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Posts tagged with “finish carpentry”

From The Road: 6 Comments | Add a Comment

Craftsman Style Garden Gates

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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…

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Hunting Miters

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Carpentry is more than a job for me, more than just a trade, and more than a profession, too. Carpentry is rooted deep within me, along with my Swedish origin. I know this for a fact because I spend more time appreciating other carpenters’ work, and appreciating architectural ornamentation, than I spend doing anything else in my life—other than installing finish work, of course.

I return to Europe regularly, to visit family—at least that’s the excuse I use, but in truth, the siren of historic architecture lures me. I’ve taken so many photographs of architectural details that I can’t keep track of them. One detail that has always intrigued me is the hunting miter—a curved miter joint used when straight moldings and curved moldings intersect. Read the full article…

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Framing A Patio Cover

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Most contractors and carpenters are familiar with ‘once in a lifetime jobs.’ For some of us, a once-in-a-lifetime job is simply having a client that appreciates your work, and when the job is finished, doesn’t complain about your final invoice (with all the extras!). Instead, they just write you a check and say thank you, from the heart.

But this article isn’t about one of those once-in-a-lifetime jobs. This is about one of those jobs where you have to stretch your skills, learn techniques you never imagined using, and make something that’s truly memorable. That was the experience I’ve had working with Gary Katz, especially building his new patio cover—a faux timber-frame challenge of design, layout, and joinery. Read the full article…

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My New Patio: Stamped Concrete

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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…

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Installing Exterior Doors in HVHZ Zones

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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…

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Making Radius Trim On the Jobsite

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Lately, my crew and I are installing a lot of flat stock casing in the homes that we trim out—which means I also have to make more and more radius casing to finish the tops of windows and doors that have arched heads. Besides the sizes of the openings always being different, some openings require a full semi-circular arch, while others require just a segmental arch. And occasionally we make radius casing that’s stained and top coated with fine finish. That’s when it’s even more important to get a perfect fit and a good grain match, too! Read the full article…

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My Living Room Wall: Part 2

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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…

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My Living Room Wall: Part 1

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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…

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Improve Moldings and Increase Referrals

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Back in the mid-1980s, my brother and I were growing tired of installing 1 1/2-in. clamshell casing, and 2 1/2-in. streamline baseboard. As finish contractors, that’s all we did on every job, day after day (after we had installed the doors and windows). By then we’d nailed off miles of small trim in thousands of apartments and hundreds of single-family homes. The market was starting to soften up about that time, and one of the contractors we worked for needed an edge against other spec builders in the same subdivision. We suggested upgrading the moldings in one of his homes. Not the whole house, mind you, only the first floor. We told him we’d do it for our cost, just to prove a point. Read the full article…

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Raking Cornice: Part 3

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Developing and Producing Rake Crown with a Shaper and Band Saw 

The most important part of carpentry is design. If the design isn’t right, if the drawings are mediocre or worse, no amount of joinery skills will save a project from failure. Unfortunately, executing proper drawings prior to cutting wood and creating sawdust isn’t a common component on jobsites today. Read the full article…