To install laminate wood floors, mark a reference point for the flooring, do a dry layout, apply the glue with a trowel, and install the flooring with a tongue-and-groove system. Use a rubber mallet and spacers to get laminate wood flooring in place with instructions from a home repair specialist in this free video on laminate wood floors.
Remodeling Leap of Faith
It's a leap of faith to hire unknown workers to do jobs inside your home and then leave your home with those workers inside it. I took such a leap today when three young men in their twenties arrived to tile our bathroom. They were polite and friendly and had been hired by our contractor—why worry? All seemed in order, and I left for work. When I stopped back home for a quick lunch, I reflected upon the wisdom of that decision.
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Managing Expectations in a Kitchen Remodel
Whether you’re ordering cabinets, countertops, or wood flooring many times you’re required to complete and sign a disclaimer prior to having the order processed. Really, what are you talking about Doug?
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Lower-Cost Kitchen Remodeling
Lately the kitchens have taken a dramatic downturn in what people are willing to invest, but they still want them done. This forces us to be creative.
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The Best Material for Trimwork
I’ve used MDF (medium-density fiberboard) trims and moldings for many different applications and learned from them. The small wood particles used to make MDF are pressed and glued together much like particle board, only denser and stronger.
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Roofing Tear-off or Rip-off?
It is tempting to start a blog on the topic of roofing rip-offs with, “Have you heard the one about? . . .” The Better Business Bureau ranks the volume of complaints about roofers twentieth among 3,900 categories for which it collects data. There are a number of classics.
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The Hamlet of Replacement Windows
My friend Tony lives in a 70-year-old house with single-glazed, double-hung wood windows supplemented with aluminum storm windows of unknown vintage. The window sash on the top floor don’t work so well, and the house is drafty, so he thinks he needs replacement windows.
He’s thought so for the last three or four years. But this fiftysomething, Harvard-trained healthcare analyst is a self-described “wimp” about paying people he doesn’t know for home-improvements that he doesn’t know much about.
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How Not to Pay a Contractor Before the Work is Complete
Even the best of us will get taken and in times of a down economy it happens even more often than in a thriving economy. Before times got as hard as they are now in residential remodeling and construction I had always stressed the importance of always paying for construction work after it was completed and paying invoices to your contractor in percentages of the actual work being completed.
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I'm Back
I've gone back to school to prepare for a new phase of my life. The workload has kept me from attending to a lot of things that I need to do, like to do. But now finals are over. FINALS ARE OVER! And just when I think I can take a break, I lie back on my couch looking up at the white ceiling. There it is, a hairline crack, running about 4 feet long. Which brings me to plaster; the good, the bad and the ugly.
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Don’t Pre-Pay a Contractor with a Large Deposit
Why are people with common sense today still giving contractors large deposits before the contractor even sets foot onto the homeowner’s property? Do we feel somewhat compelled to do such out of our deep concern to help others, or are we just trying to follow the requests or requirements of a specific contractor? You probably know where I am going with this: It’s to your detriment, folks, when you give large deposits to anyone before the work is started or materials are even ordered.
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Trust Your Instincts
Hey, I’m a contractor and yes, even I have had to learn the hard way to trust my own instincts when I have hired people to do various forms of work for me over the years. We all think we know the good from the bad and that we can discern between the picking of someone good versus bad to work for us. We will never make a wrong decision even when we decide to use someone that was recommended to us by a “friend” of ours—yeah, right.
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