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The web has allowed folks who are separated by hundreds and even thousands of miles to be neighbors. On the Internet we are next door. Because of our shared interests we form communities where we can share our experiences, point and link to folks whose experiences are worth noting, and build our communities, regardless of physical distance. Strong communities are built by good neighbors.
In scanning a blog the other day from a link that another blogger had posted, I saw an image that looked real familiar. I guess that is because of it being from one of my own my blog postings. I do my own photography, and image processing, which accounts for the raw look of a lot of the things I post here. It only took moments to discover that this was indeed my work.
Without permission, attribution or links to the source.
This is like going to your neighbor’s garage and ‘borrowing’ his tools without telling him. You may get away with this for a little while, but when your other neighbors discover this behavior, your integrity gets called into question. I don’t think that you want to be that guy.
Out here on the web it is common when using images by others to provide attribution and or links to the source of material whether it be words or images. The funniest thing about this situation is that the web is the one place where asking permission is actually easier than asking forgiveness.
Using other people’s stuff without either permission, attribution or links to the source is just wrong.
I am not mad but sad as in my 15 or so years on the web, I have had images stolen, entire postings hijacked, entire websites stolen, been hacked, had somebody take my online identity, do some real evil damage, and had just about every bad thing that can happen to you online happen to me at one time or another. When you are out here long enough, shit happens especially someone as outspoken as I am.
It is a short path from being a good neighbor to being the guy that folks avoid. Online this is even more so as the web has a memory like a herd of elephants.
As I mentioned earlier, on the web we are all next door. You have to decide what kind of neighbor you want to be.
One Project Closer in addition to being a great resource for DIY by actually doing and sharing are kicking it up a notch.
The folks at OPC have opened up a DIY Discussion Forum Here. This is a place for you to ask questions and discuss remodeling projects, from painting to site work.
Come on in.
Lasagna is one of those foods that require time, energy, and love. Make your sauce, grate and mix your cheeses, boil your noodles, dry them, assemble the layers, then cook. You can spend a whole day making it. It is not a member of the microwave food group.
The secret to really good lasagna or spaghetti sauces is blending and resting. A good sauce takes about 4-6 hours to cook. It is flavorful and robust at this point. However, resting and putting it in the fridge overnight will stun you with the blending of flavor you get the next day. There are two ways to do this. One day assembly and Two day assembly.
The most involved part of assembling lasagna is the noodles. Cooking, Draining, Drying and using. Or you can try the greatest pasta invention since the noodle was invented. Barilla Lasagne Noodles. These gems are no boiling required. Really!
One day assembly
You make your sauce and cheese mix and begin to assemble your lasagna. Sauce on the bottom, a layer of DRY noodles, cheese mix, DRY noodles and so on. You can Bake and enjoy today or you can put it in the fridge overnight. . The noodles soften with the sauce and moisture from the cheese giving you a firm moist lasagna.
Two day assembly
Make you sauce and put it in the fridge overnight. On the second day, while you put your sauce on the counter to warm up to room temperature, you mix your cheeses. Riccota, Mozzarella, Parmesan or Romano depending on your taste. Using the same assembly method, put it together and pop it in the oven.
Either way, the Barilla Dry noodles are just the ticket for great lasagna.
In remodeling now that we have looked at Framing Nails and Finish Nails, we come to the other nails that may end up on your projects. Up till now we have looked at steel nails used in construction in interior and dry locations. Exterior locations, drywall, paneling and wood to concrete use speciality nails. Here is a photo of probably the most used nails in these categories.
From left to right are Galvanized, ringshank and phosphate drywall nails, and concrete nails. These are the most common types of nails most DIY’ers will need. Below we take a closer look.
Galvanized Nails
From top to bottom we have Sinkers, Roofing, and Exterior siding nails.
Galvanized nails are coated with zinc to inhibit rust and are used in exterior locations. There are three current galvanizing methods, Hot dip, mechanical and electro-plating.
Most framing nails and some finish are available galvanized for locations that are exposed to moisture, like exterior trim, siding and roofing.
The top nail is a 16d hot dip sinker, the middle nail is an electroplated roofing nail, and the bottom is a 4d mechanically galvanized siding nail for siding and or wood shingles.
Quick rule of thumb: if it is outside it needs to be galvanized.
Ringshank and Drywall Nails
Ring shank nails increase the surface area that can be gripped, increasing the friction and resistance to pull out and removal.
From top is a 2” ring-shank paneling nail, a ringshank drywall nail and a southwestern phosphate coated drywall nail.
Ring shank panel nails are used most often in attaching plywood and or particle board sub flooring.
Drywall ring shank nails perform the same function on walls and ceilings. Phosphate drywall nails were developed to minimize rusting behind taping mud, and as far as I know are one of those weird southwestern nail deals. The coating may provide some friction benefit like coated nails, but I do not know.
Concrete Nails
Concrete nails are much harder than regular nails, and eye protection really needs to be worn. You should use eyeware protection in any case in remodeling and construction, but especially when using concrete nails.
The top nail is called a Cut nail. These nails are forged rather than drawn like wire nails. Subsequently they are harder and chip easier than wire nails. These are primarily used to fasten wood to masonry or concrete. Like furring strips to the interior of brick or block houses. Despite having around 4 times more holding power than a equally sized wire nail, they have been replaced by fluted nails, sleeve and wedge anchors for attaching bottom plates to concrete floors.
The bottom one is a fluted concrete nail, doing basically the same thing.
So there you have it. Probably more than you ever wanted to know about nails.
Having explored Framing Nails, I am jumping ahead to Finish Nails. I will deal with the nails between the wood and trim (drywall, paneling,and specialty nails) next post.
Finish Nails are the ‘headless’ nails used primarily for trim work, hence finish. They come in a variety of sizes for fastening things that will be exposed or where materials will be finished such as window and door frames in wood, where a big headed nail may look bad.
Here is a photo of a selection of finish nails from 16d [3 1/2''] to 4d [1 1/2'']. (Note Nails smaller than 1 1/2” are called ‘brads’ and are sold by length.)
They are called headless, but they do have a small head. They also have a diamond point on the other end. I need to take a moment to talk about how nails work.
Nails are friction holding devices. The wood surrounding the nail provides the friction that allows things to stay together and not fall apart. That is it. The little bits of friction and a bit of gravity is the only thing keeping the big bad wolf or storms from sucking your house off its foundation and sending it to Oz or someone else’s house. (Or in my case, concrete anchors, construction adhesives, nails, deck screws, strong tie hangers and brackets…) Relax, they have been doing their job well for hundreds of years.
I mentioned in the framing nail posting how various coatings are used on framing nails to increase the holding power of the nail. Vinyl, Epoxy, Cement. Not so much with finish nails. The only notable exception are galvanized nails for exterior use.
Because nails work by friction, splitting your wood removes the friction necessary to your nails doing their job and makes your work look bad. The closer you get to the edge or end of a piece of wood,(Composites don’t count.) the greater the chances of the nail splitting it, and causing problems. All nails have points, which is good news/bad news. Good news in knowing which direction to point them, bad news for edge nailing including toe nailing which is not used much anymore.
The point of the nail literally cuts the wood fibers as you drive it in. This is a bad thing for the friction game especially if you split the wood. You can minimize this. When getting ready to drive a nail into an edge or end, flip it over and tap the point with your hammer to blunt the point of the nail before driving it.
What this does is push the wood fibers out of the way rather than cutting them maintaining the maximum friction and holding power. I learned this from my grandfather who was a master cabinet maker from Sweden, and it hasn’t let me down yet.
With every nailing operation except for duplex nails, your goal is to drive the nail just below the surface. Occasionally you will slip and damage the lumber with a hammer mark. In rough framing this is not a real issue, as it will be covered by something and have trim.
On trim however, this is an issue. There is a tool for that. It is called a nail set. A nail set is a small tool with a semi flat point to allow you do tap the head of finish nails below the surface of your trim.
You want to take care to just drive the nail far enough so that any filler you use to hide the nail hole will be easy to finish.
For the majority of your home remodeling projects you will only need 2 sizes 8d and 4d
The 8d will cover setting door and window frames, applying 1x-3/4” trims and other areas where appearance is an issue. The 4d will handle all of your case and base work. You will only need to buy these in pound quantities. The only other optional size would be a small box of 16d’s for temporary hangers like coat racks and interior jambs on exterior doors that have 1 1/2 ” or thicker jambs.
Happy Nailing.
One of the most basic things in building and remodeling are nails. Your entire house, except for the brick and concrete bits is built and held together with nails. When you walk into the hardware store looking for nails, there is a huge selection of types, sizes, coatings and finishes. One of the things that stops a lot of folks from doing remodeling projects is the wide selection of just the basic stuff like nails.
This is a guide to the most useful nails that you will need for your projects. First up are Framing Nails. Framing nails are used in building walls, roofs, applying sheathing, sub-flooring, and just about everywhere construction lumber is used.
Here are a selection of nails from my nail carry around. From left to right are a 16d Duplex, a 16d sinker, a 10d common, a 10d box, a 8d sinker, a 6d common, and a 6d box nail.
Framing nails come in three basic styles. Sinkers, Common and Box. Nail sizes are designated by (d) (penny) which was how much a hundred nails cost, by size back in England. More info on this at Wikipedia. Yeah I know it is weird, but let’s move on.
Sinkers and Commons are the same physical size in both thickness and length. Sinkers have a waffle pattern on the top of the head to help drive the nails by providing a non skid surface for the hammer face and come in a number of coating styles. Sinkers sre available with vinyl, epoxy and cement coatings. They are also available with a galvanized coating for locations that may be exposed to water. These coatings improve the holding power of the nails significantly. They also make you swear a lot when you are demoing things using these nails.
Commons have no waffling or coating generally. They should not be used in high moisture or exposed area as they will rust. Box nails are the same length as their sinker and common sisters, but have thinner shafts.
Box nails are a holdover from boxes were made from wood and the materials were thinner,(think fruit crates) and a thinner shaft minimized splitting of the slats when nailing.
Before I announce the winners, the last entrant and the nail on the left is a duplex head nail. The duplex nail has two heads to make removable easier as it is used for applications that are temporary in nature. Most notably concrete forms and temporary scaffolding. Also known as scaffolding nails, from a time when scaffolding was made from wood, before the invention of steel tubular scaffolding. Now that you probably know way too much about nails…..
The Winners Are
The 8 and 16d coated sinkers provide 95% of your needs in framing and sheathing in remodeling projects. They combine the best in holding power, resistance to bending and utility from framing to sheathing. Buying them in bulk will save you money and time. You may think 25 pounds of nails is crazy, but trust me, if you are doing a substantial amount of remodeling you will be surprised.
Over at One Project Closer, the lads have a list of gifts for the DIY’ers and remodelers. Some nice stuff.
I would like to add to the list with a excellent plastic storage container. This is a Workforce parts container I picked up at the orange store about 3 years ago. They are around 12-15 bucks a copy. You may only think you need one, but like potato chips, that won’t fly long. These are very durable made with thick plastic.
They are 18” wide, 12 1/2” high, and 3 1/2” deep. The handle is integral, and comfortable, especially when you have it filled up with stuff.
The dividers are very well made and sit in the boxes well. They are adjustable and come with the box. The lid holds them in place when transporting.
This is the one I use for nails.
The top from the left I have 16d sinkers, 10d brights, 8d sinkers, 2” ringshanks
Next 6d commons, 6d finish, 4d finish, and 16d duplex
Next 8d finish, 3d finish, 1 1/2 ring shank, and 4d galvanized.
the bottom spaces on either side of the handle are for misc. stuff although under the plastic bag on the right I have a number of nail sets.
My screw box.
Here I have deck screws from 1 1/4 to 3”. Drywall screws from 1” to 1 5/8”, both coarse and fine thread. I have specialty screws in 1/2”-3/4”. This is where I keep various plastic wall anchors, and all my counter sink bits.
Did I mention that they are stackable?
These are well designed and tough. A worthy addition to your remodeling arsenal.
Hallelujah! I am finally moving away from TypePad. To Wordpress.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
My new site is here. Bookmark It!!
Thanks to the folks at foliovision.com and this guide: Moving from Typepad to Wordpress: 2009 Guide .
The guide is comprehensive, but complex. If you know your way around websites, hosting, FTP, and things like regex, you can do it yourself. If you are not comfortable with these, they offer a paid service to do it for you. It is 350 bucks, which is worth it if you have a site with a lot of materiel, especially images.
My new site is here. Bookmark It!!
It is not about the money as TypePad is a paid service, but is all about being locked into a system with limited expansion, terrible tech support, and regaining my freedom.
In remodeling you sometimes decide to bridge the new work to old or existing work. Matching or changing your wall surface becomes a consideration. This is a short guide on skim coating existing walls to match the new construction.
The previous wall surface is a heavy knockdown texture. Basically what happens is that the walls are taped and second coated, and then taping mud is thinned and sprayed on the walls with a texture hopper, and after a few minutes, it is ‘knocked down’ with a taping knife resulting in a textured wall. It is a cheap finish system and all too often is done badly.
This is the alcove where the toilet sits in the Lightyear Sunken Bath Project. In this case we decided to make the walls smooth. This has just about every thing you can run into when remodeling with drywall between old and new construction.
The left of this photo shows the edge of the drywall that covers where we installed a pocket door. The back wall shows where we installed a glass block for light and replaced the piece of drywall we cut out previously. You can also get a good idea of the ‘knock down’ texture.
The right side shows where we framed up the new partition between the toilet and the shower with the opening for the open shelf unit.
 Throne Alcove with New and Old work.
Here is the beginning of taping this area. We use mesh tape for the flats, and paper tape for the inside corners. Taping on texture has its own issues. When you feather your mud, the knife running over the texture telegraphs and creates ripples in your mud coat.
When taping inside corners on these areas, mud and embed your tape, and wipe down the new flat side first. This creates a guide area for wiping down the other side and give you a clean smooth corner.
 Taping cracks and establishing Inside corners
Here the process is a bit further along with the introduction of the open shelf unit and the metal bead. This unit is trimless, so I installed ‘L’ Bead along the outside edges of the shelving unit. Not shown in this photo is a piece of mesh tape applied diagonally just below the high side of the bead. This strengthens the joint, minimizing cracking, and reinforcing the gap made by the bead and the drywall. We also taped the flats and installed the corner bead.
 Wall and Shelf Detail Look at the bottom of this photo and notice the grey triangular area. This is where I did not cut through the corner deep enough when I removed the old drywall prior to rebuilding this.
Here is where I have prefilled this area thinking that I had gotten all of the loose paper removed. Bzzt! not so fast. You can see the bubbles from a bit of the paper that had separated. You have to remove these and fill them in. If you do not, succeeding coats of mud will bounce, and look bad. You can also get an idea of the texture filling with the splotchy area outside of the triangle.
 Paper Detail Here is where I have taped the flats and the corners. You can see the diagonal line of where the two ‘L’ beads do not match up perfectly. This will be fixed on succeeding coats. The magazine rack also gets taped. If it is an inside corner it gets tape.
 Reading nook detail The most important part of skim coating is taping the inside corners to provide clean sharp angles.
 Inside Corner Taping
Once your corners are done, you can then begin the process of skim coating to smooth your walls.
 Wall Skimming
The key to any successful remodeling project is planning. Once you have your parts selected, and have made the various choices and tradeoffs, especially for DIY’ers, before you start the rebuilding process, review what you have and where it is going. This will help you to have a successful project.
One of the most important aspects of any project is providing blocking for the various things that will be attached to your finished walls. Bathrooms are probably the most involved rooms in providing blocking for towel bars, grab bars, backing for various things that will be mounted on the walls. There are amazing anchors made for hollow walls, but since you have the walls open, providing solid blocking takes little extra time and will pay big dividends later.
Let’s take a quick tour around the LSB project.
This is the wet wall for the control valve, spout, and shower head. As I mentioned in Episode 6 I designed this wall to fit the new tub, and to get as much storage into it as possible. The studs are on either side of the water center-line to allow the plumber an easy way for connecting the shower. The fiberglass insulation in this wall was recycled from the long wall as it has been replaced with the foam board that you can see on the right side of the photo. It is a sound control measure, as bathrooms are second to your kitchen in noise.
The left side of the wall has a built up corner so that there is solid backing for the shower curtain rod that will be attached to the solid surface after it is installed. The outlet on the wall is for two switches we are installing to shut off power to the tub when not in use. One is for the pump, the other is for the inline heater. Despite the tub having a dry pump feature and the inline heater not operating when there is no water present, it is cheap insurance as the controls for the tub are at little hands grab height.
Moving along to the long wall, I left the original 2×2’s in place, because they were solid, and worked around them. The glass block frame I made out of 3/4” plywood and added a 2×2 to the top and bottom to act as a stop for the assembly and to provide nailing for the drywall. I added blocking below it horizontally to have an attachment surface for the drywall and to stiffen the wall so the solid surface does not come down in a few years.
That’s the top half. Let’s look at the bottom half. Here we provided blocking for the grab bars that we are installing on this wall. They seem high now but will be at a convenient height when the tub is installed. These blocks are attached to the vertical studs with 3” screws drilled in at an angle top and bottom. when the drywall is glued and screwed, the solid surface applied and the mounting brackets for the bars are installed, you will not be pulling these off the wall without a come along or a shot of adrenaline to the heart.
The framing on the glass block side is different as the two openings are made for specific purposes. The lower one will allow access tto the back side of the tub should it ever becomes necessary, The upper one is a future shelf unit for the other side of the wall.
Moving along. to the glass block wall. We are installing a Jeeves Heated Towel Bar. This requires an electric outlet and solid blocking for the unit itself. The outlet for the heater is bleow this photo. The electric box you see is for the timer to turn the warmer on and off.
Everything that will attach to the walls will have a solid surface to attach to. A little planning now and you won’t have to investigate the wonderful world of hollow wall anchors.
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