Home renovation- Where to start?
8 years ago
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- 8 years ago
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House wrap on a flat roofed house, where to start/stop?
Comments (3)There should be copper or stainless steel flashing above and overlapping the built-up asphalt roofing membrane and self-adhering modified bitumen waterproofing (Ice & Water Shield) above and overlapping the metal and extending over the parapet cap. (The waterproofing should not touch the roofing asphalt and the flashing allows replacement of the membrane) I would carry the waterproofing down the front to the roof line as well and would use a water based primer on the wood. Then the waterproofing must be covered with siding or sheet metal. This is a very critical detail and if it isn't done properly it will have to be rebuilt at very high cost in a few years. I would help to see a section detail of the parapet....See MoreWhere to start? How to plan an unexpected kitchen renovation?
Comments (11)1) First up, don't install the hardwoods yet. Three reasons: a) Find out from the manufacturer of the intended hardwoods if cabinets can be installed on top of them or if the floor should be installed around the cabinets. We're installing a floating hardwood floor, and we were told in no uncertain terms not to install the kitchen on top of the floor because it would cause a "pinch point" where the floor could not expand/contract naturally because it was pinned in place by the weight of the cabinet/counter/sink-full-of-water. That apparently can cause terrible buckling in the floor. If you should not be installing cabinets over your floors, you'd need to know the final cabinet layout before these floors go in. b) Since you are redoing your kitchen, you may end up wanting to widen doorways or open a wall or whatever. You want to lay the floor AFTER these changes are made, or you'll have weird-looking floor patches where the moved walls were. c) You want as much work done as possible before the floors go in because every workman, every tool, every job is one more opportunity for your floors to be damaged. You can protect the floors after they go in, but it's still better to have your framing, electrical, plumbing, insulation, and drywall done before the floors go in. 2) This is related to number one, but don't do ANY expensive work until you have a complete plan for what is going in your kitchen. Down to which lights and where, which size cabinets are going where, etc. What trim, etc. A kitchen remodel is like dominoes -- if one of the first tiles is not placed correctly, the rest can't fall the way you want them to. It is very costly -- in time and money -- to fix an early domino that was placed rashly, and anything you feel like you're gaining by just getting SOMETHING done now will be lost a hundredfold several weeks from now when you have to undo it after a lot of stuff has been installed over it. I really can't stress this enough: No plan? NO work. I know it's really difficult, but try not to let your urgency to restore order dictate what you actually do. You will thank yourself later. 2) As everybody else is saying, argue with your insurance for more money. 3) Start googling and pinteresting and find some inspiration pictures of kitchens you love. Get at least five, but more is better. Then sit down and figure out what are the common threads running through the pictures and how those might be put into your new kitchen. Gardenweb can help you brainstorm about this if you post your inspiration pictures. As you pull pictures, make sure you are going in a direction that fits with the architecture/style of the rest of your house. It doesn't need to be a perfect match to the rest of the house, but it should be compatible. (For example, our place is rustic Spanish-style. I like more clean, simple, and modern places. So for my kitchen, I went with more of the Spanish-revival art deco inspiration pictures -- not incongruous with our building, but also not incongruous with what I like.) 4) Concurrently with fighting your insurance company and looking for inspiration pictures you like, get gardenweb started working on a layout for your space. Post: a) a floor plan of the entire floor of your house where the kitchen is (not just a floor plan of the kitchen -- we need to consider traffic flow, so we need to see where the kitchen is in relation to other rooms in the house) b) pictures of the space (this helps with visualizing things that aren't clear on the floor plan) c) the details of who uses this kitchen and how and what features you like in a kitchen Make sure to include measurements of everything on the floor plan and preferably have the floor plan on graph paper with a 1 sq foot = 1 square scale. 5) Set up a functional kitchenette space in another room so you don't go bonkers in the meantime and you minimize the impulse to make rash, expensive decisions out of frustration. My husband had an old Ikea dresser, and Ikea sells glass tops for their dressers for $30. I put dishes in the dresser drawers, and we use the glass top as a counter top. I bought a $50 hot plate to go on our "counter," and we already had a mini fridge and a microwave. It's not perfect, but we can still eat sort of normally, and it works....See MoreWhere to start when thinking about renovation in Brooklyn
Comments (2)Not Brooklyn, but OC, CA (also HCOLA, and it's very busy in construction right now) I'd start with estimating what I want to be done, what needs to be done, and whether what I want might have potential needs come to light and be addressed. (the more you dig into older house the more such issues you'll find.) Determine the scope, so to say, and know what it means in terms of time and money..well as much as one can know in advance. I'd read a lot(starting with Sophie's list, but not stopping there), think of direction -I want my place to be such and such..does it fit the house, in terms of style and function? does it fit my family, in terms of style and function?..I'd make appointment with pros(in my case we met with builders, it was a very big remodel), and get even a vague opinion/s on costs involving different scopes. What if I do only X, X and Y, or X and Y and Z. They won't give you anything detailed at this point, detailed quote takes much more time in preparing, and can be a separate charge, and some won't get involved in it unless you're committed to the point of them drafting plans, and it'd be several K (or was here). But at this point you're still not looking into anything definitife yet, you're determining your scope, see who you click with so to say-and they're meeting you while deciding whether they click with you. Current codes are strict and should be met anytime you touch walls/openings, plumbing, electricity..it slipped my mind what else, but every state will have its own code anyway. It's hard to educate yourself on all(just the electrical code here was 900 pages in print..)), but whoever you decide to work with-he should know what takes to meet your local codes. Now, you're being in a loss where to start is kinda normal..we were in shock, first couple months for sure, and just looked at the house, at each other, and besides being in shock did nothing)) Then we started drawing on the napkings and such.. then we went on Angie's list, read many reviews, started calling.. I'd compare it to how one often starts writing an essay, a long and complex one, you know. All my literature teachers in school knew I'll stare at that blank piece of paper for maybe twenty, maybe forty minutes. Everyone would be writing already-I'd still be staring. They weren't worried about me loosing time though. They knew that how it goes when I'm about to write something good:)...See MoreWant to renovate kitchen; no clue where to start!
Comments (6)I agree that if you have no clue where to start, a kitchen designer would be a good place. When we first did our kitchen after moving in our house, we hired one, and it was an excellent experience. He completely understood what we were looking for and designed a kitchen that served us well for over 30 yrs. This time, since the lay out was already good, we went directly to a general contractor. We were doing a gut, but not moving things around much. We started our research in November, even though we had no intention of starting until at least March. We discussed ideas with our contractor, and he suggested this site. It was great because I had plenty of time to read up on things. I found multiple articles about cabinets, countertops, etc that were really helpful to me. Once I educated myself and started looking around at different counters, sinks, cabinets, etc, I started using these forums to get opinions from others on things I needed help with. Also reading the questions of others put things in my head that hadn't been there. Induction for one, was on my radar years ago but at that time options were limited and pricy. I kind of forgot about it until reading about it here, and ended up switching to induction. There was also a member here who recommended a place in my area that would do the glass backsplash that I was looking for. Once we had the cabinets ordered, while waiting for them to arrive, we looked at counters, sinks, faucets, appliances etc....See More- 8 years ago
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