How is this for a great looking place to display your fine china or crystal? We have some Waterford Crystal that was left to Kim by an elderly friend many years ago that would look beautiful here.

There are two things I love about this cabinet and I’m not sure which one I noticed first. I think it was simultaneous. They are the hammered steel corner brackets and the beautiful Pecky Cypress lumber. I love pecky (also known as ‘womy’) cypress.

Pecky Cypress Is Holy Wood

I know you got my joke… right? If not, stop here and go back. When you smile, it’s permitted to continue.

Make sure you’re sitting down, then look at this:

Oh my! I need a glass of water.

White Hot Wood

Don’t think it has to be stained or clear finished… this one was painted:

The white pecky cypress looks great with the high ceilings and provides a stark contrast for the bright green decor!

Vintage Blues

Why don’t I find things like this? These salvaged shutters are beautiful. Something like this is easy to make too. I’ll be doing a post soon on how to make shutters. But if you can find old ones like this…go for it.

Bestill My Beating Hearth

This is just unreasonably amazing:

Don’t miss the little half-round detail to the top right of the picture…more pecky cypress.

I’m getting worn out from having my heart rate up for too long! The pictures are killin’ me!

For Pecking At Your Food

I’m at a loss for words. But don’t miss that tumbled marble floor!

I’m spent.

Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3, Photo 4, Photo 5, Photo 6

We all know that I love remodeling. My best-selling free eBook is entitled The Power of Remodeling — How Remodeling Your Home Can Change Your Life. That’s right, change your life!

But what about your marriage? Changing your life is one thing… anybody can do that, right? They got The Secret, Tony Robbins, and old copies of Dale Carnegie to do that. But your marriage!? That’s serious business we’re talkin’ now.

And isn’t home remodeling supposed to be like the dedicated arch-enemy of marriage? Isn’t it a fact that something like 2/3 of all couples who start remodeling never get past the demolition? Yet, now I’m saying it’s good counseling?

Anybody who pastes his head on butterflies and cartoon cowboys must be crazy anyway, right?

Wrong! Only 1/3 of marriages fail before the end of demolition!

Okay… all joking aside. This is serious business.

Remodeling Is Marriage Counseling

I read a post today about how really building a relationship was about getting to the core… well, here is a quote:

“Instead of living by others’ expectations, discover and live from your core.”

Got that? Your CORE! Okay, I don’t really know exactly what that means, but I do know this: It made me think about remodeling. In fact, I thought that’s where she was headed… but no.

Here’s what I think:

Save Your Marriage By Remodeling

• Remember that this home is for both of you! It shouldn’t reflect her style or his style. It should reflect YOUR style together. As a couple. A little work is all it takes to figure this out.
• Husbands – Realize just how important the house is to your wife! Don’t take it from me, take a look at what she likes to read online… check out her Google Reader…( I’m not a certified counselor)
• Wives – Remember that his lack of style is actually a style. It may seem like it’s not to you, but it is to him. There is no doubt that a set of surroundings exists that he would consider “perfect” and, all things being equal, he’s probably up-for the idea of making it happen.
• Research together – the best thing you can do is go out to places that you think might give you some clues. Model homes, hotels, restraunts, pool halls, Lowe’s Motor Speedway (not the parking lot at your local Lowe’s), whatever… lots of places. Spend some time paying attention to what physical surroundings actually instigate a good feeling in each of you. Take a picture, write it down.
• Designate Areas – What was that movie where they split the house down the middle? War of the Roses? Like that, but in a less dramatic way. For some reason, I don’t like the term “man cave” but there is some sense to the idea. If your design styles aren’t totally complementary, try to have some section that you agree belongs to your spouse to design however he/she wants.   (most often, he gets the garage, and that’s not fair! At least give him a porch too.)
• Agree on a budget! This one is the main culprit. Money fights! I can tell you from experience how to avoid this, but it might mean you start your work later. Have an agreed “splurge fund”. The problem is when the time comes for a toilet purchase… you want the nice one with all the bells and whistles (pottys have bells and some sport whistles too). He doesn’t see the value…it has a very simple purpose, he says.  This is where the splurge fund comes in. If you say, “Jim, this John is important to me! I’m willing to splurge on it!” (again, I’m not certified in this…so…)
• Decide on a work schedule! It can be very challenging for both of you to have work going on six or seven days a week twelve hour days. (that’s your contractor’s hours, right?) Decide before you start what the hours will be, tell your contractor, or hold yourself to it. This is especially true if you have strangers around. It gets old. Fast. It might mean to do the work in stages. That’s not so bad anyway.
• Just work together… from your core!

The overall point is that your house is the largest outward expression of you as a couple and if you both get involved in the remodeling process you’ll both get a sense of ownership of the project. You’ll both be excited, if not about every aspect of the work, at least about something! When one person isn’t really excited at all, it can be bad news!

Did I say I wasn’t certified?

By the way… if you’re wondering how I ended up reading this post on marriage, I’ll show you. I saw this link on Facebook:

Build a Better Marriage By Getting Buck Naked … so I clicked on it!

Now, I know that you have some thoughts on relationships and remodeling! Let’s hear ‘em!

Wait! Don’t change the channel just yet! It’s not how it sounds. I don’t mean I rock in the whole “yeah, I know it, I rock” sense of the phrase. That would be vain, and they didn’t write the song about me. Honk if you get it.

No, I don’t mean I rock all the time, I mean that I can RAWK (?) on occasion. We’re talking music here. Rock, roll, the works. I’m trying, in my standard long-winded fashion, to tell you about my night last night. My whole day in fact. Because you’ve been wondering about that. Right?

So, my son AJ is a huge metal fan.

His favorite band is a Christian band that goes by the name of Disciple. I think they have some form of advanced communication enabled, similar to my RSS feed, that lets him know exactly what Disciple is doing at any given moment. So when they scheduled three concerts in Florida he knew it. And then I knew it.

We picked the show in Vero Beach, obviously because it was near a beach, and got our tickets. AJ and I left bright and early yesterday for the three hour drive to Vero. We wanted to be sure that we were there in plenty of time for the 7:00pm show. We made it with time to spare.

I won’t bore you with all the details of our day. It was great and involved body surfing some HUGE waves, catching a movie at a beautiful theater called The Majestic, and getting in-line for the concert at 4:30, ensuring us front row seats for the general admission show. Did I mention it didn’t start until 7pm ?

(I’m getting to some remodeling stuff, I promise…)

There were three bands and the show started right on time at 7:00. That was the last I saw of my seat. It faded away behind four deep teenagers in the two feet of space between the stage and the chairs. Don’t ask me how they fit? They did, and apparently they felt like there was plenty of wiggle room because they proceeded to jump, and flail, and otherwise act out the joy coursing through them.

There were speakers. Let me give this to you in remodeling terms. Imagine two Sub-Zero’s on top of one another. They were about six feet from my head. And a stack of twenty wine cooler size speakers were hanging from the ceiling. But they weren’t wine coolers. Nope. So when I say the joy was coursing through them, I mean it.

So there I was (paperback novel in my pocket in preparation for the potential retreat that never came) on the front row, right on the stage, trying to “blend“…yeah, right, like THAT is going to happen. It was fun. Really, it was.

Kids Are Energy

Whew, you made it to the remodeling part. I woke up this morning thinking of all the room additions I’ve built as hang-out’s for kids. Parents all over are building room additions just to keep the kids at their house where they can see them. They fill these rooms with cool home theaters, pool tables, video games, and bean bags. I’ve built dozens of them.

But I realized this morning that I should have reinforced them! These kids are like little tanks! They can destroy! I started thinking of what I would do if I wanted to “teenager-proof” a room. Here is the list I came up with…

• Door Casing – Kids just kill the doors! What is that? So I would need to make sure that my door casing couldn’t be pulled off. That would mean an extra stud behind my door casing when I did framing, so that way it could be nailed solid on both the inside and the outside edge. I’d use glue too.
• Solid Core Doors – Forget these puny hollow core doors. Any respectable group of teenagers will make mince meat of that in no time flat. You would need solid doors. Either solid wood or LDF (Low Density Fiber-board).
• Light Fixtures – Lighting is important, you might need it for impromptu first aid. Fixtures should be mounted, up-high. Forget the lamps, they’ll never make it.
• Walls – I’m thinking solid wood up two-thirds of the wall. A wainscot type look with a nice cap rail on top. It looks great but is indestructible. You could do drywall, but you’ll need this post on drywall repair.
• Paint – Let’s be serious. I have to tell my son five times in one two sentence conversation to “stop hanging on the door”. He touches everything and despite the energetic bouncing I saw at the concert, teenagers apparently need bodily support from walls and doorways most of the time. So the paint needs to be very durable, and washable, and while you’re at it, I say go with a distressed look that way you don’t care when they take a chunk out of the wainscot in some completely unforeseeable way.
• Floors – Stained concrete? If that’s too cold, then I would go with either a solid 3/4″ thick nailed down hardwood floor, finished in-place, or a laminate flooring like Pergo. You’ve seen the demonstrations where they smack it with the hammer right? There you go.
• Windows – no windows.

So there you have it. The story of my wonderful day with my son, the huge metal fan, and some tips on how to design your remodeling project to be teenager proof. I wish I could go back in time, I’d be selling wainscot and solid core doors leftswing and rightswing. Contractors take notice…change order money here!

I’d love to hear some “my teenager destroyed my house” stories, just NOT FROM YOU MOM!

~ RG

Hello Friends!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and I wish you the best for a great week ahead! Two quick things I want to bring to your attention today!

1. The April issue of the Remodeling Guy Newsletter has been released!

That’s just a sneak peek of the top of the page. There’s a whole lot more to it than you can see here! This month’s newsletter has some great content that you can’t get on the blog!

• Home Pride, No Bread! – An article about the imaginary link between having money in your pocket and pride in your house! It links to a “secret” page on the blog where I share 10 tips on ZERO and LOW budget remodeling ideas…but the comments I’m getting are even better than my ideas. You want to see this!
• RG Bar and Grill – I’ve got some heavy, thought provoking, words about the sometimes heart-wrenching battle between charcoal and gas grills. And that links to another post…but I’ll tell you about that in a moment.
• There’s More – Announcements, inspiration, cool ideas and links; it’s all free of charge and so totally worth the two seconds it takes to sign up right in this box:

 
Sorry – The Newsletter is on Temporary Hold!

After you sign up, don’t forget that you have to click on a link in the confirmation email to make your subscription active.

I’ll send out the April Newsletter once every day to new subscribers for about a week or so. After that, you can email me and I’ll send it to you! My email address is tim@remodelingguy.net

Pictures of My Tiki Bar!

Spring Time gets me all excited for outside work! One of my favorite outdoor projects of all time is our backyard here at the “new” house in Punta Gorda. I have posted some pictures and my thoughts on it all over at RG: Express!

I know that I already asked you to sign-up for a newsletter and now I’m asking you to click over to the other part of the blog. So demanding! Maybe this picture will help you want to go over there!

Tons lined up for this week here at Remodeling Guy! Later today or tonight I’ll get some pictures of that Plan A cabinet door up! I think you’ll be interested to see the end result!

Have a great week…and, seriously, sign-up for that Newsletter!

~ Tim

I love an island kitchen! They work for a number of great reasons and the creative opportunities abound. Here are a few examples of great kitchen islands:

Great Stone!

I really like the way the stone counter looks in this kitchen. The light color works well with the creamy color cabinets against the dark wood floor. I also noticed the open shelves on the end, and I like the undermount prep sink!

Great Woodwork!

I’m a wood guy. I love beautiful woodwork and one of these days I’ll get around to photographing some of my own work. Given that bent, I love this island. To me, it looks like art. Functionally, I like the space available underneath so you can sit around it and eat! Something like this wouldn’t cost much to have made. It’s relatively simple!

Great Feeling!

One of my favorite functions of an island is that they provide a place to congregate in the kitchen. People love to hang out in kitchens and islands provide a place to do just that! This one offers seating, storage, and a huge counter space. Looks like a huge kitchen and I gotta say…LOVE that blue cabinet! And the yellow walls…dark floors too!

Great Table!

An island doesn’t have to be a specifically designed cabinet. Some of the best kitchen islands anywhere are really just tables, placed in the kitchen. I love the idea of a kitchen with a table right in the middle of it! When you see that, you know you’re in a home that values family, freindships, and time spent together.

Well…Just WOW!

There aren’t words for this one. How cool is that? Cha Ching! $$$

If you have an empty space in your kitchen, maybe you ought to go island style! Thanks to Julia for hosting Hooked on Fridays at her awesome blog, Hooked On Houses!

We’re Hooked on REAL Islands at Forever Wherever! Great pictures…go see.

So, which one is your favorite? Let me know in the comments. And everyone is welcome to comment! If you have any questions, just ask me there. I’ve been answering questions inside the comments and that seems to be working well, so I’ll try and keep after it!

Looking For A Wow?

I have a few today; here is the first:

Is this amazing or what? Glass tiles are a wonderful material and they’re truly one of my personal favorites. As you can see in the picture above, glass opens up new ways to be creative. And glass tiles are often very colorful.

Not Just For Millionaires

Glass tile used to be really very costly, and much of it still is. But, you can find good glass tiles now for $5.00 – $10.00 per square foot. I know that’s still quite a bit, but this stuff is like Godiva chocolates, you don’t need to pig out to get some enjoyment!

One of the things I talk about often and really intend to focus on quite a bit is how to create an environment. I also talk about how to do more with less, especially in the current economy. Glass helps with that.

Glass Inspires a Feeling of Luxury

Even in small amounts glass tile can make you feel like you’re in an upscale resort! That’s what kind of environment I want to create! Don’t you? Look at this:

There is probably 150 square feet of glass in this bathroom, counting the shower, the counter, and the cool wrap around the mirror. If the cost was $3.00 per foot more than an alternative tile, you’re looking at $450.00 more in materials. Maybe less than that because glass tile usually does not need bullnose tiles at the edge, which can add substantially to the cost of a “normal” tile job. I think it’s worth the $$.

Just Do a Detail

Maybe you don’t want to rip out the whole shower! No problem, pick a small detail and try your luck with that.

This is a great way to start if you’re a part of our D.I.Y. Crew! Check out the tile around the mirror. Doesn’t that add some pizzazz! (not to change the subject, but now I want a pizza… I should have said it added flair!)

Anyway, back on point. A small job like this can be done in a total of maybe ten hours work max. Four or five on one day and a few on the next to grout it. Way cool!

You can apply a small amount of this directly on top of your drywall. You probably want to paint it with bonding primer first though.

Check with the tile supplier to make sure you’re using an adhesive that works well with glass tiles. Remember that the glass is transparent, so you want to keep the color of your setting material in mind. Don’t just grab the gray thin-set!

You Need Some Basic Tools

A notched trowel, some spacers, and good setting material are about all you need for a simple job like a mirror surround.

One thing to keep in mind is that glass is hard to cut, and REALLY hard to cut nicely. That’s why professional installation on this stuff can get pricy. You’re better off working out a layout that avoids cuts if you can.

Go Nuts with Color!

Glass is great about color. There are thousands of colors and the sheen of the glass makes them very vibrant.

Mix it In

One of my favorite tricks is to mix a few colored glass tiles in with either an all one color glass tile job, or into another material.

Like concrete! We’ll get into concrete counters and tables in the future, but just think about how a few small pieces of colored glass set into a concrete counter would look!

Nice color in this floor!

Make A Splash!

Glass tile makes a great wall splash!

How Creative Are You?

If you really want to get creative, this is the material for you. Maybe you want to make some waves:

The Grand Finale!

Look at this work of art:

WOW!

You can do this! It may take you a few weeks of nights, but wouldn’t it be worth it? You can draw out the pattern on the wall with a pencil to help guide you. Usually a job like this is set one tile at a time. If you look closely, you can see that this artist has used slices of natural stone, like geodes, in the pattern. Cool. And this is a wet bar, so more glasses!

How Cool is THAT!?