Installing some windows on the Upper West Side this week. I call the building ‘The Roosevelt Building’ because FDR the third lives here. Right on Riverside, beautiful! It’s the 4th apartment we’ve installed windows in over an 8 year period. The jamb and trim work will be elaborate, I’ll post more pics later as I do it. We are stripping […]
All posts in Process
A Neat Hatch
This hatch is beautifully simple! It starts with a simple box and a rebated applied door stop. The weather stripping is fitted into the rebate to create a nice seal. Next I’ll nail through the rebate and weather strip in one shot. See! Nailing. Boo-yah!! Too easy. Finally I glue a piece of 1/2″ plywood to 4″ of thermax foam […]
George Nakashima inspired bathroom cabinet
I just finished the drawers on my bathroom cabinet. The counter is a cherry flitch, I repaired a large split using two handmade maple butterfly splices. The drawers were complicated by the compound angle of the cabinet face. Next step is the cherry drawer faces! Abe.
Gerd Gigerenzer
A couple of years ago I read Gerd Gigerenzer’s book, Calculated Risks: How to Know When Numbers Deceive You. I thought it was great, and am surprised it isn’t discussed more widely. Last night I started another of his books, Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious. From the first page: “A Columbia University was struggling over whether to accept […]
Category News, Process
Tags Philosophy
Home Performance and Hard Choices
I spend a lot of time reading about carpentry, building science, and construction. One of my hopes for this blog is to help others apply good building science under a multitude of real-world constraints. Common constraints include: Budget, Owner’s expectation that they won’t be in the house for long, Contradictory assertions from everyone and their brother who works on houses, […]
Larry Haun RIP
Fine Homebuilding has this obituary for Larry Haun. An icon of carpentry, I was inspired to switch to gang-cutting rafters by watching his videos and reading his books. One of the building construction greats.
Category News, Process
Tags Philosophy
Special
“You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.”* I’ve attended dozens of building science training sessions. For the most part these are excellent. Usually hosted by folks with a lot of experience. However, one of the most irksome aspects to these sessions is the tendency of otherwise […]
Category News, Process
Tags Philosophy
Why Vinyl Replacement Windows Aren’t For You
So your house is getting on in years, and you’re thinking it could use a face-lift. One of the projects you’re considering is replacing all the windows in your house. Where to start? The purpose of this article is to give you the tools you need to make an informed decision. Ask Yourself Why? What are you hoping to accomplish […]
Category News, Process
Tags Builders, Efficiency, Performance, Quality, Windows
Selection
Some readers may know of my passion for endurance sports. And while I don’t follow football religiously, I did catch some of this year’s awesome Super Bowl. Pretty incredible stuff! Post-game analysis often seems like so much hot air. Nevertheless, I found Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas’s article from the ‘Science of Sport’s’ website interesting. In it, they note the […]
Category News, Process
Tags Philosophy
Best Practice
Selecting a builder is tough, particularly for a the quality conscious homeowner. Most builders know the right things to say, so initial meetings are about as awkward as slow dancing with your high school ex. If you’re interviewing builders, you’ll probably hear a lot of this classic, “we’re not cheap, but we do quality work.” Yeah thanks, I haven’t heard […]
