Hi there, I specialize in Japanese timberframe carpentry. I recently moved to Massachusetts, so I'm not too far from you. I am happy to present my credentials/portfolio, but for starters, here is a link to the Timberframer's Guild website, to a page describing a class I will be teaching this fall: http://www.tfguild.org/workshops/japanesecj2005/index.html You can see me in the last picture. I also am contributing to the next issue or two of the Journal of Japanese Gardening. And here is a link to a page showing some furniture I made last year (or was it the year before?): http://joinery.6x.to Anyway, enough about me - - I wonder if you are still looking for some carpentry work? Please drop me a line and I will try to help out as best I can. Thanks, Chris Hall

I had quartlerly treatments (not monthly) for carpenter ants. The treatment was to drill tiny holes on the inside of perimeter walls, every 16 inches. Then they would puff a powder that they said was just boric acid in each hole every three months. This was done after we had all the rotten windows and surrounding wood replaced. I beleive they also dusted the attic very well in the first treatment. We removed the rotting apple tree a few years earlier. I also only use cypress mulch (not pine bark) in the garden because insects don't like it. I felt that my treatment was a huge rip-off. I did not want the basement sprayed, the outside of the house sprayed, or the interior living areas sprayed. The pest control companies have one price around here - no matter how little you want done. I just wanted the boric acid treatment for the ants. I would have been happy to have them do just the first treatment that did involve the attic and basement, but they would not allow that. I had to pay $75 every three months to have them come back and puff powder into the wall holes they had drilled. If you are like me and don't want your dogs, cats, or kids exposed to poisons, do the boric acid treatment yourself. You can still buy it in drug stores. Don't fall for the "everything we use is organic" ruse. OF COURSE it is! Living things are organic and other organic compounds (poisonous organic compounds) kill them. Arsenic is organic. So was agent orange. So is botulism, so is dioxin, so is DDT!

We have some "discrepancies" in our ceiling for the kitchen and what we are doing with our crown molding is that the crown will be mounted onto a rail and the rail mounted to the top of the cabinet - and that rail piece will grow or shrink as necessary - we have a 1/4 inch discrepancy with one cabinet, so on the one edge, we will see about 1/4 of an inch of the rail and on the other edge, we will see about 1/2 of an inch of the rail. The crown itself remains level with the ceiling. I will tell you that YOU are likely the only one that will notice most of those discrepancies once everything is in place. Most people look at crown molding and see that it's there and it creates a finished look, but they don't look at the intricacies of the crown unless you get something super elaborate.

It's so interesting to read this (but I truly am sorry for your plight) because I JUST had a conversation with some good friends about this. I'm thinking of redoing the cabinets in my kitchen. My friends and I have shared trades people - they recommended a wonderful man who is a cabinet maker but also makes these exquisite clear vertical grain cedar screen doors. $$$, but so top quality. After I saw theirs, I had him make one for me and, oh my, he is a perfectionist - furniture quality screen door that closes gently, no slamming required. He took it home to microplane it a few times to get it exact. Wonderful finish. He and I talked about my kitchen cabinets and after the gorgeous screen door, I told my friends I was thinking of hiring him to do the kitchen. "Oh no, he is a nut case." They think he's really over the top on the perfectionism and would NEVER be able to finish a kitchen - nothing would ever be perfect enough. They suggested a cabinet maker who did my bathroom cabinets and on my recommendation built a window seat for them. Gorgeous things all. But I then hired him to redo a second bathroom and he totally flaked out; had some kind of nervous breakdown or something??? So he's out. Then we started talking about all the men who build cabinets that we've known over the years, all of whom seem to be (unstable or something). One other committed suicide. Is it the exacting work? Is it work that draws a certain personality? I don't know and I mean no offense to those who have perfectly lovely spouses, relatives and friends who are cabinet makers who are not like these men we've experienced. But it made me so curious why we've had these high percentages of guys making cabinets who either start out with problems or end up with them. Now your guy. I hope you get some resolution and that if he really is sick, he gets well soon.