MyFixitUpLife home improvement
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Many of us who work on our homes consider wood the material of choice for moldings. Yet more and more space on home-center and lumberyard shelves is devoted to synthetic trim. Although the technique for cutting and installing these PVC an urethane products are much the same as for working with wood, synthetics differ in [...]
Guilty. Yes, we’re guilty of being beguiled by tricked-out trim projects. Cascading crown molding, boss base…I can’t think of another ‘C’ for casing and chair rail but you get where this is going. When the rubric of refinement means a rustic feel, then you need to go to a timber look. And when you want [...]
When I see a 4×4 porch post outside, a lally column in a basement, or a living room desperate to be divided into a cozier dining room and parlor, I think two things: First, each of these is an ideal location for a decorative column. Second, decorative columns can be tough and time consuming to [...]
Garage door a bore? Give it some giddy up. Garages, attached to the house or not, are often mostly door, driveway, and some wall around it. The space defies deep detail. Of course you can add a nice door, dial up the siding, install some foundation plants and so on, but unlike the house where [...]
The Boil-Down We put Senco‘s fast-finishing F-16 Fusion nailer through the paces on site nailing interior and exterior trim profiles, hardwood, 1-by, and crown. This is a dependable tool that’ll speed up punch, handyman/repair and other work for sure. For some contractors there will be a break-even point on the purchase price (not cheap, about [...]
Question: Mark, I’m planning a crown molding project. I saw your video about coping using a Dremel tool. This is my first crown project, so I have a lot of questions. The first one: choosing between a crown molding that I cut and cope myself or one where the corners are pre-made. The corners [...]
Before installing new baseboard, mark the stud locations on the floor about 1-inch out from the wall. Use a pencil and make sure the mark is visible, but can still be covered by the shoe molding. Or, use tape and peel up later.
Here’s a kitchen/bath project I call a marriage-saver. Its not that it saves the marriage directly, I hasten to point out, but it short circuits one of those small, every day problems that can really get on couples’ nerves and make the bigger challenges of life seem much more acute than they really are. And [...]
This is me jumping up on my soapbox again: Here it comes—my fury (fury is probably a strong word) at demolition done wrong. Whether it’s a roof or interior trim, a house comes apart best in the reverse order it was assembled. To wit: I’ve seen many a carpenter and DIYer removing baseboard by trying [...]
We love our new front door and the energy-upfitted room is keeping us warmer than ever this winter. But without molding, the story is only halfway done. Molding is, in some regards, the bow on the package, the S on Superman’s chest. It’s often the first thing you see. Yet, at the same time, it [...]
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