A common mistake made by the DIY/home enthusiast regarding the question – what is millwork, is that it refers to woodmill produced artifacts; which could be anything from doors and window frames to baseboards and mantels.
However, for the DIY/home enthusiast wanting to work with millwork the term will invariable be applied to things like crown molding, dentils, fascias and other custom interior finish details..
Floor joists are the framing components which support a house’s finish floor and subflooring. Joists are usually 2 x 10 or 2 x 12 inch lumber. A newer product, engineered wood i-joists, can create stronger and more reliable floors, since they eliminate the effects of shrinkage seen in traditional joists. Joists are typically installed at a spacing of 16 apart from each other, center to center. The joists are fastened to the foundation at the sill plate.
The sill plate, also known as sole plate, is the first member of a house’s wood frame to be installed in platform framing. The sill plate consists of 2 by 4 or 2 by 8 pieces of lumber attached over the concrete slab perimeter or foundation wall via holes drilled to accommodate the J anchor bolts which are fixed in the foundation.
Building codes mandate that sill plates be treated with a wood rot resistant preservative. This is because the sill plate comes in direct contact with concrete, which holds moisture. The preservative, which is injected into the wood through heat and pressure at the factory or lumber mill, gives the lumber a dark greenish or brown tint.
Pocket doors are doors that slide into a wall instead of swinging on hinges. There are single pocket doors that will slide into either the left side or right side of the wall and there are double pocket doors that slide into both sides of the wall. Pocket doors are coming back in style. They were all the rage about one hundred years ago. That’s right, an entire century ago. Well they are coming back in style as things tend to do throughout the course of time.
Hanging paneling can be a great way to change the entire look of a room or even remodel an entire home effectively and efficiently. There are higher quality panels you can buy that don’t necessarily conform to the cheap looking sort of reputation that paneling has been given over the years. Perhaps the only reason for this stereotyping of paneling being tacky is because of the many landlords putting in very tacky and inexpensive paneling to quickly and cheaply recover a home’s walls so they can rent it out.
Adding wood paneling to a room can do far more than only add a touch of class and opulence to a room. If the surface of the walls is particularly old and uneven you could fit wood paneling from floor to ceiling to create a brand new clean and flat surface.
Alternatively, you could put the wood paneling just part way up the wall to act as a feature in the room that can also hide any unsightly heating ducts and provide a flush finish for any wall mounted electrical outlets.
In the design of residential stairs, the main considerations are giving sufficient headroom, providing enough space for moving furniture and large appliances, and providing for the safety of the inhabitants. Another consideration is accessibility, for which wheelchair ramps may be required. There are different types and configurations of stairways, the main ones being a single, unbroken straight run between floors, a set of two or more runs which change direction and have a landing in between them, and curved or spiral stairways.
Most wooden siding is installed as horizontal planks, but board and batten siding is installed with the planks vertically oriented. Board and batten siding gives a home a rustic appearance; the reason it gives a rustic appearance is probably because it is used traditionally for barn exteriors, and is sometimes called Barn Board and Batten, also Board and Batt. It looks particularly good on ranch style houses, at least to me.
Cabinet refacing can be a cheap way to refresh your cabinetry without having to totally replace them. It can be a long project that involves some serious work or it might be as simple as replacing the cabinet hardware. It all depends on how much work is needed to get your cabinets to a satisfactory condition. There is a wide variety of color and finishing options for kitchen cabinet refacing materials.
The quality and cost vary according to the finish material used in refacing the cabinetry. There are three basic materials used in most kitchen refacing projects. These are plastic laminates, wood veneer and rigid thermofoils.