1) Panels that are half to 2/3 the thickness of the frame are par for the course. It's not a hard and fast rule, though, because you need to consider the width of the frame members as well as their thickness. Rails and stiles that are 1" thick and 1" wide would meet your criteria but wouldn't work well. I imagine this is fairly obvious, but I'm just making sure. 2) The size of the gap needed is proportionate to the width of the panel. 1/8" is probably fine for most kitchen cabinet doors. Especially wide doors and/or unstable woods could require more. Remember that you only need that gap along the edge-grain sides of the panel . Where the panel's end grain butts into the groove, no such gap is required(again, I don't know what you already know). If you want to get into the math, pick up Bruce Hoadley's Understanding Wood. By consulting various charts and formulas in that book, you can learn that the moisture content of film-finished, kiln-dried wood kept indoors in most of the U.S. varies within a range of about 8% over the year. My guess is that that presumes very dry air in the winter (no humidifier) and humid in the summer (no central air). Obviously YMMV. Anyhow, the book has charts of average tangential and radial shrinkage of various species, and this information can be used to calculate the amount of movement you need to allow for. Yellow poplar is listed at 8.2% tangential (flatsawn), 4.6% radial (quartersawn). Imagine a panel in yellow poplar, 18" wide. We'll say it's rift sawn, and use 6.4% as the shrinkage number. Over a MC change of 8%, our hypothetical panel would grow (or shrink) by about 0.33". In other words, an 18" wide poplar panel built into a door with only 1/8" gap per side in the driest part of the year could conceivably grow enough to bottom out in the slot and push the frame apart six months later. 3) I'd say 50 degrees is borderline, but workable. The basement shop can be a bigger problem in the summertime, because the coolness (in the absence of air conditioning) raises the relative humidity; summer humidity is high to begin with, so a shop environment that raises it further is problematic. In the winter, however, humidity is likely to be on the low side, so you've got some breathing room to tolerate the cooler environment. Below 50 degrees, however, many glues and finishes don't work so well. --Jon

Solid wood flooring is usually 3/4" thick when installed. The necessary sanding removes about 1/16" to 1/8", leaving the flooring a bit over 1/2" to 5/8" thick. Rehabbing badly dinged/worn flooring can take 1/4" off. Most flooring specs say less than 3/8" thick is not acceptable for good performance. Sanding,dying/staining, and finishing will take three days minimum per room and the rooms have to be emptied. A room a week is probably the least invasive. The cost is probably going to be higher to refinish as well. Also, the odds of matching prefinished flooring colors with on site staining/dying are not good. The colors and the finishes will be different, and the prefinished color is probably a recipe of at least three colors. You will also have a difference in wearability between the prefinished(harder finish) than site finished flooring. And, the flooring you have now will probably be different room to room with the same colorants. I installed unfinished maple flooring in our current house and the process took a week and a half. We had not moved in(bought it as a foreclosure) so all that work was done with an empty house. Had we needed to move to clear each room(3Bd, LR, DR, 2 halls, kitchen)---add two weeks. So, unfortunately for you(and I LOVE old floors because of the character), installing new will be better/quicker/cheaper.

I have this 4 season room with old wood paneling. I was hoping there was drywall behind it but when I removed electrical panel I saw that the paneling is almost an inch thick as you can see in the picture below. I got a quote from a contractor he wanted to charge $2000 to install drywall. I really don't want to pay that kind of money. I'm pretty handy and I think I can do this myself. I'll try to save as much window trim as I can. How should I go about getting this done.

There is no way to predict how long it is going to take until you know what kind of mess is behind the paneling. You may encounter holes, construction adhesive stuck to the drywall, holes that you made with the crowbar if you're not super careful, moisture damaged drywall, mold....to name a few possibilities. This is roughly how I would approach the job: (Assuming you don't have another bathroom...) 1. Set up a hand wash station in the shower. Wash bowl on a bench. Bucket of water & dipper or pitcher. Electric kettle if you must have hot water. (Possibly eliminate this if there is another sink nearby.) 2. Remove the vanity so you have more room to work. 3. Remove as much paneling as you can. 4. Remove the water tank from the toilet. (I hope you have a two piece toilet.) This should give you enough room to remove the paneling that is behind the toilet. 5. Patch, paint, etc. behind the toilet. Replace the water tank. (Use the old toilet until the room is almost complete to avoid possible damage to new fixture.) 6. Finish patching & painting the rest of the room. 7. Install the new toilet. 8. Install the new vanity.