Surviving a Renovation

I came across some pictures you might enjoy. These are from a project we did on our own house two years ago, and they show how helpful site preparation is when you’ve got workers in your house. We do site preparation like this on every job – as needed -- when people are living in the house.

Our project included custom cabinet work in the family room. Carpentry is messy and takes up a lot of space, so you have to plan for it. Often, the carpenters do most of the work in their own space off-site, but in this case the guys we were using live far away, so it was easier to give them space in the house.

We started by building a temporary wall out of two-by-fours and blue foam board.

The wall divided our kitchen from the breakfast / family room, and it had a door cut into it (the hinges were just made of tape.) Just for fun, we made a poster-sized picture of a familiar water view, and we taped the picture to the blue wall. Not beautiful, but cheerful in a goofy kind of way.

On the other side of the temporary wall, the carpenters worked all day. Their conversation and power tools seemed slightly distant from the kitchen, since we couldn’t see each other. We never allow radios on any of our jobs, so that wasn’t a problem.

Here’s the workers’ side of the room. The view below is actually of the breakfast table area, temporarily filled with tools.

The next is of the cabinets in progress....

and the last is the finished work.

Family Life: More on mudrooms and cubbies

When you’re building or renovating a mudroom or laundry room, don’t forget the dogs! A very useful trick is to build dog crates directly under the counters. Of course, the doors need to be made of wire mesh, so there’s plenty of air. And of course, you don’t expect the dogs to spend all their time there – just bedtime, as they would with any other crate. You can put their blankets or beds inside, and the whole thing is out of the way.

In this case, the puppy looks a little bit sad. It’s not because he doesn’t like his bed; it’s because he started to come and play and was told to stop so we could take his picture.

Family living: mudrooms and cubbies

At our house, we’ve had many years of book bags and sports bags in the dining room. Apparently, that’s the logical place in our house to dump everything, especially when the dining room table was the homework center. But in other people’s houses (and yes, we are jealous), we often build new mudrooms and cubbies to catch all those things. A separate cubby for each child, with hooks for coats and book bags, with a bench they can sit on to take off their shoes, and with a shelf at the top for homework and special projects…… this is really a nice thing to have.

Design: Choosing Colors

Here’s a simple trick to help you choose colors: no matter what the combination you’re looking for may be, when colors are good together, they both look clean. Try it.

Saving money: “Weatherize” your house

Although replacing old windows is usually seen as a good way to reduce heat loss, in fact there are less expensive actions that accomplish even more. Read this in the New York Times.

www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/us/30weatherize.html?_r=1&ref=us