Designing and installing French doors in an open archway. My client found me on Angie’s List , She got tiered of having her office at her home with an open archway. She asked me if I could fit double French doors in the archway. I made a sketch for her including a beam above the doors to square it off the opening . In the opening above the doors I suggested glass. Since my client has very dark furniture in her office she chose a very dark...

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Mesquite double doors Mesquite wood doors Mesquite tree is a leguminous plant grows in the desert. It grows in different parts of the world. Most mesquite trees grow up to 30 feet tall. Like most desert trees the wood is dense therefor very hard and heavy. Mesquite is not commonly used for lumber. These trees do not make big enough trunks to become commercially useful. However, a small door maker in Tucson AZ. made some custom doors from...

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Interior French doors. My client Dona Duncan call me in September 2012. She asked me to give her an estimate on installing French doors between the hallway and her office. There were no doors there, just an archway of five feet wide by seven feet high opening. After I purchased the two doors and the lumber, It’s time to make a precise drawings. From here I cut all the components to create the jamb, make notches for the hinges on the jamb...

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Replacing rotted beams with new ones. My client has a U shape home in Phoenix, with a nice front yard. A grid of six by ten wood beams added lovely accent to his home. Two years after he bought this property he decided to check those beams that were covered with aluminum sidings. The previous owner was covering a big problem there. My client called me and asked me to bid on this job. I started with removing the siding, some of the beams were so...

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Refurbishing an Entry Way What in the world the architect / builder was thinking? You are looking at a condo unit in Scottsdale. This is the main entry door to a two story home and another dummy door above it for decoration. The home owners asked me to change the door, remove the dummy and stucco above the new door. The new door was selected by the home owners from catalogs I presented at the free consultation I gave them at their home. The...

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Tongue and Groove Pine Ceiling Installing Tongue and Groove (T&G) planks is not an easy job. It requires scaffolding, two installers or more and strong necks. The material has to be straight. It is very easy NOT to keep the lines straight and true parallel. The soft pine tongues and grooves need to be in good shape or it would be hard to engage between two planks and to get a tight fit. I always use a small chunk of the material between...

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