Tag: carpentry

Arched bookcases in oak and ikea

The ask was twin arched bookshelves to go on either side of a bed, like the following reference photo. Howevere these were to sit on top of some existing nightstands.

We started with a couple ikea bookshelves. I have mixed feeling about this. While I think it can be an excellent timesaver to start with factory-made furniture and customize as you like, I personally dislike chipboard and laminate, and I try to avoid them if given the option. Each material has it’s own vibration, some more pleasant than others. I picked up a bundle of oak molding, wide enough to give me a few options for creating the “shell.”

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French door restoration

Is restoring salvage pieces worth the effort? It depends.

What will the final finish be?
↙↘
Clear or transparent varnish or stain over wood
Painted
Ok. Are there a lot of millwork grooves and ridges?
Go for it!
↙↘
Yes
No
Don’t bother.
Go for it!
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Radiator cover support system

This was more of a repair, but the twist took quite a lot of thought. I didn’t want to rip the whole thing apart and rebuild, but the challenge was to not only fix the alignment and attachment of this incredibly heavy cover (3/4″ ply + 3/4″ cabinet doors + baseboard molding!), but ensure that access for anyone who needed to perform future maintenance on the radiator would be easy and safe.

The tricky part was anticipating the correct tilt that would keep the panel balanced on swivel casters, within the limits of the space behind it (which had pipes and electrical), while being easy to snap into place again.

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Bathroom refresh

After:

Before:

The most interesting part of this one was the vanity. Based on the square pegs and nails, the thing was easily 100 years old. Stripping off 4 layers of paint revealed a reddish wood that I’m guessing is fir. I built in the shelf and the lip around the top out of poplar, which necessitated a bit of work with stain and polyurethane to get the colors to match.

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Water damage repair on a 1920’s style paneled apartment

Mostly minor stuff on this Park Avenue apartment, but the water damage and slap-n-dash repair jobs over years meant a lot of gaps and flaking and mismatching elements that needed to be patiently coaxed back into order, one bit at a time around the entire perimeter of the room. To add to the fun, things had gotten done out of order (why do so many people want to START with flooring??), which meant carefully sneaking around and behind elements to repair things you wish they had scheduled first.

Before:

After:


Before:

After:

Bathroom sink and vanity with laundry

How do you fit a washer-dryer into a tiny Manhattan bathroom? Once piece at a time.

I poured a custom concrete trough sink with the drain in the back corner so as to open up the room for the washer-dryer to fit underneath. Which then necessitated a custom cabinet to match underneath.

Removing the plywood mold. Concrete mix was white Portland cement with white sand. The trickiest part was cutting things on the angle so the sink would drain properly, and then getting all those subtle angles to line up smoothly.

Patching, sanding, sealing.

Now for the cabinet…

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Bathroom renovation with large format stone tile

Before:

After:

Years of IT got me used to cleaning up other people’s disasters, and this was yet another project that got me shaking my head and wondering “what were they thinking?” Demolition had been carried out throughout the unit by someone working without drawings, a plan, or timeline before I took over. Luckily there were bathrooms on other floors to use while we worked, but I wondered, why start by demolishing a functioning bathroom? Whether you’re working by yourself around the clock on-site or with a team in shifts, it’s the first necessity, for peeing, washing tools, or showering off a day’s worth of fiberglass insulation. This is a big reason I work in chunked phases, even within a single room — the wheels of production grind faster overall when one isolates and minimizes the functional downtime of each room and fixture.

Engineered stone tile on floor and walls, pine ceiling, replaced ventilation fan, sink/vanity, bath fixtures.

Kitchen Remodel

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After:

Notable tasks: Using appliance paint to make a black refrigerator white, and being pleasantly surprised at the results. Opted for roll-on instead of spray based on online-reviews. Converting an unused bathroom vanity by swapping the sink out for a piece of butcher-block. Updating some 70’s style cabinet doors by filling in the routed groove and painting over (as opposed to cabinet replacement…I like to up-cycle where possible). Floor is laminate strips printed to look like wood.

Classroom Cubbies

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It was only a passing request from my daughter’s first grade teacher – whether I had any ideas for improving the book storage above the coat cubbies, which was admittedly an eyesore. Upon some examination of the alcove, I told him he should rethink the entire situation, and via my own pushy compulsion, somehow volunteered to rectify the situation. What I peeled away during demolition was an unused legacy cubby system of hooks mounted on a long shelf, which sat unused behind the existing milk crates housing the kids’ stuff. The milk crates rested on top of a couple of unused shelves fashioned out of the doors that once rendered the alcove a large closet. Above all of this nonsense was a shelf, also made of the doors, housing a few hundred pounds of hidden books (yes, above where the kids retrieved their coats), covered with a few pieces of 1/2″ plywood, held vertically in place by small bolted slats that he would turn to remove the wood in order to get access.

Some remnants of what I ripped out:

milk crate cubbies alcove with shelf Read More →

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