Another Picture Of The Finished Kitchen

This is another image of the finished Medway, Ma kitchen remodel. It has nice lighting and really shows off the round top Andersen window. It also shows just how nicely that whole side of the room was tied together with the round top window and the hutch style cabinetry, as well as good interior design by the homeowner. The one recessed light that is on directly over the window lights this scene just perfectly, doesn’t it?

You can see the entire gallery for this project here.

 

The Kitchen Remodel Is Done

Here is  nice picture of the completed kitchen remodel. If you compare this image with the image of the original kitchen and dining room area from the first article in this series, you can really get a good idea of the scope of this project and just how far this kitchen and dining room area has come.

The beautiful cherry cabinets were custom built by Heartwood Cabinets, located Mendon Massachusetts. Instead of going with typical, standard cherry cabinets like those from a box store such as Home Depot, this customer decided to spend the money and put some truly gorgeous custom cherry cabinets in their new kitchen complimented by stunning granite countertops. Did it cost more to go with the custom cabinets and granite countertops as opposed to standard or semi-custom cabinets with a laminate countertop? Of course it did. Quite a bit more in fact. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

What some people don’t realize is that certain rooms of your house, when remodeled, will return the majority of your investment in terms of added equity in the house. That is almost always the case with a kitchen remodel or a bathroom remodel. In general when you remodel your kitchen you can expect a 75% to 90% return on your investment. That’s not a bad return at all considering you’re getting the kitchen of your dreams!

 

This is a 3D walkthrough video I put together for a customer in Medway, Ma that we will be doing a kitchen remodel for soon. Only the kitchen has detail in this video (cabinets, tile on the walls, appliances, etc.) as it is all that will be affected during this project. The other rooms were only included in this video to assist the customer in visualizing the finished project.Documentaton of the project will be added once the kitchen remodel has been completed.

Just a quick note on video quality. The walkthrough video that the customer actually receives is actually much higher image quality (much sharper picture) than the video I have posted here.
Credits:

Author: Josh Johnson
Company: Johnson Construction & Remodeling
3D modeling software: Chief Architect X1
Animation & lighting software: 3DS Max 7
Image editing software: Photoshop CS2
Audio artist: DJ Tiesto
Audio title: Elements Of Life
Audio album: Elements Of Life

Demo & Framing The Affected Area

There was a lot of demo involved with this project. We filled a 30yd dumpster in no time. We began by removing the existing kitchen base cabinets and wall cabinets. The only real consideration when demoing the cabinets was the plumbing service to the sink and dishwasher (all appliances had already been removed). Most customers are not interested in trying to save old cabinets, which is good for us (saves time) and for the customer (saves money). So into the dumpster went the old cabinets.

Next we removed the existing flooring in the 2 affected rooms: the kitchen, and the dining room. The existing kitchen had a linoleum floor with a 1/4″ plywood underlayment. We removed the linoleum and underlayment at the same time, not only is it easier that way, but also we would be installing a new 1/2″ plywood underlayment that would cover both rooms. The dining room had a hardwood floor that was actually in beautiful shape, however it didn’t fit with the new design so it also went into the dumpster. We did save some of the old hardwood flooring to be used when tying together the remodeled kitchen and dining room with the existing living room.

After the old flooring and cabinets were removed, it was time to move on to getting rid of the two walls that separated the kitchen from the dining room and lining room. One of the walls was structural and the other was not. In order to remove the structural wall we framed a temporary wall on the living room side of the structural wall to be removed. This temp wall supported the living room ceiling joists (remember we removed the kitchen & dining room ceiling joists to create the cathedral ceiling) and any additional load on them, while we removed the structural wall and installed a laminated beam to replace it, along with a laminated post that would transfer some of the load down to an existing, appropriately sized beam in the basement. Here is a picture of before the walls were removed, and here is one of after the beam was installed and the project is completed.

Now that the laminated beam was in place it was time to frame the cathedral ceiling. If you look at the picture you will notice that the existing roof rafters are on the left and the new ones are on the right. Notice how the new rafters span from the midpoint of the existing rafters to the newly installed beam on the right, transfering the load quite nicely. The framing isn’t 100% complete in this picture but its close, we still need to add the collar ties to the new cathedral ceiling as well as some strapping for the sheetrock.

The round-top window is also all framed up, as you will notice. Although still there in this picture, the existing wallboard you see to the left and right of the window will be replaced. We also installed a laminated header to carry the load over the window.

If you are interested in more information on load bearing walls, here is another article that focuses particularly on identifying their location in your house.

Before The Remodeling Started

This is the beginning of a project we did a while back for a family in Medway, Ma. We had a lot of fun doing it, these customers could not have been more friendly or courteous and at the end of it they had a beautiful new kitchen and dining room that provided everything they had been wanting.

When you look at the picture of the original area to be remodeled above, you will see the dining room on the right and the kitchen on the left. There is also a sunroom that you will notice through the dining room (we did some work in the sunroom as well, but that’s for another time). Now, of course, in this picture you can’t really see the kitchen. All that you can see is the doorway on the left, that enters into the kitchen, and the doorway on the left side of the dining room, which also enters into the kitchen. That was one of the main things that this customer was hoping to change about their kitchen/dining room area, to open it up to the other adjacent common areas of the house, i.e. the living room and sunroom.

We would achieve this openness by removing the walls around the kitchen and replacing the one load bearing wall with a post and beam setup that would span half the length of the house. I love these kinds of projects! In addition they wanted as much as of a cathedral ceiling as was possible inside of the affected area. Can do.

We achieved the cathedral ceiling by removing the existing ceiling joists and installing new rafters that went from the new beam to the midpoint of the existing roof rafters. Although we did have to add additional support to the existing undersized rafters, we still got our proper insulation r-value by using foam board insulation in layers. Creative engineering indeed. My design engineer earned his money on this one, and we got it done right and tight!

Another highlight was a brand new rounded-top Andersen picture window that we installed. The rounded-top was fitted with beautiful custom stained glass. You don’t have to wait for me to talk about them to see more pictures of this job. Visit the gallery for this project here. It also has pictures that I won’t necessarily be discussing specifically in an article, enjoy.

Up next: demo is done, framing is done.

A great way to add to a new room that you are planning as part of an addition, new home or existing home, is through the use of tray ceilings. You can turn a plain boring ceiling into a majestic focal point of the room. The picture on the left (bedroom with an ornate tray ceiling) is a great example of doing a lot with only a little. Notice how adding some decorative moldings and complementary paint schemes to the tray ceiling absolutely makes this room pop! It looks great, and something like this is easy to do and doesn’t cost too much (even less if you do it yourself).Let’s look at the next example (to the right). This is another bedroom with a tray ceiling. Not as much detail as the first bedroom, much more plain, but it still looks good. When laying out a room ask yourself what you want out of the room. What will it be used for? How will it be furnished? Try and visualize the new room before it is built or remodeled. If you have difficulty visualizing 2 dimensional plans, ask your builder or architect to show it to you in 3D. If they can’t, you may want to consider using someone else. This day in age quality contractors and architects should be able to show you your plans modeled in 3D. 3D modeling is an invaluable tool in assisting customers to make good decisions about their projects, such as a tray ceiling in a new master bedroom, that they will be happy with for years to come.

As the picture on the left demonstrates, it is also possible and sometimes aesthetically pleasing to have multiple levels, or tiers, built into a tray style ceiling. Obviously if you are considering this type of ceiling the room needs to have the ceiling height for it. It wouldn’t make sense, or look very good, to install this style tiered ceiling in a small room with only 7′6″ of original ceiling height. This is where the modeling can help. You need to be able visualize your project before the plan details are finalized, I can’t stress this enough.

I will add more articles soon that focus on particular aspects of construction and remodeling in addition to more posts of our completed jobs. They will be listed in the ‘articles’ category.

You can check out our complete gallery of tray ceilings here. More images will be added to the gallery as I come across them.

Sorry for the downtime we just switched over from a terribly slow host to a new host that has MUCH faster servers, particularly the SQL server.

 We’ll see how it goes.

The Completed Deck

Here is the completed deck. The only thing not done is a bit of paint around the pre-primed pine skirt boards (the white boards you see), the customer was to do that themselves. Other than that, done deal. Speaking of the trim boards, they are a great way to dress up your deck a bit without spending to much and they are easy to install. One thing to remember is to allow for the width of the trim boards when you install your decking material, in this case 5/4″ thick by 6″ wide pressure treated pine decking. You want the edge of the decking to hang over the frame and trim (box and trim) about 1″. This is helps with weather protection, as well as being more visually pleasing.

Also notice how we built the deck approximately 7″ down from the thresholds of the french-doors. By leaving a step-up from the deck into the house (7″ is a comfortable stepping distance and meets code requirements) you add additional protection from rain and particularly snow affecting the structure of the house years down the road. If you have enough space from your door threshold to the ground you should always add this step (between 7″ and 8″ is a comfortable step and meets code requirements for steps), even 2″ or 3″ is better than nothing (there is no minimum riser height for steps, just a maximum).

The Azek kick-boards are also evident in this picture underneath the french-doors. Pre-primed pine or other composite boards besides Azek could have also been used. Azek boards aren’t cheap, but the area directly below the threshold of a door always takes a lot of abuse so the more protection you provide the better and composite materials do not rot so obviously they are they best choice for a kick-board. Don’t put siding under your door. Sure, you CAN do it, but it won’t last as long as the other siding that surrounds it.

You can also see how the single step we built for this deck tied beautifully into the concrete pad we discussed in the previous part of this series. We also installed some lattice on the open end of the deck. Being aesthetically pleasing is only one of the benefits of lattice, another is keeping the critters out.

Looking for some more info on decks? Here is an article about the concrete footings for your deck by Paul from Homeowner’s Blog. If you need some more info on decking materials you can visit Renovationtrends and check out an article they have up. I will also be getting into decking materials in-depth soon enough.

Pouring The Concrete Landing For The Stairs

Ok, now it’s time to pour the concrete pad that will serve as the landing for the stairs. As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, this is a much bigger landing than we would normally use for deck stairs. Because this deck is low to the ground and will only have a single step we decided to make it go the entire length of the deck. Aesthetically, this was definitely the way to go, as you will see with the finished product.

Sometimes when doing concrete landings for a deck we will build the stairs first and temorarily support them and then pour the landing last. Doing it that way avoids any possible issues with the stairs and landing lining up perfectly, which can be tricky when dealing with long staircases. That method was not an option in this case and would have created more issues than it would have solved.

In this picture we see Harry applying the edge to the pad. He is using a concrete-edging-tool for the task. This type of edging tool does a beautiful job of creating the edge and leaves you with a nice rounded edge for your pad instead of a square one that is bound to chip. Because this is such a long slab we will also indent lateral lines into the pad every 4′ or so with a special tool, like the lines you see in concrete sidewalks. These lateral lines called control joints provide a weak point that allows you to determine where the concrete will crack over time instead of nature. The ground shifts, it’s a fact, and all concrete pads develop slight stress cracks. The application of control joints, aggregate underlayment and re-bar are essential to a creating a beautiful concrete pad that will stand the test of time.

Rd.com (Readers Digest) has a pretty good article on installing your own concrete sidewalk/walkway here. It’s the same idea when creating a long stair landing.

Next I’ll show off the finished product.

Framing The L-Shaped Deck

This is a great shot of the almost completed deck frame, and Harry posing. This deck was framed 16″ on center using 2″x8″ pt (pressure treated) southern yellow pine, which also happens to be the most common and one of the best exterior framing materials available. While 2″x6″ stock would have satisfied code requirements for our maximum spans, we chose 2″x8″ for the added structural stability and to reduce deflection (bounce).

There are still a few things left to do on the frame as it is pictured. You will notice that there is only a single box making up the perimeter of the frame. The ‘box’ is the perimeter of a floor-system frame, usually made from the same stock that your joists are made up of (makes sense, as you will be fastening your joists to at least one side of the box). We always use a double box for our decks, you don’t have to, but again, it adds to the overall structural stability of the system. If you leave the second layer of the double box off until the end of framing, this gives you the opportunity to face nail the joists through the face of the first box layer. The nails commonly used for framing are not long enough to penetrate through a double box and provide a proper fastening system. That being said, joists that are being ‘hung’ on a box, such as this (and most decks), should never only be fastened with nails. To properly fasten floor joists hanging on a box they should be fastened with both nails and joist-hangers.

Aside from completing the box, the concrete footings still need to be poured. After giving the footings enough time to cure the 4″x4″ pt posts will be installed from the footings to the bottom of the box and the temporary supports can be removed. Always use PVC or z-rated galvanized post-feet between the concrete footing and the pt post. The post feet will properly anchor the 4″x4″ post to the concrete footing and prevent it from deteriorating over time.

We’ll pour that long concrete footing slab next in part 3.