After watching the video and using the drawings included in this article, if you have trouble making a wooden miter saw stand….you probably shouldn’t be using a miter saw. :-) Read the full article…
After watching the video and using the drawings included in this article, if you have trouble making a wooden miter saw stand….you probably shouldn’t be using a miter saw. :-) Read the full article…
I am grateful for living at a spectacular time—a moment in human history when technology has dramatically transformed our lives. As a kid, black-and-white television was still new, the NBC color peacock was a few years away, and Disney’s Wide World of Color didn’t premier until 1961—I was old by then, somewhere between nine and ten. Read the full article…
“How did you start the Roadshow?” I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked that question. There are two answers—a long one and a short one. The short one is: hard work, luck, and opportunity. The long answer… Read the full article…
Like every part of my new home in Southern Oregon, I wanted the garden fence and gates to reflect the architectural style I enjoy the most—the craftsman style that I learned to love while living in California, surrounded by bungalows and Greene and Greene homes.
I can’t count how many times I’ve visited the Gamble House in Pasadena and the Thorsen House in Berkeley, among others. Viewing those homes is like eating almonds…you just can’t eat enough of ‘em.
A few years ago, I built the front gates incorporating the same style, mimicking a gate from the Thorsen House. Read the full article…
Murphy Beds are incredibly popular, probably because they help us use space more efficiently, and today, with living space at a premium, that’s critical. It sure was for me. I wanted to use the guest cabin I built down by the river as a yoga studio—after all, guests aren’t that common, but yoga is.
Years ago, after all the trips back and forth to my truck for small hand tools began to tire me out more than the work, I started carrying a milk crate, fitted with a shoulder sling. But all the smallest tools, and the screws, driver bits, drill bits, wrenches, etc., ended up in a confused mess at the bottom.
I needed something I could organize and something I could stand on, something that would get me to the very top of a 6/8 door, something that would help me reach the pins on an 8-ft. door, something that would let me see over the top shelf in a closet. And I wanted something I could sit on, too, while chiseling tricky mortises in a jamb or drinking a cup of coffee on a break. Read the full article…
When I bought my little house in southern Oregon, I knew I’d be removing the existing concrete patio and the funky patio cover. The concrete had been mixed in a wheelbarrow and poured in sections, maybe over a decade or two, at least that was the forensic evidence. In some places the finish was smooth as glass, in others there was a heavy broom texture, and in a few sections, no finish at all. It was cracked and heaved. Read the full article…
This article might not appeal to all TiC readers, but that’s not the point of THISisCarpentry. Our goal isn’t to reach everyone. Our mission is to provide quality educational material for carpenters, even if it’s only a few of them. Still, I expect that even if you never have to install doors to meet HVHZ code, you’ll learn a few interesting things from this demonstration, things that will probably apply to normal door installation, too. Read the full article…
JLC magazine recently asked me to answer a reader’s question: What’s the right height for chair rail and wainscoting? Of course, everyone always wants the short answer, so here it is: Somewhere between 26 in. to 32 in. off the floor.
Now here’s the same answer I wrote in JLC, and I’ll bet you’ll regret asking this question! Read the full article…
Co-authored by Todd Murdock
When it comes to rules of proportion, I never understood the whole picture. At least not until recently, not before spending the last three years studying the classical orders with Todd Murdock—one SketchUp rendition at a time. Now I know why I had such a hard time understanding the rules of proportion. There are none. They don’t exist. But there are guidelines. Read the full article…
In “My Living Room Wall: Part 1,” I documented the design concepts, the firewood box, and the stone mantel-shelf; now we’re onto the cabinets and shelves.
Installing the tops and trim, the face frames and doors, as well as the tapered columns, took a lot of thought and a lot of time. Other than baseboard molding, I didn’t want to install any scribe molding or trim on top of the face frames, so the wood tops had to go in first. After calling around to a few local lumber mills, I found two 8/4 x 14-in. pieces of old growth Douglas fir, one 16-ft. long, one 14-ft. long. I bought them both: one advantage—besides world-class steelhead fishing—to living in Southern Oregon. Read the full article…
I designed my new shop to look like an old horse barn, so it would blend in with the rural area of Southern Oregon where I now live. Being from Los Angeles, I went all the way with insulation and energy efficiency when I designed and built the shop. I even put in a radiant slab so my timid feet would stay warm in the cold, cold winters (it gets down in the low 20s here; sometimes even below 20 degrees!). So when it came to the 12-ft. wide x 9-ft. tall roll-up door, in order to get a good R-rating, I knew I had to use an insulated steel door. I found one rated at R-17, but it looked like something you’d see on a commercial building. Read the full article…
I’m fortunate not to be a packrat. I know many people who are. My father would never throw away anything! Which is probably one reason I’m so averse to saving stuff. I’ve even thrown away a few things I had to buy again! But there is one thing I’ve always had a problem with—books. My entire life, I’ve collected books. In fact, I still have most of my favorite first reads from when I was a kid. Read the full article…
In two previous articles, I described techniques for installing a single door and a sidelight-door-sidelight unit. In this video, I use the same techniques to install a pair of doors, because a pre-hung is a pre-hung is a pre-hung. Read the full article…