

The Mystery of the Flickering Porch Lights

2010-01-12T20:30:00.005-06:00

After installing the patio door (see this post) I got to add a couple porch lights to this East Nashville home. Adding wiring in an older home like this has a tendency to be a nightmare at times, because the wires are inaccessible and the walls are plaster. I didn't run into these problems on this project, but I did have a mystery to unravel at the end.

THE SETTING

The homeowner wanted me to add a couple wall mounted porch lights to add more light to his porch. He had showed me a light switch at the front door that he wanted me to use because it didn't seem to do anything.

After a little research I figured that there must have been a ceiling fan in the front room at one time, and the switch controlled the fan. This was a great find, because I could use the switch and junction the wires in the attic without running any new wires to the switch.

I ran new wires from the attic down to the location of the new wall-mounted porch lights. Thankfully, there weren't any studs in my way and this process went smoothly. Whenever mounting exterior lights on clapboard siding I like to first cut out a place to add some kind of mounting board, usually some sort of 1x8. Otherwise, the fixture won't sit flat against the wall and instead lean in or out at an angle.

THE MYSTERY

After running the wires and installing the fixtures it was time to turn on the breaker and give it a try.

Yea! The lights came on and the switch worked.

Wait... the lights went off... one came back on... now they're both on...

What!???

This continued for several minutes. The lights were coming on and off independently of the switch. Sometimes together, sometimes not.

Usually, there's a logical explanation for these types of things. In this case, I retraced my steps in my mind. My first thought was to check the switch. It was the same old switch that had previously not been used. Perhaps it was faulty. I replaced it with a new one.

Same problems.

Hmmm... all the wires from the switch and the attic come together in a junction box in the attic. Perhaps one of the wires is not making a good connection. So, off to the attic I went to check the junction box. I took it apart and put it back together. Let's check it again.

Lights still flickering! Oh my!

At this point, I was starting to feel quite befuddled. I checked the connections at the fixtures. Thinking that a wire might be broken or had a nail in it, I went into the attic and wiggled wires while the homeowner watched below to see if that changed anything. No luck.

At this point, it was time to pull out the box and find the instructions.

I started looking over the first page and read the words "Motion-Activated..."

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Mystery solved.

It turns out that the lights were a gift to the homeowner and he didn't realize they were motion-activated. I installed them without looking much at the box or instructions. The sensors were very small and matched the finish of the fixture and the adjustment knobs were hidden at the bottom where I didn't see them.

I was so glad to find the answer to this one. You know the old saying, "If at first you don't succeed, try reading the instructions." I'll take that to heart.

I guess it at least makes for a good story...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Installing Sliding Glass Patio Doors

2010-01-11T22:19:00.000-06:00

This great home in East Nashville has had quite a few updates including a laundry room on the back of the house. It's a nice addition complete with glass doors that let it lots of light. The problem is that the door swings into the room and competes with the washer and dryer for space. The old door is also had some water damage over the years.

The homeowner called me to replace the entire thing with a new sliding glass patio door that would seal better to keep out the elements, and not swing into the room when it was opened.

The main issue to consider is the size of the opening. Thankfully, the old doors fit in a 60" opening and this is a standard size for patio doors.

I started by carefully removing all the trim inside and out to reveal the door jamb. I saved the trim to reinstall around the new door. With the trim off, I could cut around the door jamb with a reciprocal saw to sever the nails and get the entire piece out as a unit. Now I could inspect the framing and see what I was dealing with.

(This is the moment where you have a big hole in the side of your house and you wonder if you really know what you're doing... :)

The new door had a vinyl frame with 'fins' that stuck out from all the sides. The fins get attached to the framing to secure the door. For that to work, I needed to have less than a 1/2" gap around the door, so I added plywood filler where necessary. To get the threshold at a good height to match the tile floor in the laundry room, I also needed to raise the bottom of the door up around 3/4".

After making sure the door was level, plumb, square, and lookin' good I shimmed it attached it with screws all the way around.

The next step involves sealing the perimeter of the door with a product called "flexible flashing". You can get it in rolls of various sizes. It's used to provide a moisture/vapor barrier around doors and windows. It's installed over the fins to cover up the screws and make it harder for moisture to get around that door.

Re-installing the trim should be an easy job, however, the new door is hardly ever the exact same dimensions as the old one. Thankfully, the new door was a little bigger, so I could make adjustments to the exterior trim and reuse them. The inside was harder because the patio door wasn't as thick as the old one. I had to rip a 3/4" board into 1" strips to fill around the door and then add casing over that.

Some caulk and paint, and this door is ready for business.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

How To Level the Floor Before You Tile

2010-01-08T13:29:00.005-06:00

Before you tile a floor you want to consider the structure below and make sure it's suitable for tile- strength, deflection, etc. It's also important to make sure the floor is pretty much level or at least flat.

Many times the back part of an older home presents a problem because it's often a porch that was enclosed, or in the case of my Inglewood renovation, likely an old breezeway. The floors are often a problem because the structure just wasn't constructed as well in the beginning.

The floor at my project mainly had a large dip around the doorway leading to the old garage that is now a den. It felt very solid and has likely been like this from the beginning. I don't think it has sunk over time. Here's how I took care of the problem using a nifty product called self-leveling cement.

1. First we need to define what level is and how bad your situation is. Often, you're dealing with an isolated part of the room. If it's a widespread problem, you will likely have framing issues to deal with. In my case, I could place a level on the floor and see that there was around a 5/8" dip from the edge of the kitchen to the den doorway. The bottom of the dip was actually very flat, it was just low.

2. Since the bottom of my low spot was 5/8" below level, I nailed a piece of 5/8" thick plywood there. This serves a couple purposes. A) It gives me a guide so that I know where level is. B) It makes a barrier so the self-leveling cement is contained in the kitchen and doesn't spill into the den. C) It saves me some extra cement, which means money. It runs around $33 for a 50 lb bag.

3. I'm now ready to fill the area between the plywood (the low spot) and the kitchen (identified as level). This project took at least an entire bag of self-leveling cement, if not a little more. I applied it in 2 batches, leaving the first one overnight before finishing with the second.

4. Basically, you just add water and pour it on the ground. Read all the installation instructions on the bag to get a good mix. You've got about 10 minutes to work with it, although there isn't much you need to do. I used a small piece of scrap wood as a screed board (like used to smooth concrete). This is mainly to push the cement around to the right spots and make sure it's evenly distributed. It will level itself all on it's own.

5. In small amounts, it will dry really quickly and you can even tile over it the same day. I'll give mine a day or two before I lay Hardibacker over it and then tile.

It's a little extra work, but in the end you'll be glad to have a level floor, especially if you're planning to sell to a discriminating home buyer someday.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Drywall for an Arched Doorway

2010-01-07T22:02:00.006-06:00

The Tudor inspired home that I'm currently renovating (see these posts) has several arched doorways with curved corners. I recently widened the doorway between the dining room and kitchen in this smaller home to open up the space and improve the traffic flow through the kitchen.

Check out this post to see how I did the framing for the curved corners. Now it's time to drywall those curves.

There are a few ways to approach hanging drywall on a curve like this. You could use very thin 1/4" drywall that is somewhat flexible if your curve isn't too sharp. I've even heard of wetting the drywall and letting it hang between a couple sawhorses to bend into a nice curve. I'm going to use a different approach.

First, I cut the piece to the right width and then marked on the back where the curve would be. Then, I made a series of cuts to score the back every inch or so. This allows the drywall to curve (and I didn't have to get it wet.. :).

After the drywall is in place, it's time to add a product called flexible corner bead. Normal corners have a rigid corner bead, but this one is meant to be bent around a corner. It works great, but you'll likely have to add a lot of screws around the flexible edge that's made up of a lot of small tabs. You want to make sure they are laying down flush with the wall and not sticking up where they'll become a problem when you mud the corners.

In the background of this photo you can see the arched doorway into the living room that I was trying to match. Hopefully, future homeowners will just think it was always like this!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

The Most Profitable Remodeling Projects for You

2010-01-06T18:16:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I wrote about Remodeling Magazines current Cost vs. Value report. (www.CostVsValue.com). It's the results of their research into what projects hold the most value when it comes to selling your home.

Anyway, here's my opinion. I'd say that the most profitable projects are ones where you're adding finished square footage to your home. It might be finishing a garage to become a den or converting an attic into a master suite. Even adding a sunroom on the back. These can actually make you money when it's time to sell.

Hang with me and let's look at some real numbers...

For example, I recently converted an unfinished garage to become office space in a smaller home. It added around 200 square feet to the house. The homeowner should easily get at least $100+ a square foot when they sell, which means this additional space will bring an additional $20,000! With construction costs around $10,000, this renovation just made them $10,000 or more in profit!

In addition, the homeowner gets to enjoy the space while they live there. Truly a win-win scenario.

Here are a couple other things to think about when you're remodeling:
1. Be careful not to over-build for your neighborhood. For example, if all the homes on your street are small 2 bedroom homes with around 1000 square feet, you may not want to add that 1500 square foot addition. If all the other homes are carpet and vinyl flooring, you may not see much return by replacing it all with hardwood and tile.

2. Call a Realtor. Before I was a contractor, I was a Realtor helping buyers and sellers with their home sales. I had worked with dozens of clients and developed a real feel for what buyers in my area were looking for and what they wouldn't like. Find one that you like and talk to them about any major renovations that you're considering. They are bound to have some great input and might even save you some money (and headaches).

3. When finishing an attic or basement, keep in mind that there are often rules about minimum ceiling height allowed to officially count the space as finished square feet when you sell. This makes a huge difference, especially in an attic space that feels huge, but has shorter knee-walls around the sides. This lower space normally doesn't count toward the square footage of the home. Again, you might check with your Realtor on this one.

So, if you're ready to finish off that basement, give me a call and let me make you some money, eh? :)

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Cost vs. Value Report for Remodeling Projects

2010-01-05T21:42:00.006-06:00

There are many motivating reasons for improving your home. Most of the time it's because you'll enjoy the results, but often it's also because you want your home to be more attractive to future homebuyers.

As you consider different projects to tackle you might want to check out Remodeling Magazine's Cost vs. Value report. (www.CostVsValue.com)

It's an amazing amount of information that you can sort through by geographical region. Unfortunately, they don't feature a section on Nashville, but you can view information on Knoxville and Memphis and get an idea of what the numbers would be here in Middle Tennessee.

For a "midrange" home, adding an attic bedroom was the top choice, preserving 90% of it's value at resale. This means if you spend $10,000 to do the project, you'd make an addition $9,000 when you sell the home.

For a "high-end" home, adding or renovating a bathroom was at the top of the list, preserving around 60% of it's value.

See the interactive report here: www.CostVsValue.com.

I'll give you some of my thoughts on the subject in my next post when I discuss the projects that I think are the most profitable.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Build a Basic Cabinet

2010-01-04T08:18:00.008-06:00

After removing some kitchen cabinets next to the sink to make room for the new dishwasher, (see this post), I had a 36" space to work with. The dishwasher is only 24" wide, so what should we do with the extra 12"?

Let's build a cabinet.

The homeowners wanted something simple so I thought I could make a 12" cabinet to match the originals in the kitchen, except it would have two open shelves rather than any doors or drawers. Here's the basic process:

CABINET FACE

1. The hardest part is to make the face of the cabinet. Before you start, consider the exact width and height and exactly where you want the shelves and toe kick. For this project, I could easily measure the existing cabinets and design mine to match.

2. Once I had the dimensions in mind, I ripped some old boards that came from the house that were the same thickness as the original 7/8" thick cabinet faces.

3. Make the joints. The original cabinets were assembled using something called a half-lap joint. It's made by removing half of each piece so that when they are joined the surfaces are flush. It's sort of like working with Lincoln Logs... :)

I cut the joints on my table saw by setting the fence to the maximum depth of the joint, in my case, 1 1/2". I set the saw depth so that it would cut exactly half-way through the piece. After the first cut, make successive cuts from that point all the way to the end of the piece or as wide as the notch needs to be. (By the way, use all the appropriate safety precautions so you keep your fingers.) It's a great idea to test fit a couple pieces and adjust the height and fence until you're sure that the pieces will fit snugly and flush with each other.

4. I dry-fit the face of the cabinet to make sure it was right and then assembled it with glue and clamped it in place until it was dry.

CABINET BODY
5. Next, I needed to make the body of the cabinet which would consist of plywood sides and back. I cut the sides first out of cabinet-grade 3/4" plywood which is sanded smooth and free of knots, etc. The quality for this is not all that important because it will be hidden. Mainly, for this cabinet, I'm trying to match the quality of the original cabinets that were 70 years old...

6. The last piece would be the plywood for the back. This adds strength and holds it all together. Usually, some 1/4" plywood is fine for this.

7. With a smaller cabinet, this is a good time to think about shelf supports because it's easier to install them before the cabinet is assembled. Usually, a simple piece 3/4" plywood along the side is enough to hold the shelves. Make sure that you adjust the height of the supports so that the shelf height is flush with the face frame. This allows the face piece to hide the edge of the shelf and makes it look much better.

LET'S ASSEMBLE
8. This cabinet would be painted, so It wasn't as important to hide all the fasteners and get too fancy. Remember, I'm trying to keep it simple and not spend to much time (and money) to get this cabinet done. So, instead of assembling with biscuits or even pocket screws, I stood the pieces up, made sure everything was square, glued and nailed them in place with my finish nailer. With a little putty those nail holes will disappear after it's painted.

9. All that's left is to cut a couple shelves to the right size and add the toe kick. I suppose you wouldn't have to nail the shelves in place, but I like to secure them unless they are adjustable.

10. Lastly, add a corner brace or two in the places where the countertop will be secured. You'll be happy you did when you go to screw down the countertop.

Paint it and you're done! For mine, the paint will come later. It was still fun to create a functional piece like this that will get a lot of use and match the original cabinets.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Add a Dishwasher and Save the Cabinet!

2010-01-03T21:32:00.011-06:00

Of course, our Inglewood project house from the 1940's wasn't designed with a space for a dishwasher. However, it's almost a requirement for today's lifestyle, especially if you want your home to be more appealing to home buyers.

This kitchen had one bank of cabinets along the exterior wall while the stove sat on the interior wall. There weren't many cabinets to begin with and even less counter space. We knew we wanted to replace the counter and add a new tile backsplash, but how would we fit a dishwasher into this space? Could we also add more counterspace while we're at it?

Yes!

At first we tossed around the idea of building a separate cabinet that would contain the dishwasher next to the stove. This may have worked, but presented problems making the plumbing connections because the dishwasher would be on the opposite wall from the sink.

The better option would be to remove some cabinets and add the dishwasher next to the sink, saving and repairing the cabinets to be placed on the interior wall next to the stove. This plan would solve the plumbing issues and give the homeowners nearly 36" more counterspace next to the stove. That's a win-win!

(I also widened the doorway in the kitchen picture above to help the traffic flow and better connect the kitchen to the cozy dining area. See this post)

After removing the old tile and countertop, I carefully thought about how to cut out the cabinet that was in the way of the forthcoming dishwasher. If I did it right, it could be easily repaired.

I started at the edge of the sink cabinet and made a vertical cut using mostly my jig saw, but also the reciprocal saw in the places (like along the back) where the jig saw wouldn't fit. The most important part would be the faces of the cabinets. In our case, this would all be painted, however, I still needed to make straight cuts.

These cabinets were originally built as one large unit, rather than individual cabinets. This meant that once I made the cuts, I was left with a cabinet that was open on the end. I wanted to repair this so that the cabinet could be reused.

I started by making a new end piece for the face. Thankfully, I had some scrap of the original stock that was around 7/8" thick. (Typical stock nowadays is 3/4"). If possible, it's best to match the original materials as exactly as you can to make it look like it's always been there.

I ripped the board to the same width as the rest of the cabinet face pieces and attached it using wood glue and small finish nails. The big thing here is to make sure the pieces are attached squarely so that the door and drawers will fit and not rub. If you need to, you can sand or plane the door as needed.

Once the face was fully assembled I just needed to cut out an end piece from a sheet of cabinet-grade plywood that I had picked up. Higher grade plywood is nicer because it often has more plys (making it stronger) and less defects on the sanded surface. Mine had zero knots and would paint very well.

With a couple coats of paint, this cabinet will be ready to go.

If you'll remember, we removed 36" of cabinets to install a 24" dishwasher. What about those extra 12 inches?? For that, I built a small two-shelf cabinet from scratch. I'll cover that in my next post.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Drywall Over a Plaster Ceiling

2009-12-31T11:30:00.006-06:00

The Inglewood home we're remodeling is full of plaster from around 1940. Earlier plaster walls consisted of coats of plaster applied over wood lath that supported the plaster. In the 1930's something called "rock lath" was developed which was basically a pre-manufactured gypsum board made of plaster between two layers of paper. It's very similar to today's drywall, except that it was generally 16" or 24" by 48".

Throughout our project house, the walls have held up fairly well, though there are often cracks at the points where the old rock lath are joined. We've left most of that, repairing the worst ones.

The living room, has suffered more damage because of the failure of the roof flashing around the chimney. This has been fixed and now we're putting the ceiling back together. Because of the many cracks and previous patches to the living room ceiling, we've decided to drywall over it. Leaving the plaster in place serves two purposes: 1) It's way less mess and work involved & 2) the current ceiling insulation will stay intact.

The ceiling joists are nearly 16" on center. I say nearly, because it's not quite consistent throughout. Our drywall needs to be securely secured so we'll need to first add furring strips that will support the drywall.

To make furring strips I ripped a 2x4 into thirds, around 1 1/8" each. I attached these to the ceiling using screws after marking the ceiling joists so that my screws would actually hit something solid. My furring strips were exactly 16" apart giving me plenty of places to attach the drywall.

Don't forget to adjust any electrical boxes so they are flush with the new finished surface.

Once again, the drywall panel lift was an invaluable tool for helping me raise the nearly 12 foot pieces to the ceiling. It rents for around $30 for 4 hours from Home Depot and is worth every penny.

After three coats of joint compound and a sanding, the living room has a perfectly new ceiling. Although, I'm not sure anyone will appreciate it as much as I do...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Make Arched Corners for a Doorway

2009-12-29T18:45:00.009-06:00

The home that I'm currently working on has quite a few Tudor characteristics throughout, including a couple arched doorways in the kitchen and living room. The homeowners wanted to open up the wall leading into the kitchen with a larger doorway and match the corners to the others. Here's how I did it:

1. Open up wall and reframe the larger opening with new header. Our wall IS load-bearing so I had to build a simple temporary wall on either side of the opening to carry the weight of the ceiling joists while I installed a new header and removed part of the wall. (Opening up a wall? See these posts.)

The opening would be around 5' wide, so a built-up 2x6 header would be called for. Make the header at the height equal to the highest point in your arched doorway.

If you wanted to keep the square corners you could just drywall over this new framing as it is, however, we want to make curved corners. These curves are for cosmetic purposes only, they will not carry any load, but rather just support the drywall.

2. Frame the corners. Depending on how large of a curve, you'll have a few options for this. If it's a larger curve you may want to cut the profile out of a piece of plywood for either side of the wall and then frame in between to hold it together. Mainly, you want to have plenty of places to screw your drywall, especially along the edges where you'll add the cornerbead.

Our curves weren't very large, so I was able to cut the entire profile out of some scrap pieces of 2x6 lumber. I made the first one by tracing the curve onto it from one of the existing doorways. Once one was complete, I used it as the template to make 3 more, giving me enough for both of the corners.

At this stage, remember where you want the finished wall to end up. If you're adding 1/2" drywall, the curves should account for this. I'm actually matching mine up to the old plaster, so I left them 1/2" from the surface of the plaster so I can patch with drywall and just tape and mud all the joints.

The curves can be nailed or screwed into place and you're finished. Be gentle so you don't split them and have to start over. The drywall will come in the next week or so as I begin work on the kitchen. Read it here.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Tips for Installing a Pedestal Sink

2009-12-22T16:20:00.006-06:00

At my Inglewood Cottage renovation project (these posts), we're trying to put things back together in a way that fits the older character of the home. This means the bathroom has new beadboard wainscoting and cool black-and-white hex tile. Next, of course, is the pedestal sink.

A pedestal sink is a common choice for a smaller bathroom when space is an issue. In this particular bathroom there is a huge toiletry closet behind the door, so there is plenty of storage. This is sometimes a concern when there will be no storage in the bathroom vanity.

The homeowners picked out a beautiful Kohler pedestal sink and it was time for me to install it. The old sinks usually had some metal brackets that first attached to the wall for the sink to rest on. I guess that was too easy... :) Now you have to find a way to attach the sink through the two holes provided. Because of the location of these holes under the sink where there's not usually any elbow room, you have to approach this differently.

Step zero: install the faucet and drain. It will be much easier for you if this is done before you attach it to the wall. You could wait to attach the connectors, but go ahead and get most of it installed.

Then, unless the hole is located right over a stud, you'll want to pick up a couple toggle bolts to attach the sink. I'm going through quite a bit of plaster and drywall, so I bought 4" toggle bolts.

Set the sink up with the pedestal and use a level to get it in the right spot. You want the surface of the sink to be level front-to-back and left-to-right. Once it's there, mark the two holes on the wall.

Next, drill a couple holes sized as recommended for your toggle bolts. My holes were 3/4". When that's done, you can put the toggle bolts through the sink and then insert them into the holes. Make they've sunk deep enough so that the 'wings' spread out against the back of the wall.

Now you need to tighten the toggle bolts. Some pedestal sinks may be designed so that you can actually get a screwdriver in there. However, many are not and you'll go crazy trying to figure out how to do it. Here's the secret: get a right angle screwdriver.

There are many versions of the ol' right angle screwdriver from fancy ratcheting ones, to cheap ones like mine that get the job done. I mainly just use this for installing pedestal sinks, but it's the right tool for the job.

Once it's secure you can hook up the plumbing and go have a nice day...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Three Headaches to Avoid When Installing a Toilet

2009-12-20T22:27:00.006-06:00

Toilets aren't much fun to deal with, however whenever you're renovating a bathroom, you'll probably need to remove and reset the toilet or possibly install a new one. Here are three tips that will save you some frustration when you go to put the toilet in.

1. This is a biggie: Make sure that the toilet flange bolts are at least 12" away from the finished wall. (Sometimes called a 12" rough-in.) This is the minimum amount of clearance that you'll need to fit most standard toilets. The problems often come after you've added something to the wall, such as tile or beadboard wainscoting, that reduces the room you have for your toilet. Take this seriously and think about it ahead of time.

The best fix is to move the flange over if possible. This is what I did for this project, however, if you're dealing with old cast iron pipes in the crawlspace you don't want to hear that. You might be able to install something called an "offset flange" that will buy you an inch or two and may save the day.

If you're stuck with a flange that's simply too close to the wall, you'll have to go shopping for a toilet that will fit. The big home stores usually stock 1 toilet that will fit in a 10" space (measuring from the bolts to the wall.) You could also search the salvage yard for an toilet that will fit. Yep, that would be a used toilet... :)

2. Make sure your connections are right. Especially when you're replacing an old toilet, you may have a connections that aren't compatible with the modern 3/8" compression connectors. You may need an extra adapter fitting to get everything to connect. Also, the height of your new toilet may be different than the old, needing a longer connector than you have on hand to make it work.

3. When you're installing the nuts, don't forget the plastic covers. Install the plastic base before the washer and nut. IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure the plastic base is installed with the correct side up. It will probably say on the top "this side up." This is important for making the cover snap together with the base piece.

You can probably tell that I've dealt with all of the above situations before. If you think ahead in these situations you can save yourself some frustration and perhaps a couple extra trips to Home Depot.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Eye-Catching Hex Tile for the Bathroom

2009-12-15T06:06:00.001-06:00

With the tub and surround installed (see this post) it's finally time to do some tile.

This bathroom was desperately needing some charm when we started. Well, it's going to get it, starting with some old-fashioned-looking white hex tile with black squares.

The old vinyl flooring was installed with adhesive over a thin layer of 1/4" plywood. This was all removed to discover a layer of 3/4" oak boards over a 3/4" pine subfloor. Many of the oak boards had water damage around the toilet, so I went ahead and removed all of them and added a layer of 3/4" plywood throughout the bathroom. This will give me a nice solid surface to tile over.

Before tiling, I installed a layer of 1/4" Hardibacker cementboard. I like to use this product because it won't soak up moisture and expand the way that plywood does. This helps to prevent cracks in the tile and grout over time. We want this tile to last a long, long time.

Like other small tiles, this comes on sheets to aid in installation. I love the look of this tile. It's a very classic design, yet quite remarkable nonetheless.

(Side note: Did you ever see one of those geometric calendars that are supposed to contain a hidden picture if you stare at them and let your eyes focus beyond the picture? Well, try it with a floor like this sometime. You might see the black squares 'popping out' of the design and make some interesting figures... ) (I'm okay, really)

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Custom Fit for Tub and Surround

2009-12-14T17:23:00.009-06:00

Everything seems a little more difficult when you're working on an old house. My current project is a 1940's home full of plaster walls and original trimwork. Nice to look at, but tricky to work with. I guess it's a good thing that I like a challenge...

PROBLEM 1: WINDOW IN THE SHOWER
The bathroom was probably not originally designed to include a shower so the window was never a problem. Now, a shower is a requirement, so the question is, "What to do with the window?" There are a few ways to deal with a window in the shower:

1. Remove it completely. This might be easier with a wood-sided house because you could patch the hole. This home is brick, making this a more expensive and difficult option.

2. Replace with glass blocks. This is also expensive and labor-intensive. It's also tricky if the window hole is not the appropriate size for 8" glass blocks plus mortar lines. It would be a better solution if the surround was going to be tiled. Irregardless of cost, this is probably my favorite solution in most cases.

3. Replace with an all-vinyl window and vinyl trim. Not a great idea, but probably better than wood. In an older home, it would be expensive to get a window that matched the others. You'd still want to get some kind of frosted glass for privacy, and a plastic curtain might still be a good idea to keep water out of the window sill.

4. Leave the old window and put a plastic curtain over it. Quick and easy, right?! (And cheap!) This was the solution that this homeowner decided to go with. It would also work okay with the new acrylic surround, except that I'd have to carefully cut a window out of the surround as you can see in the picture. The trim will come right up to the cut and get caulked with waterproof caulk throughout. When we're finished a small plastic curtain will be installed so that the water will be deflected from the window.

PROBLEM 2: ROOM IS TOO WIDE

The distance between the original plaster walls was 60". However, the new tub and surround is supposed to attach directly to the studs. After removing the plaster the space for the tub was 60 3/4" wide, making the hole 3/4" too big.

As I told the homeowner, who is a musician, this was a time for some improvisation. :)

The solution that I came up with was to slide the tub to the left. This means that only the right side had a problem. I needed to build it out 3/4" by attaching some scrap 3/4" plywood to the studs. I could now install the tub and surround. This worked great, but it meant that I'd now have to cover the entire wall with a layer of 1/2" drywall to finish out around the surround & tub.

The problems with older homes can normally be solved, but these are the reasons why sometimes it's just easier to gut the place in the beginning and start over... not that I'm suggesting that or anything...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

My Buddies at Home Depot

2009-12-09T08:03:00.002-06:00

My son Noah is 5 which means he loves working with any kind of tools to build things, especially when he gets to help me on a project.

Last weekend we were painting our house and made a Home Depot run to buy paint. Before we left, Noah had to suit up in his work apron and, of course, his hard hat. The crew at Home Depot enjoyed seeing him and we had to get a picture with the 'snow man' in the tool rental department.

Now you know that we take our work very seriously around our house... :)

Merry Christmas!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Time For a New Basement Door

2009-12-08T07:08:00.005-06:00

The small home that we're renovating has a full unfinished basement with a concrete floor. This has made our under-the-house repairs much easier. However, there's also an exterior door down there. It had completely rotted and been boarded up. Time for a new one.

First, let me mention that many of these older homes are built with downstairs door just like this. The huge problem with this is that water will pool at the bottom of the stairs and eventually damage the door and possibly get into the basement. The very best solution is usually to build some sort of roof covering over the stairs so that it stays dry. For our project, I would just be replacing the door, but using materials that might last a little longer.

I started by ripping out the old door, which was pretty easy considering its condition. The homeowner bought a salvaged 32" exterior door at Hailey's Salvage. My plan was to first build the door frame out of pressure treated 2x8 and then install the unit and trim around the edges to close the gaps as well as possible.

Knowing that water would pool at the bottom of these stairs, I wanted to prevent the door from sitting in the water as much as possible. For this reason, I actually made a threshold out of a treated 2x8 and then put door stop trim all the way around the inside of the jamb, including across the bottom. Not only will this close the air gaps, but hopefully also be another roadblock to any water entry and get the door up off of the floor.

To attach the frame to the masonry walls I first attached some plywood nailers on either side using some long Tapcon screws. I actually had some treated plywood scraps around that worked great because they are less likely to split than using other lumber. This held quite well and once they were installed it was just a matter of installing the door frame, leveling it up and nailing it in like any other door installation.

The entire door frame is made out of pressure treated lumber, ready to battle those elements...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Solder a Simple Copper Connection

2009-12-07T22:01:00.004-06:00

The cottage renovation is in full swing. We're starting at the bottom and working our way up. That means that we needed to replace a few pipes in the basement that were old galvanized steel and deteriorated to the point that it was reducing the water pressure.

Mostly, I was using PEX with copper crimp rings and barb fittings, however, there were a couple copper connections needed near the water heater. (You're not supposed to use any plastic pipe, such as PEX or CPVC within 18" of the water heater.) Anyway, I thought I'd share the simple process for a solder joint when working with copper.

To get started you might pick up a basic soldering pack at the hardware store. It might contain a small propane torch, solder, flux, and flux brush.

1. Cleanly cut the copper pipe. It's best to use a pipe cutter meant for this purpose because you'll get a square cut. It's much more difficult with a hacksaw.

2. Clean the pipe. I've got a helpful little tool with steel brushes for both 1/2" and 3/4" pipe. A small piece of sandpaper can also do the job. You want to scrub the pipe until the copper is shiny. Family Handyman, in this article about soldering copper, calls cleaning the pipe "the A-1 key to copper soldering success". Don't skip this step. (By the way, you can even reuse old copper pipes if you clean it properly to make a good connection.)

3. Brush some flux on the areas to be soldered, both the end of the pipe and the inside of the fitting. Flux is a chemical composition that helps clean the copper to prepare it for solder and it also helps in the heat transfer.

4. Heat the fitting with a propane torch. Notice I said to heat the fitting. This is important. Specifically, you want to apply the heat to the female end of the fitting that's receiving the pipe. The flux helps the heat to also heat up the pipe inside. Move the flame back-and-forth across the fitting to heat it evenly.

5. Hold the solder on the joint in a spot opposite the flame. This is the coldest part and you want it to be hot enough to accept the solder. When the fitting is hot enough it will just 'suck' the solder in and you're done. Enough solder should be taken in that it drips out the bottom of the fitting, but there's no need to overdo it. The heat will do the work.

6. Let the pipe cool. It will stay hot for a while. In my case, I later attached some 1/2" PEX to the barb on this fitting using copper rings with a PEX crimp tool... but, that's a lesson for another day...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Flip This 1940's Cottage

2009-12-04T20:40:00.006-06:00

I started a new project this week that will consume my time for the next few weeks. One of my favorite clients is a real estate investor who has enlisted me to help him renovate a brick cottage in Inglewood. I thought I'd share some 'before' pics to give you an idea of what we're dealing with.

The main bedrooms and living room are full of beautiful old stained trimwork. Thankfully, the trim, doors and windows have never been painted and they still look great aside from a few careless paint drips. We're hoping that some matching hardwood floors can be resurrected after the carpet is removed as well.

In addition to some upgrades to the plumbing and electrical systems, most of the work that we'll tackle will be cosmetic, which means we get to do some really fun stuff.

The kitchen will be a main focus. The cabinets will stay, but there will be new counters with a tile backsplash and floors as well as a new dishwasher.

The old bathroom is quite small, but will be completely redone with new fixtures, hex tile floors, and beadboard wainscoting. Hopefully, I can add some of the 'old-house character' while including modern conveniences.

The living room is actually in decent shape aside from where there was a leak beside the chimney due to failed roof flashing. The roof repairs are done so we'll soon begin patching the walls and drywalling over the plaster ceiling which is full of cracks.

It seems like quite a bit of work at this point, but it will fly by. Stay tuned to watch the progress!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Open Up The Kitchen Wall

2009-11-25T13:32:00.011-06:00

After seeing the results of one of my recent projects where I opened up the wall in one of their neighbor's kitchens (this project), these homeowners decided to have me do the same to their home. It's always a rewarding project when you get to be part of such a dramatic transformation in such a short amount of time.

This a newer neighborhood so the homes, although somewhat different, are built with nearly the same layout, making this job very similar to the other one that I did. This was NOT a load-bearing wall, which helps speed things up and saves a little money as well.

The countertop was made by my friend Chris Barber over at Barber Woodworking. It's made out of red oak and stained with an "Early American" stain color to nearly perfectly match the cabinets throughout the kitchen. As always, Chris does great work and created a wonderful centerpiece for this entertaining space.

In this picture you can see where Chris was scribing the end that would butt up to the wall so that he could cut it to fit perfectly. He used the same bolting system as last time to secure the countertop to the framing. (See this post.)

I also installed three art-glass pendant lights that not only provide a lot of light to show off the new countertop, but also bring out some of the homeowner's character in the project.

With a Thanksgiving gathering coming up, I'm sure these clients will enjoy sharing their transformed kitchen with friends and family who will gather there.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

The Office that Was A Garage

2009-11-23T21:20:00.000-06:00

We passed our final inspections and I wanted to show off some pictures of a recent project that involved changing an old garage into new finished space that's slated to be an office.

When I started the uninsulated walls were covered with 3/4" boards and the floor was very rough concrete that was far from level. After gutting the walls to the studs it was time to pour a new slab to level the floor and add a back patio.

The room also held all the laundry facilities and service panel, so the idea was enclose all of this in closets to hide the mess while still keeping it easily accessible. I framed in the walls and had John Dorn Electric come out and do all the updated wiring. I also insulated all the exterior walls and the attic.

In addition to moving the door over to make room for the utility closet, I added a large front window that I found at a salvage yard. It was quite a find because it fits in naturally with the other older windows in the house. It even had the old counter-weights intact. The Jeld-Wen casement window on the end of the home and the fantastic solid-wood back door were also treasures from the salvage yard.

After a week of drywall work it was time to add trim from top to bottom. The small shelf that runs along the lower part of the wall covers the old concrete block that was at the base of the garage walls. I also added crown moulding and baseboard to match the interior of the home.

Before I was done I also added some tile around the back door where the floors will get the most wear and tear.

It was an fun project because of the variety of parts that came together to create this new space for the homeowner. She also had the house painted while I was there, so the changes were that much more dramatic, inside and out.

With an additional 200+ square feet, finishing this space added around 25% more living space to this cozy little home in East Nashville. It was my pleasure to play a part in the changes that will be enjoyed for decades to come...

-Peter

http://www.carpentryguy.com/

How To Fix A Wobbly Half Wall on A Slab

2009-11-20T16:59:00.007-06:00

In opening up the wall between the dining room and kitchen at my current project, I've found that the remaining half wall is very wobbly and tends to lean back and forth. This is a problem because we'll be putting a bar top on this wall and it's likely that someone will lean on it from time to time.

This particular wall is resting on a cement slab. Here's how I successfully stiffened up the wall...

1. Remove enough drywall to access the floor plate (the flat 2x4 that runs along the bottom of the wall.)

2. I'm using something called a "hex sleeve anchor" to secure the bottom plate to the floor. The idea is to drill a hole in the cement then drive these down. As you tighten the nut it draws the bolt upward and spreads the anchor out which makes a very tight fit in the concrete. I'm using 3/8" diameter bolts that are 3" long.

3. Drill a 3/8" hole through the floor plate with a standard wood bit, then, switch to a hammer drill with a 3/8" masonry bit to drill at least a couple inches into the concrete. You want the hole to be deeper than the bolt by at least 1/2" or more. This gives some space for the debris that accumulates at the bottom.

4. Carefully tap the anchor into the hole you just drilled. Make sure you strike it squarely so you don't bend the bolt and make it impossible to tighten the nut. (Trust me on this one... :) Drive it down until the washer is resting on the 2x4.

5. Use a socket wrench to tightened the nut until the floor plate is snug against the floor.

I used this process to insert four bolts and it did the trick. I found this to hold better than other methods such as using Tapcon screws.

The anchors hold the bottom plate very securely and greatly reduced the movement of the wall, but I also needed some extra bracing to keep the studs from moving back and forth on the bottom plate. For this I used a couple scrap 2x6's with 45 degree angles on each end. I nailed it in place and even drove some heavy duty Spax screws into it as well.

In the end the half-wall felt much more solid and is ready for the countertop which will also strengthen it up even more.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Don't Supersize That Header!

2009-11-19T20:22:00.005-06:00

I've started a new project where I'll be opening up the wall between a client's kitchen and dining room. I started removing drywall and found this enormous header above the doorway...

And it's a NON load-bearing wall!

The header is a double 2x10 with a flat 2x4 on the bottom. In a non-bearing wall like this the flat 2x4 is all that you need so this is overkill. Most likely, the builders had some 2x10 scraps laying around and decided to use it. However, I also did some renovations at the neighbors home and it had the exact same header. Hmmm...

Even if it was load bearing, this is grossly oversized. I guess it doesn't hurt anything, but it's always best to use the appropriate materials for the job, and that includes the right size of materials...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

New Counters and A Dishwasher

2009-11-18T20:54:00.002-06:00

When these clients were looking to buy a home they were hoping for one with a dishwasher. The home they ended up buying fit their family well, but... no dishwasher. That's when they called me...

Installing a dishwasher from scratch takes a variety of skills. There's electrical work, plumbing, and perhaps some carpentry as well in this case. The dishwasher would be installed in a spot where the fridge used to live. Since I'd need to some sort of counter above the dishwasher, the homeowners decided to go ahead and replace all the countertops with new laminate ones.

I installed a new 20 amp circuit and ran 12-2 wire to the location through the basement. I was also adding a garbage disposal under the sink, so I ran an additional circuit for that as well.

The dishwasher is only 24" wide (standard size), but the space where the fridge used to be was nearly 36". To finish it off, I installed an end panel next to the dishwasher consisting of stained 1/2" hardwood plywood capped with a thin strip of stained poplar. This left a space that was around 10" wide that the homeowner could use for storage shelves.

As best that I could, I tried to use a stain on the end panel that would match the older cabinets. I've had pretty good results using a Minwax stain color called "Ipswich Pine". It's has a little orange tinge to it which matches the older woodwork fairly well.

Not only did they add a dishwasher which will save them time, but they got another three feet of counter space out of the project as well as a new garbage disposal. Isn't it amazing how these sorts of 'luxuries' are missed once you've gotten used to using them!

Let's hear it for indoor plumbing! :)

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

How To Add Valves Under The Sink

2009-11-17T22:01:00.006-06:00

When it comes to plumbing repairs, valves are your friend. If you have a valve under the toilet, for instance, you don't have to find the main shut-off, which is often in the deep recesses of a crawlspace. Instead, you can turn off the water supply to the toilet, swap out the fixture, and turn it back on.

If you don't have a valve, by all means, add one when you're working on it!!

I'm working on a short kitchen project right now where I'll be adding a dishwasher and garbage disposal to an older kitchen. There are no valves in the kitchen, so adding some was the first step of my project. It's fairly basic, but that doesn't make it easy.

Often older homes have galvanized lines that corrode enough to make it hard to work with, but not quite enough to replace all of it. Here are some hints:

1. Turn off the water somewhere, usually the home's main water shut-off valve. If it's in the back of a crawlspace, it may be easier to shut if off at the street if it's easily accessible. Once the water is off, turn on a fixture in the lowest part of the home to drain as much of the water out of the system as possible. No use making any more mess than needed, right?

2. Disconnect the current supply lines- under the sink, in my case. If they are stuck, you might try using a little WD-40 to loosen them up.

3. Connect your valve. That's sometimes easier said than done. The valve section at Home Depot must have at least two dozen different types of valves. Which one do you need? Here's a starting point for you- most of the time, the hot/cold supply lines under the sink are 1/2" galvanized. The means you want a valve with one end labeled 1/2" FIP. This stands for "Female Iron Pipe because the valve will be threaded inside to receive the male end of the pipe that's under the sink.

The faucet connector after the valve can be tricky. If it's newer, it's most likely a 3/8" compression fitting. These are, by far, the most common for new fixtures. However if you're adding a valve you've probably got the original supply lines which could be any number of things. If you're unsure what it is, just take all the parts to the home store with you and get whatever fittings are needed to put it back together.

The iron pipe side is usually connected with Teflon tape or pipe dope, which is a gooey form of pipe thread sealant that you can 'paint' on the threads. Compression fittings don't need Teflon sealant.

4. Test and fix any drips. Drips happen. Usually it's a matter of tightening up your connections or redoing it with more sealant.

NOTE ABOUT DISHWASHER CONNECTIONS

You'll see that I chose a dual outlet valve for this project. That allows me to connect the water line as well as the dishwasher to this one valve. Quite handy, eh? I've put a cap on it for now because I haven't got the dishwasher installed quite yet.

When in doubt, call a plumber... :)

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

New 18" Tile Floors for Two Bathrooms

2009-11-14T16:34:00.004-06:00

I spent the last few days working in Mt. Juliet at a beautiful new home. Most of the time, new homes are marketed with lots of space, but not necessarily many upgrades inside. These clients have been working hard to make their newer home a showplace with lots of custom trim, tile and paint colors. They called me to lay tile in their two upstairs bathrooms.

Both the upstairs master bath and guest bath came with vinyl floors and white walls. The homeowners wanted the floors to seem as much like one large piece of tile as possible. We did this by using huge 18" tiles and very small 1/8" grout lines.

The tiles are glazed porcelain, which is a ceramic tile that has a coating of porcelain making it nearly impervious to stains or mildew as well as easy to clean.

I started by laying 1/4" Hardibacker cement board throughout both bathrooms over a layer of modified thinset. The purpose of the thinset is to give a solid supporting layer underneath the cement board and fill any small holes or cracks. The cementboard is very resistant to moisture and won't expand or contract like a wood subfloor does.

One of the other tricks to this project was that it was upstairs in a home full of white carpet! A scary thought when you consider carrying around a bucket of tabacco-colored grout. Nonetheless, with ample preparations like lots of plastic anywhere that I might decide to walk and dropcloths in the work areas the carpets were still white when I left!

Working with 18" tile isn't that different than other tiles. I have a small tablesaw-like wet saw which cuts these tiles without a problem despite it's small size and 4 1/4" blade. Some of the sliding-table wet saws will not work with 18" tile because the arm that holds the motor will be in the way of the large tile.

At the end of an intense four days, the floor was looking great but will be even better when accompanied by some color on those walls, which, I'm sure, is coming soon...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Tile A Doorway in ONE Day!

2009-11-11T21:04:00.007-06:00

My garage conversion project is winding down to the final details. The room has a cement floor (remember this post?). All along, the plan was to carpet the entire room, however, as we got close to finishing, the homeowner asked me if I'd lay some tile at the backdoor.

Tile at doorways is a great idea because this area will get the most wear and tear from wet and dirty feet that come through the door. A ceramic tile will endure the torment for years to come and still look great. For this project, I would only be tiling a 4' x 4' area connecting the backdoor with the utility closet where the mud sink is.

I did it in one day.

How you ask? With a nifty product called SpeedSet. I'm sure there are other brands out there, but it's a quick-setting thinset mortar that allows you to grout the tile 2 hours after laying it. It's great for small applications like this or time sensitive projects when you don't have the luxury of time to wait on thinset to cure.

I laid the tile after lunch and grouted it before I left for the day. Check that project off of the punch list!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Fix for Rotted Sill Plate

2009-11-02T19:01:00.008-06:00

I got to spend the morning in a crawlspace repairing a small amount of rotted sill plate. A sill plate is the piece of lumber than runs horizontally along the top of a foundation that the floor joists rest on.

In this case a bathroom leak years ago had caused the wood to rot in this one particular part of the house. It was discovered during a home inspection and I was brought in to fix the issue.

There are a couple different issues to address with this. First, I focused on removing the rotted portion. Other than being difficult to access, it was fairly easy to chip out with a wood chisel. There were still pieces on either side of the damage that were solid and doing their job holding up the floor.

Modern codes require that lumber that comes in contact with masonry like this is pressure treated to resist rot. This wasn't the case when this home was built or perhaps I wouldn't have a sill to replace. Anyway, I replaced about 5 feet of the sill with a piece of treated lumber.

The floor had sagged about 1/2" because of the deterioration, however, because there was a tile floor in the bathroom above, my goal was not to raise the floor back up, but rather to stabilize it so it doesn't move any more. If I try to correct the sag I'll likely crack all the tile above and have more issues to deal with.

This brings us to the second phase of this project which was to add additional support. The sill plate was rotted all the way through in this area, but some of the rot extended into the very ends of the floor joists where they made contact with the sill plate. To add support to the joists, I installed a couple steel jacks under a 6' treated 4x4 that would extend across all the affected joists. A couple of the joists were sagging more than others so I shimmed the high ones so they were all supported by the new beam.

Adding a beam like this is a very common method for adding additional support to an area affected by rot or termite damage, or possibly just undersized framing, etc. It's important to install a beam so that you are spreading the load from several joists, rather than simply jacking up just one joist. If you do this, you'll most likely have a distinctive 'hump' in the floor because the jack is only raising the one point instead of a wider area.

I finished the repair and crawled out of the hole that was my worksite for the day, thankful to stretch my legs and see some sunlight again.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

The Baseboard Puzzle

2009-10-29T21:25:00.005-05:00

Trim is usually a highlight of a project, mainly because I'm finally doing something that people will see and enjoy, as opposed to framing which is important but hidden in the walls.

The room that used to be an old garage is becoming a nice office or bedroom, looking nothing like its former self. One of the main details of the room was the small ledge that was created by the cement block wall that runs around the lower portion of room. This was an opportunity to reuse a few of the old 1x8 boards that were covering the garage walls when I started.

Most of the baseboard was straight-forward, but I did have to spend some time running baseboard up each side of the steps. (See this post about building the steps.)

On the right side, I even had to go around the corner at the bottom. If you're working a puzzle like this, my advice is to dry fit several pieces and then tack them together with brads and glue before installing them on the wall. If your steps are square, then you should be able to get tight joints. The steps will later be finished off with carpet.

It took a couple days to get all the trim done and prepped for paint, but now I'm ready for the paint brush. Stay tuned for some color...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

The Finished Tile Vanity Countertop

2009-10-22T18:32:00.004-05:00

Many moons ago, I wrote a couple posts about how to tile a countertop. Check these out to see how I did it:

How to Tile a Countertop: Preparations

How to Tile a Countertop: Lay Tile

Anyway, I wanted to wait until the bathroom was finished to post a finished picture, but about forgot to follow through! Now you can see the finished picture of the tile vanity top that I was working on.

This was a fairly basic installation using glazed white 4" square tile. Not very exciting but it matched the other tile in the bathroom shower.

I caulked all around it with silicone white caulk and sealed the grout as well. This countertop is ready for business!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Drywall Technique for Finishing Those Pesky Corners

2009-10-21T12:13:00.008-05:00

I'm in the drywall phase at my garage conversion project. I'll admit that finishing drywall isn't one of my favorite parts of the job, however, it is satisfying to see the finished product and knowing that the quality of my work will be enjoyed for years to come.

I've covered my process for 'mudding' drywall in this post. I covered the basics of how to mud three times and then sand just once. Let's get a little more specific on how to mud the inside corners to get a sharp line without lots of sanding.

On the first layer of mud, the idea is just to embed the tape. It doesn't take a lot of mud. As I've mentioned before, one important thing to remember is to "make the edges disappear" by keeping it thin on the edges.

The second layer of mud I call the "build-up" layer because you'll use the most mud and it's when the joints get a thicker layer on them. Here's how I handle the corners:

1. Using a larger 10" knife, apply a liberal amount of mud down both sides of the corner.

2. Use a corner knife to run down the corner and get a sharp line. You might need to go over it a couple times so that the mud isn't too thick. This knife will leave lines of mud along the edges, don't worry about this yet.

3. Next, take the 10" flat knife again and smooth out the mud to nothing from the line left by the corner knife outward. It's tricky to describe this in words so hopefully the pictures will help. It's also hard to take good pictures of drywall mud!

4. When you've done it right, you'll have a slight ridge where the edge of the corner knife was. By "slight" I mean barely noticable. On the third coat of mud, you'll fill on both sides of the ridge to end up with a nice corner.

5. Let it dry well before applying the third coat, which I call the "thin coat" because it's just a thin layer of mud over everything to fill any small holes or lines that remain.

It often takes more than 24 hours for the second coat to dry. Make sure you wait on it or you'll mess up your beautiful corners and be a frustrated drywall finisher...

-Peter

Remember to check out this post, for even more detail on how I finish drywall.

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Final Touches for the Kitchen Tile

2009-10-19T20:41:00.004-05:00

As I mentioned before, this was a quick tile job because I had to get it done before the homeowners got back from their short vacation. I made it by my deadline and all were happy...

I grouted the floor on Saturday with a sanded grout color called cinnamon. When it was wet it had a deep red tint to it but darkened to more of a reddish brown as it dried. The homeowners picked it out and it matches the red hues in this ceramic tile very well and looks great with the red accents in their kitchen and dining room.

My job today was to just install the transition trim in the doorways as well as shoe moulding around the walls. This was fairly straight-forward except for a couple tricky angles under a small cabinet.

I was pleased with the results, and thankfully, so were my clients... :)

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Layout for the Kitchen Tile

2009-10-17T10:15:00.005-05:00

After getting all the Hardibacker down (this post), I spent some time laying out a plan. The tile that I was using was 13 1/8" square and we would use 1/4" grout lines. This means that each tile plus one grout line takes up 13 3/8" or 13.375".

Using this dimension I measured the walls of the room to see how best to lay the tile. I was hoping to start with a full piece at the doorway and end up with around a half a piece at the opposite wall. This plan worked well and I could tell by dividing the length or width of the room by 13.375.

I wanted to end with a full piece at the doorway, however, these would be the last pieces that I install so I don't tile myself into a corner. I would have to start somewhere in the kitchen and work my way into the dining room.

To figure out a good starting point I considered how many full pieces it would take to reach the kitchen. I did the math and 8 full pieces would end at 107" from the doorway that I wanted to end at (8 x 13.375"). I made my horizontal guideline a 107" and parallel to the dining room wall. (Thankfully, the walls in this home were nearly perfectly parallel and square which helps my layout a lot!)

I found the position of my vertical guideline in much the same way, figuring out where the tiles would line up if I wanted the edge pieces under the kitchen cabinets to be large and the ones along the walls to be at least half a piece of tile. I used a framing square to get started and then snapped a chalk-line. I like to go over the chalk-lines with a Sharpie marker so they're a little more permanent. Otherwise the lines might fade from me walking on them, etc.

With all of that work done, it was time to start with the real work! As you can see in the picture above I started tiling in the kitchen doorway and did the entire kitchen first. Then I worked down one side of the dining room and then the other.

No matter how much planning I do, I'm always amazed when it comes out perfectly. When I got to my last pieces at the door, they were in the perfect spot and I didn't even have to cut them! (I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but... :)

BTW, the owner had bought the tile for me ahead of time and I ended up with only ONE extra piece! Talk about feeling the pressure to not crack a piece or cut one incorrectly!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Replacing the Kitchen Laminate with Tile

2009-10-15T21:11:00.008-05:00

I'm taking a short break from my garage conversion project (these posts) to help some folks with their kitchen floor while they are out of town on a brief vacation. They were ready to replace the laminate floating floor that (sort of) looked like tile, with the real thing.

The first step was to remove the shoe moulding and take up the old flooring. These floating floors are not attached to the subfloor, they are just 'snapped' together. The main thing is to find the last piece that was installed and start un-snapping it from there. It worked well for me to tilt the entire row upward to free it from the adjacent row and then tilt each individual piece up to un-lock the joints.

With the old flooring out of the way I cleaned everything up and installed 1/2" Hardibacker through the kitchen/dining room over a layer of thinset. This will give us a solid surface to act as a foundation for the 13" ceramic tile. If you're doing very much, you'll be glad to have a roofing nailer on hand to put all those nails in. Galvanized roofing nails are acceptable for securing the Hardibacker, as well as special Hardibacker screws.

I was able to cut most pieces with the score-and-snap technique similar to drywall except you need a special scoring tool with a carbide tip. Your utility knife will not work for this and may drive you to insanity if you try it.

For notches and odd cuts, I like using a carbide tip (like you use for cutting tile) in my jigsaw. Make sure you do it outside because it does create a lot of toxic dust that you don't want to breathe. For this unusual piece (below) I snapped the long angle off and then used the jigsaw to cut out the notch for the doorjamb.

The clock is counting down. I have to be completely finished by Monday at 2:00...

No problem, right? :)

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Adding Insulation and Drywall

2009-10-14T11:07:00.004-05:00

The old garage/utility room is finally starting to look like finished living space. After passing our rough-in inspections it was time to insulate and drywall the place.

The insulation was fairly straight-forward. The walls are 2x4 studs so normal R13 fiberglass rolls worked well for this. The bottom 16" of the walls, however, are concrete block. For this, I used 1/2" rigid foam insulation and basically glued it to the wall. They actually make an adhesive caulk specifically for this purpose. Oddly enough, it's called "foamboard adhesive" and it's a lovely teal blue...

The drywall phase was when the room really took shape. A drywall panel lift (see this post) was again invaluable as I installed the ceiling drywall. Two of the pieces were nearly a full twelve feet and I could install it by myself with this amazing tool that costs only around $45 to rent for the day.

The block wall at the bottom sticks out around 3-4" from the wall above. This small 'ledge' will later receive a piece of 3/4" thick trim where the owners can put knick-knacks or set their coffee cups...

(I always have coffee on the brain :)

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Easy Faucet Repair

2009-10-09T21:40:00.005-05:00

Drippy faucets can feel like they are just part of life, right? Actually, the repair for them is often quite simple, if you know how to take one apart. Let's look at a simple single-stem faucet that would no longer shut off all the way.

Here are the steps I took to repair this common fixture from Delta Faucet:

1. Turn of the water. Hopefully, there are valves underneath the sink. If not, you may need to find the main shut-off. Either way, don't forget to turn it off.

2. Use a flat-head screwdriver to carefully pop the cover off the center of the handle. A screw will be revealed that is holding the handle onto the stem. Remove the screw and the handle.

3. Now get some wide mouth pliers and unscrew the casing around the stem. You may want to use a cloth of some kind to prevent scratches from your pliers. Once it's loose you can remove it with your fingers.

4. Inside you'll find a ball that is attached to the stem as well as a gasket. In my case today, the gasket was worn enough that it no longer applied enough pressure to make the valve close all the way. Take these out and look for problems.

5. Replace the parts. There's an entire department at most home stores dedicated to faucet repair. To be safe, take the parts from your faucet to the store with you to make sure you get the correct replacement parts.

6. Put it all back together in reverse order.

7. Turn the water back on and test.

This process works with many different types of plumbing fixtures. Just make a note of how they come apart so you can get them back together.

-Peter

;">www.CarpentryGuy.com

Ready for Inspections

2009-10-07T17:52:00.006-05:00

It's been a busy couple of days at my garage-becomes-living-space project. We've had a flurry of activity in preparation for the rough-in inspections. These are the inspections that take place before the insulation and drywall are installed. At this project, we'll have both a building and electrical inspection.

John Dorn handled the electrical work for me. He installed outlets all the way around the room as well as a outdoor light and outlet at the back door and lights in the two closets. We also relocated the room light in the center of the room and wired it for a ceiling fan. John was great to work with. If you need an electrician, check out his website at www.JohnDornElectric.com.

I also had Wayne Taylor from W E S Heating and Cooling add a couple air vents and a return vent so that our room will be heated and cooled.

While they were both working, I was replacing the door into the kitchen and finishing up any framing that needed to be done. Once I had all the structural parts framed for the walls, I had to think about the drywall installation and make sure there were nailers in all the right places to secure drywall. Thinking this through now saves me much frustration later when I'm ready to hang drywall.

I also took the time to attach furring strips all around the room to the block wall that extends up the first 16". For this I used 3/4" plywood because it's less likely to split than a board would be. I attached them using my Ramset gun and 1 1/2" fasteners. This took a slightly less powerful 'load' than what I used to install the fasteners in the solid cement floor.

I'm ready for insulation... just need that inspection first...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Add Some Simple Steps

2009-10-06T20:57:00.010-05:00

After leveling the floor with a new cement slab (this post) and framing the wall to enclose the laundry area (this post), it's time to build some stairs to get into the room. Long before we can start building, we have quite a few things to consider to get our stairs right.

I won't cover every single aspect of stair building. Frankly, I still have a lot to learn myself. Let's go through some of my thinking for this particular project:

Have a Landing or Not?

Building codes require a landing at the top and bottom of each stairway. It has to be underneath the side that the door opens. In our case, if the door opened into the room, we would need a 36" deep landing, making our steps reach nearly 6 feet into our room. Instead, we planned to install a new door that would swing into the kitchen. In this way, the kitchen floor acts our 'landing', so we wouldn't need another one inside the new room.

The next thing to figure out is height of the risers and the depth of each step.

Risers

For this I measured the total rise of the stairs, or the distance from the cement floor at the bottom to the finished floor at the top. In my case that was 27 1/2". Codes say that the maximum rise for a step can be 7 3/4" This means that we'll need four steps of 6.875" each or 6 7/8". (27.5" total rise divided by 4 steps)

Treads

There are lots of opinions out there on how to figure out tread size. One rule of thumb that I've read says that two risers + one tread = 24 or 25 inches. Another formula I saw says that the tread + riser should equal 17 to 18" and a tread x riser should equal 70 to 75". Digesting all of this, I decided to make my treads 10 1/2" deep.

So, if you're hanging with me, it's time to layout our stringers on a 2x12 using these two dimensions. You can see in the picture how mine looked before I cut it. Use a framing square to make the marks and double check to make sure you are as exact as possible in your measurements.

Cut out the stringers. Then, cut the thickness of one tread off of the bottom of the stringers. This way, once you add the treads, the height will be the right distance from the floor.

Check the stringers in place with a level and make sure everything looks right before you nail them in place. For my project, I first attached a plate to the floor that would go across the bottom of the stringers to secure them to the floor. I made a notch at the bottom where the plate goes.

After securing the stringers, I had to frame around a valve on a gas pipe that would need to have an access hatch added as I finish the stairs out.

We're almost there now...

My stairs are a little wider than the typical 36" so I added some extra cross pieces to support the treads that would be 3/4" plywood. Starting at the bottom, I added 3/4" boards as risers, ripped to 6 7/8" wide. Then I added the treads cut 11 1/4" wide, overlapping the riser on the step below. After adding the next riser, the tread will be 10 1/2" just as planned.

These are just the basics. For a better understanding of stair building, I'd recommend a great book on framing called Ultimate Guide To House Framing by John D. Wagner. The book has an entire chapter devoted to stair building and goes into quite a bit of detail that may be helpful if you'd like more info.

Schools over. Time for recess... :)

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Building a Wall of Doors

2009-10-05T20:31:00.008-05:00

To enclose our utility area and create a separate closet for our new room that used to be a garage I needed to build a wall. Much of the wall would be doors to access the closets. Framing is an exciting phase of the project because it seems to go so fast compared to other parts of the project. Before we get ahead of ourselves let's think this through.

In the end of the closet is the service panel with all the circuit breakers for the entire house. By codes, this needs at least 30" of clearance to the sides and 36" in front of it. I also need to make sure that the washer/dryer fit in the closet with wiggle room. I decided to make the interior of the closet 34" deep to satisfy these criteria.

Next, I needed to place the doors. I wanted a normal 30" 6-panel door on the end to access the service panel and a small mud sink. Next, I planned for a 60" opening with bi-fold doors that would hide the laundry appliances. The interior of the laundry/sink/service panel closet will be open inside with no dividers. Because of all the wiring and plumbing in that area I'm not changing this wall. Just enclosing the area.

Beside the laundry will be a small closet to add storage to this room enabling the room to function as a bedroom if someone wanted use it for that. With doors so close together I also had to think ahead about how the trim would be installed. I'll be using 2 1/4" casing and I didn't want the trim from adjacent doors to get in the way of each other.

Once I had the wall designed on paper, I started by laying it out on the floor using chalk lines to show where the floor plates will go. I marked the doorway rough openings, leaving room for doorjambs, which add approx. 2" to the width of a door. For these 30" doors I'm making the rough opening 32". This allows for 1 1/2" of door jambs (2 pieces at 3/4" each) and then 1/2" of space to shim and make sure I can get it level.

The bottom plates will be treated 2x4 as required by codes because they are resting on the cement slab. I spread a little liquid nails underneath and then secured the bottom plates to the cement using a Ramset. This is a 'powder actuated' tool that literally shoots the nail through the lumber into the concrete using small caliber loads. I have the most basic single-use model that is triggered by me hitting the top with a hammer. If you have to use it a lot, they make various models up to the .27 caliber semi-automatic. (Check them out here.)

Anyway, the Ramset is a great alternative to some type of masonry nail or even using Tapcon screws with a hammer drill. I was using 2 1/2" fasteners that were meant for use in treated lumber.

You might note that the header above each door is only a flat 2x4. Since this is a NON-loadbearing wall, this is all that's needed. Of course, if it was supporting a load above it, we'd need something more substantial.

Things are starting to take shape. Next, let's build some steps to get into the room.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com /

Adapting and Trimming the Windows

2009-10-01T21:46:00.006-05:00

One huge difference between an old garage and a living space is windows. It was time to install the windows, but making salvaged windows fit the style of a house can be tricky. For this project, we were flexible on size because I gutted the inside and could frame the opening to any size necessary. The bigger task was to make these windows look like the belonged to this house.

The double window I found for the front was in decent shape, but still required some repairs. First, I had to build a new window sill to go across the bottom. The window unit will actually sit on this. The sill piece is notched at an angle so that it tilts a little downward to help water run off. It's not glamorous, but I made the sill out of a spare 2x4. The thickness is the perfect size to match our other windows.

With the sill in place, I then nailed a safety board across the window hole so the window would not fall out the other side when I set it up there. No, it's never happened to me. I just try to work slow enough that I think about these things... :)

I had to remake the trim that goes around the perimeter of the window and holds the top sash in place. I used some 3/4" stock that I ripped to 1 3/8" wide. The window unit had notches where this trim had once been so I knew exactly where to put it and what size it needed to be.

Next, I made the trim for the top with the drip cap just like the back door (yesterday's post) and then installed the side casing. The center opening needed another 3/4" board ripped to the right width to cover the cavity that conceals the window's counter weights. Each window has 1 working counter weight. They should have 2, but I suppose it amazing they still have half of them intact.

On the side of the old garage was an old window that was rotted and in bad shape. I found this Jeld-wen unit at Hailey's. It cranks out and fit the rough opening without me having to make many adjustments. It's the most modern and energy efficient window in the house!

I still need to replace some siding and caulk everything, but I'm anxious to start framing. Let's build a wall next...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Installing the Back Door

2009-09-30T21:01:00.006-05:00

It was finally time to install the back door at my garage conversion project (see these posts). The old back door was damaged and needed to be moved because of the new utility room wall that will soon be framed. I found a great door at Hailey's Salvage (this post) that will coordinate well with the rest of the home.

I started by adding treated trimmer studs on either sides of the door. I used treated because they come in contact with the cement at the bottom and this will help them not to absorb water and rot. I measured the exact dimensions of the door and framed the entire doorway, leaving around 1" around the door for the doorjamb with some wiggle-room.

If you can find a pre-hung door already in a door jamb it will be easier to install. We didn't have this luxury so I made the door jamb and even installed the door in it before placing it in the doorway. It doesn't always make sense to do it this way, but it allowed me to make sure my doorjamb was the right size to have around 1/8" gap around the door for a perfect fit.

The framing was level so installing the door was pretty straightforward, starting with the hinge side and working my way around the door to make sure all the gaps were parallel and the door fit right.

Now I could start thinking about the exterior trim. These old houses are tricky because they use trim that is hard to find these days. You have to be creative and basically custom make each piece. For the door and window casings, the original was a full inch thick (not 3/4" like most boards are today). It needs to be this thick because of the depth of the wood siding that butts up next to it. So, the stock I start with is 5/4" x 4" Paulownia. This may require some explanation.

First, Paulownia is a light-weight wood similar to balsa except stronger and resistant to splitting. It's very popular for exterior trim because it's naturally resistant to rot and decay. I get mine at Walker Ace Lumber and it comes already primed. The 5/4" x 4" boards are actually 1 1/8" by 3 1/2". That will work for our purposes, though I'll have to rip them all down to 3" wide to match the other window and door casings.

The other trick is what to use for that little trim that is on top of the door and windows. It's actually called a drip-cap. They sell it at the home stores like Home Depot, but theirs is a little bulkier than the historic stuff. I prefer the one that Walker Lumber has because it's shape is right and it's made out of PVC. PVC is a great choice for exterior trim because it won't rot. This especially good for a drip-cap because if it's wood it will eventually rot.

My technique is to first cut the top trim and the drip cap and nail them together as a unit. The drip cap has a lip on the back that actually slides under the wood siding. This is very important in keeping the water out of the house. I install the top trim first and then I can see where I need to cut the siding to install the side pieces. I make a chalk line and cut it with my jig saw upside down at an angle (like you're about to do a plunge cut). I find that using the jig saw like this is a little more accurate than trying to do it with the reciprocal saw.

The trim goes in quickly with some long trim nails. For this installation, make sure the nails are galvanized. This will help prevent rust showing up from the nail heads.

Pink siding with a green door? Why not?

Just kidding, it will get painted... :)

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

New Concrete Slab from Cement Brothers

2009-09-29T21:05:00.002-05:00

One major issue with our old garage was that the floor was nowhere near level. It was somewhat sloped toward the front of the house (where the garage door used to be), and had lots of humps around the room. The solution was to pour a new cement floor and add a small patio at the back door while we're at it. For the concrete work I turned to Steve Sutherland over at Cement Brothers Concrete.

My part was to empty the room of anything in the way of a new floor as well as frame the new door and window. The window was especially important because this gave us a great location to get the concrete shute into the room.

Steve and his crew showed up early and made a level line around the room with a chaulkline to show where the new floor will be. One corner would only be around 3" thick while the opposite corner was nearly 8"! They also built a form for our 8 x 5 foot patio.

The addition of a small patio at the back door will add a little outdoor living space to this home where the homeowner could put a couple chairs or a grill. Once the garage becomes living space they might actually use the back yard more often and this will provide a nice spot to hang.

During the initial pour the cement is leveled with a long 2x4 to make sure it's flat with no humps or dips. After it dries a little, the guys can get on it with boards to keep them from damaging it. This is when they really smooth it out. They have to do this several times, letting it dry a little more in between each pass. Steve joked that much of their time is spent "watching concrete dry."

The finished product looks great and gives us a nice floor for our new room. Now I can have a level surface to build a wall on for our utility closet and you can walk across the room without getting 'sea legs'. After the cement cures overnight I can get in there and install the new back door and window. We'll give it few days before setting anything too heavy on it like the washer and dryer.

Most of the day I watched Steve work. I guess we watched concrete dry together.. :)

-Peter

Contact Steve or see photos of his work from foundations to driveways at:

www.CementBrothers.com

Framing for the New Window

2009-09-28T20:16:00.007-05:00

After getting the doorway framed, it was time to focus on the new window. At one time, long ago, this room was a garage. The garage door opening has since been framed and covered with lap siding. Now it was time to make room for a new window that will give this room plenty of light.

We found this double window at Hailey's Salvage (see this post). It was a good find because it will coordinate with the homes other windows well and it's already got a few layers of paint just like the others! :) Overall it's in great shape and even had a a sill and a couple of old counter-weights intact.

The rough opening will need to be around 45" tall by 68" wide. I measured the location from the outside because I wanted the top of the window to match the height of the others on the front of the house. This garage has a lower roofline than the rest of the house so I measured the existing windows and just made the distance from the window to the eave the same for my new one.

With the height now figured out, I centered the window on the wall and drilled a hole through the siding as a reference point. Back inside, I could now place king studs at either side of the rough opening. These are the studs that go from the floor to ceiling. Next to them will come trimmer studs that will support the new 2x6 header above the window.

Before cutting studs I added a couple temporary supports to the top plate because this exterior wall is load-bearing, carrying the weight of the attic and rafters above. Once my header was in place with supporting trimmer studs I could remove the temporary supports.

I cut the siding so it would overlap my king studs and saved the boards for later. I'll trim the siding back more once I have the window installed and know where the casing will end up. Like when I added the door (this post), it's a good idea to leave plenty of siding for later.

Even just having this huge hole in the wall made a dramatic difference to the feel of the room. Windows are a good thing.

This window is an especially good thing because it will give our concrete truck a way to get the cement in for the new slab. That's coming up next!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Move The Back Door

2009-09-26T10:47:00.008-05:00

Part of the plan for this room is to build a wall around the laundry area to make it into a utility closet. However, this wall would be in the way of the old back door. The answer is to move the back door over a couple feet.

Before I do too much framing, we're going to have a new cement slab poured to level the floor. This will raise the floor up by a few inches so, for now, I'm just going to make a rough opening with a new header and then finish it next week after the cement is here.

To get started I took the old door out and then extended the small block wall over to where the new door will be. I'm not a brick mason, so this is about the extent of my masonry skills. :)

After giving the block a day to set up I added a treated 2x8 on top to act as a bottom late for my wall. Then I added a couple studs, keeping in mind that my new laundry wall will also intersect here.

I measured over from the new block that I installed to make a 44" rough opening for my 36" door. This will allow me to put 2 trimmer studs on each side of the door to stabilize it next to the block. Again, I'll be adding these after the cement shows up. For now I'm just trying to get the opening in the right place.

One trick to moving doors or windows like this is to consider where the siding should end up. If you cut it too short, you'll have to replace a lot of siding to get it to butt up to your new door casing. The secret is to leave plenty of extra siding- you can always cut it shorter later once you know exactly where the door casing will be. In my case I cut the siding at the edge of the trimmer studs, leaving around a 38" opening so that the siding currently hangs over 3" on each side.

Next, let's do a window!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Window & Door Treasures at Hailey's Salvage

2009-09-25T20:33:00.007-05:00

Before getting too far with my garage conversion project, it was very important to find the windows and door that would make the space more like a living room and less like a garage. Not wanting to special order an expensive window to match the character of the house, I decided to go treasure hunting.

My first stop is usually the Habitat Store downtown. They had been fairly picked over so I headed over to a place on Dickerson Road called Hailey's Salvage.

I knew about Hailey's but hadn't found the need to go there before this project. It's an amazing place full of old used items that had been salvaged from demolitions or renovations, as well as some new odds and ends of many kinds.

I started down an aisle between two large buildings that were both full to the brim with used doors and windows. They were literally stacked all over the place. They had wood doors of every type from the turn-of-the-century, to common Masonite.

For our project, we wanted to match the other front windows as much as possible which where 8-over-8, which means that the top and bottom sashes each had 8 panes of glass (two rows of four each). Even after sifting through Hailey's windows I discovered that these were just too rare.

It may have been for the better because we settled instead on getting a double window, which is actually two windows joined with trim in the middle. These were 6-over-6, but were the old style wood windows that originally had weights and pulleys. I might have to scrape them before painting, but they will match the home's other windows very well.

By the way, if you're wanting new windows, check Hailey's first. If you ask nicely, Jim (my guide on the treasure hunt) will take you to ANOTHER huge building across the street where the keep all of their new windows and doors that were closeouts or whatever. Upstairs they have mostly vinyl windows of all shapes, while downstairs (yes, in the cellar) they have more wood ones or wood-vinyl.

The prices aren't crazy cheap, but for items you can't find anywhere else I thought it was reasonable. The newer windows were around $175 each which is comparable to most of the stock windows at Home Depot, but Hailey's has tons of unique sizes and shapes that would easily cost double that amount at full retail.

The used double window I bought was $95 and I also picked up a nice solid wood Craftsman-looking exterior door with four little windows across the top for $110. You could easily spend $400+ for a door like that. It needs paint, but otherwise was in great shape. (Even came with hinges.. :)

Anyway, check out Hailey's for your project. My only advice is to go in the early stages. The more flexible you can be on the sizes you're looking for, the more likely you'll find something fantastic.

By the way, they have WAY more than just windows and doors. How about sinks, toilets, mouldings, sidelights, faucets, light fixtures, tons of storm windows, and probably more that I didn't even get to. That place is huge...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Converting the Garage to Living Space

2009-09-23T20:55:00.006-05:00

I started a new project today for a client in East Nashville who wants me to convert an old garage into finished living area. She's planning to sell the home soon, so adding these 220 square feet to a small 800 square foot home will really add some room to stretch out a little.

Sometime in the past the garage door had been removed and patched to make this room a utility work room. It's time to finish the job and make it nice. Here are a few of the upcoming steps:

Gut the room except around the laundry area.
Move the back door.
Have a new cement poured to level the floor and add a patio at the back door.
Have an electrician add outlets and light fixtures.
Add a couple windows to let it more light.
Build a wall around the laundry area to make a large utility closet and hide that stuff.
Build a new landing with nice stairs.
Drywall the entire thing, trim, paint, and eventually carpet.

It's about a four week project. Stay tuned. Of course, I'm planning to document the process so you can follow the fun! :)

-Peter

BTW- See all the related posts for this project at this link.

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Add Some Crown to the Beadboard Porch Ceiling

2009-09-17T21:07:00.003-05:00

This week I took a morning to do some trimwork for a friend who had just installed a beadboard porch ceiling at his Inglewood home. It's a beautiful stone home that is getting some updated finishes like cedar posts to replace those ornate steel ones that were holding up the porch and rusting out.

Anyway, they left the crown moulding for me and I was glad. It's fun to see how things transform once you add trim. You can tell from the pictures that it still needs some paint, but the change is already remarkable.

This porch took around 80 feet of 3 5/8" crown. It's wide so I got to use some 16-footers. Again, I used a longer 2x4 as a helper to hold one end while I secured the other end. If you're trimming out a porch with crown you might like these posts:

Tips for Installing Crown Moulding

Crown Moulding- How To Get Tight Outside Corners

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Widening The Doorway Before and After

2009-09-16T21:29:00.005-05:00

In the process of widening the doorway between a client's kitchen and dining room I've tried to take you through the process to see how it's done:

1. Remove Trim and Drywall (this post)

2. Remove Framing & Install New (this post- BTW- This wall is NON-Load bearing)

3. Install Countertop (this post)

4. Install Lighting (this post)

5. Trim, Paint and Clean-up

In all, this project just took me three days to accomplish. However, the change is quite dramatic. Now this homeowner can include their dining room with the kitchen as entertaining space and have a beautiful new counter to serve as a buffet for those gatherings.

Again, I have to thank Chris Barber at Barber Woodworking for creating the Heart Pine Countertop that is the centerpiece of the project.

Now, let's party!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Adding Pendant Lights to the Bar

2009-09-15T12:44:00.006-05:00

As I was widening the doorway (these posts) between this kitchen and dining room I had to keep in mind that the homeowner's wanted some pendant lights installed above the new countertop. This isn't very difficult, as long as I plan ahead.

I did the rough wiring before I even put the header in. This included adding a switch on the adjacent wall where I moved the other switches to. Then, I left a couple gaps in between the filler pieces of 1/2" plywood in the center of the header where the wires would go.

Under the header, I would install a very thin 'pancake' electrical box. I put these in place next and then marked the locations on a poplar board that I would be using to trim across the top of the opening.

With the locations marked I traced around one of the pancake boxes and cut out the hole with my jigsaw. Now the board fit perfectly and those thin boxes were nearly flush with the face.

Installing the lights and determining the best height was all that was left. We decided on a height that was around 22" off of the countertop, but they can be easily raised if the homeowner decides that they are too low. It's a matter of personal taste, I suppose.

The finished lights really helped to show off that heart pine countertop.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

The Story Behind the Heart Pine Countertop

2009-09-14T13:41:00.014-05:00

Wanting to have more counter space for entertaining, my clients wanted me to open up the wall in their kitchen and install an 8 foot bar countertop (see these posts). For the counter I turned to a friend of mine who is also an artisan when it comes to making specialty wood items like cabinets, built-ins and an occasional countertop. His name is Chris Barber of Barber Woodworking. Here's the story, straight from Chris...

"Peter recently commissioned me to build a heart pine bar top. The final dimensions would be 15" wide, 100" long, and 1.5" thick. Heart pine is old growth pine, and although 60 - 80 years ago it was as common as regular southern yellow pine is today, it is no longer available in the lumber yard.

So, the first step in this process was selecting and buying the lumber from a local reclaimed lumber supplier. They specialize in reclaiming beams and boards, mostly heart pine and white oak, from old turn-of-the-century factories and buildings. This particular beam had been a framing support member at a Washington Manufacturing plant that made Dee Cee overalls in Columbia, TN. The factory was built in 1884 and was dismantled after the company filed bankruptcy in 1988. (read about this here)

Peter's client had mentioned wanting the top to look like one board, so I wanted the color and grain to be consistent throughout. The best way to do this is to get two boards from the same log, and luckily, dealing with a specialty lumber supplier allows more freedom to do this. I selected a nice looking beam that was about 10" x 9" and 10' long.

The supplier had a portable band-saw mill, so he sliced two planks off of the beam, each about 1.75" thick . The great thing is, not only does this technique ensure consistent color, it allowed me to book-match the top's grain from two alike pieces.

The next step was milling these two planks to rough dimensions and gluing them together, using Titebond II wood glue. Once the glue had dried, I used a thickness sander to level out the top to a rough thickness, about 1 5/8". Then came final dimensioning and cutting the radius for the end of the top.

After this step, I needed to address how the counter would be supported. The solution involved milling three 4"wide x 9" long x 3/4" deep cutouts on the bottom of the piece to accommodate the brackets for attaching the top to the wall. This is a little tedious, but can be done using a template jig with a router. The brackets would first be attached to the support framing, then the counter could be installed over the brackets and secured.

With all of the milling completed, I began smoothing and finishing the top. After a light surfacing with a #4 smoothing plane, I rough sanded the top with 120 grit sandpaper in a random orbit sander. I then put an 1/2" radius round-over profile around the top edge to give it a finished look, and progressed with final sanding to 180 grit sandpaper. The top was finished with 5 coats of Minwax Satin Wipe-on Polyurethane, a very durable, easy-to-apply finish.

For the installation, I met Peter at the client's home as he was stabilizing the wall for the top. I cut the top to length to fit the wall, and marked the spots where my brackets would need to go. After removing the top, I bolted the brackets to the top plate of the wall, making sure to shim them level where needed. Once the brackets were properly secured, the top clicked back in place like a giant Lego brick. For final securing, I used 1.25" washer head screws to screw up through the bracket into the top (making extra sure they weren't too long!).

The final result was a handsome top with an interesting history. I hope it will serve the customer for many years to come and perhaps even provide a frequent topic of conversation."

-Chris Barber

Contact Chris or see galleries of his work at:
www.BarberWoodworking.com

Removing Part of the Kitchen Wall Part 2

2009-09-10T07:50:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, I covered removing the trim and drywall for the opening I made in the wall between a client's kitchen and dining room. (See this post) Now it's time to remove framing.

Again, it's important to think this through.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a NON-load bearing wall.

1. Remove the old header. Before removing studs, I carefully removed the header above the old doorway. It's hard to not damage drywall doing this because they are often nailed from every direction! Still, I was able to cut around the perimeter with my reciprocal saw and cut most of the nails. Once I got part of it loose I could start prying it out and cut more nails. Now onto those studs...

2. Think it through. If this wall had been load bearing, we would need temporary walls and install a substantial header to carry the load. A non-bearing wall up to 8 feet just needs a 2x4 header, however, this is a little longer so I've used a double 2x6 header built up with 1/2" plywood in between.

Knowing that my header is 5 1/2" and that I want to reuse the old trimmer stud on the left side, I can figure out where to cut these studs so that they'll rest on my new header once it's in place.

Also we'll be installing a countertop on the lower section of this wall at 42" high. The counter will be around 1 1/2" and then there will be a top plate (2x4) that's another 1 1/2". All this means that I need to make the bottom cut at 39" to accommodate these things. I measured in one place and then used the level to mark the others. It's very important that our countertop is level.

3. Cut the studs. Mark across the studs using a level to make sure they're all the same. Once they are marked, use a small square to mark lines on both sides of the stud. This will be a reference to help me make a flat cut across each board.

Before making the cuts, I used a longer metal blade in the reciprocal saw to cut any screws holding the drywall to the studs I'm about to remove. Starting with the the stud closest to the old doorway and working toward the wall, I made the top cut first before making the lower cut. If anything, I tried not to remove too much. After cutting, I checked everything with my level and trimmed a couple studs that had high spots. I was very careful to not cut all the way through and damage the drywall on the other side.

4. Install the new header. Now I built my header out of a couple 2x6 pieces with some 1/2" plywood sandwiched in between. The plywood makes the header 3 1/2" wide which will be flush with the surrounding 2x4s. Before nailing it together, take note of which way each piece is crowning and put this side up.

The crown is the slight curve in the middle of each longer piece of dimensional lumber. Too much crowning will be a pain to work with, so leave these boards at the lumber yard. However, even great lumber will have a slight crown in the center.

WHICH WAY IS IT CROWNING? When you pick up a piece of lumber and look down the edge do you know what you're looking for? To tell which way it is crowning look at an upper corner at the opposite end. As you raise the board, if the corner disappears then it's crowning up. If you can see the corner all the way down the board, then it's crowning down. Flip it over and repeat to make sure you've got it right.

Installing a header can be a tight fit. I usually cut the header with a little margin so that it won't be impossible to install. Rest one end on the trimmer stud and slide the other end into place. I needed a small prybar to get mine in, but that means it fit well. The crown means that the middle may be a little tight. You want it to fit snugly.

Next I put a top plate across the bottom studs where the countertop will go. I double checked it to make sure it was level and then did a little dance because it was... :)

Now, where's that beautiful countertop?

-Peter