Helping out a friend

So, a friend of mine who wishes to remain anonymous, called me in this week to help him with some projects around his house. He has a little kid who is getting to the age where he is getting into everything. So, we had to finish up some projects that were started but never finished. One of the first projects that I worked on was fixing up his cabinet and dish washer in the kitchen. My friend had cut apart the old cabinet next to the sink and put the dishwasher in there. As you can see in the pictures below, the cabinet was still cut apart and the dishwasher wasn't level. So, we needed to level the dish washer and install it properly and fix the cabinet next to it. To level the dishwasher I put plywood on the floor to raise it up to the level of the tile floor. Then I just used the levelers on the unit itself. As for the cabinet, I added support and lined it with 3/8" finish plywood then used pine for the styles and rails on the front. You can see all the progress below. At this point all that is left is to build the door. The other project we are working on is the front steps. They are in rough shape. I picked up some nice Doug-Fir stair treads, I then cut them to length and routed the sides to give it a nice finished look. Since these treads aren't treated, I like to prime and paint the entire step, top and bottom. This seals the entire step and prolongs the life of it considerably. Some people don't think that this is necessary, but I think that it is a little thing that goes a long way. That is where we got to last week. I will post more once we get more done this week. 

So here is what we started with.

And without the dishwasher.

3/4" plywood installed to raise and level the washer

3/8" plywood lining the cabinet, with pine for the facing. 

Facing finished and washer installed properly and level. 

And the washer is even with the counter.

This is what we are working with out front.

Doug-fir stair treads, primed and painted.

Vanity

So, we have finished the vanity that we were working on. Below are some pictures of the finished product. The customer is going to stain it, then we will be installing it. I will post more pictures once it is installed. There are also some pictures below of some shelves that we built for the vanity in their other bathroom. Just Two simple shelves to add more storage options to their vanity.

Here is the beginning of the doors

And once they were finished

Here is the finished cabinet with the drawer installed, and the doors below. They will be installed once it is stained

Here are the shelves. 

And here is what they look like installed

Custom made vanity

This is a cool little project. The customers that we are working with right now have been shopping for a vanity for over 2 months and haven't found anything that they like. Most vanities don't have full size drawers in the bottom, due to the plumbing that can sometimes come up through the floor in bathrooms. That happens to be the case in this bathroom, but they would like a bottom drawer. So they asked us to build a custom one for them. This is a fun build, we set up on site and are building the vanity from scratch to their specs. We are building it with a drawer in the bottom that will be shallow enough to allow room for the pipes. This is a nice feature that adds a lot of extra storage space to a fixture that wouldn't generally have a lot. The vanity will also have two doors to allow access for storage in the vanity itself. We are building the vanity out of finish grade birch plywood for the panels and poplar for the styles or facing. We are excited for the end result. Here are some pictures of it in the works.

Tile

We have started to put up the tile on the backsplash now. We are using a nice natural stone granite tile. They are about the same size as subway tiles, so we are putting them up in the same fashion. Once they were installed, we cleaned the seams of any excess thin set. Because these tiles are natural stone, they are not sealed. So we went through and sealed them after cleaning the seams. The next step is to grout the tiles, then we will seal the grout and tiles again. That way everything will be sealed and waterproof and ready for the kitchen to be put back together. 

The initial layout. Same as for subway tile.

Everywhere there is counter top, there is tile back splash. 

It really is a nice tile.

Latest job

So, we are re-doing a backsplash in a kitchen. There were old fake bricks on it, so we removed them, installed new backer boared and will be installing the new tiles. Here are some pictures of what we have been doing.

So this is what we started with

Then we removed the brick and installed new backer board.

Here we are taping in the seams of the backer board. Similar to what you would do with Sheetrock. Some people don't see this as necessary, but we feel like it gives a better surface to tile on.

Then we draw our layout lines to run the tile.

This is as far as we have gotten as of this post. Once we get farther I will post more photos. Below are a few pictures from earlier tile jobs that we have done in this home. 

Here is the kitchen floor with border tile.

Here is the bathroom. We renovated the bathroom and did the tile on the floor.

And we installed the tile in the shower surround. 

Hello!

To everyone who is here checking out this page, I just wanted to take the time and let you know that this is a new page. It will be updated as we get more projects to share with everyone. As we get more comfortable with the format of the site, we will also be updating and changing things. So check back often as our site progresses and see the different jobs we are working on.

Before and after picture of our latest job

So here is a cottage that we worked on over in Clintondale,NY. As you can see from the pictures, when we started the exterior of cottage had old homasote sheathing on it that had been used for siding. It had not been painted for quite some time and wasn't in the best of shape. We repaired the sheathing, covered the house in Tyvek house wrap and re-sided the place with board and baton siding. 

On the back side of the house we built a  22'x12' deck. The cottage has a great view of Mohonk Mountain, and the deck allows people to enjoy that view. In the back room of the house leading out onto the new deck we installed a set of french doors that make the room and home feel larger.

On the interior of the house we also renovated the bathroom, which included custom making a shower stall to fit the space. We laid black and white tile on the floors and subway tile on the walls. Throughout the rest of the home we installed pre-finished hardwood flooring to update the look and give it a nice new clean feeling. New closet doors finished everything off.  

Before we started

New Board and baton siding

New deck and french door on the back of the house

Back of the house before deck

And after

New French door

New closet doors

Custom made shower stall to fit the space

Finished with black and white on the floor

And subway tiles on the wall

Interior and floors before we started the flooring

 New Pre finished Hardwood floors throughout