Kitchen remodel A NYC developer Hired me to do remodeling work at a Manhattan brown stone building. In the five story building, each story was a single apartment. Brown stone building designed for one family, first floor, living room, second, kitchen and dining room, than bedrooms, and play room. Looking at the pictures, the one on the right was the kitchen I built in the first place on site with white Formica cabinets and White ceramic tiles....

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REFINISHING A WOOD GARAGE DOOR This pine planks garage door has known many hands. The door is facing west and gets a lot of sun beams in the afternoon till sunset. It looks to me as if the original stain was done, trying to create rustic look / blotchy staining. The bottom of the door is more problematic be cause it is more exposed to sun and rain. As the pictures are showing before and after my treatment. I used a mixture of plain Tung oil and...

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Breakfast nook / Kitchen by Shapira Builders A developer hired me to Design and build kitchen and breakfast nook in his Manhattan apartment. This work was done entirely on the job site. The kitchen cabinets were made with White Formica laminated over Birch plywood. The floating oak table top at the breakfast nook is sitting on two ‘L’ shape heavy steal brackets, one side of the brackets are lagged to the wall studs and drywall...

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Pocket Doors Pocket doors are a good idea for saving space. A pocket door consist of pocket, door and hardware. A standard pocket AKA Ladder pocket, is contracted with wood. You can buy a pre-assembled pocket at your local store. The door may be any interior door. Interior door means, 1 3/8″ thick, hollow core, solid core or even a door with glass. The hardware is the most important part. Most standard homes have cheap hardware and the...

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Custom Wood gate The posts are made with solid 4×4 Cedar. The wall was made with 8×16 cement blocks and stucco. The blocks cells on each side of the gate are solid grouted with re-bars. That is giving the wall a lot of rigidity and allows to install solid anchors for mounting the posts with 3/8×8 lags. The gate frame was made with 2×6 selected Cedar wood, the vertical planks are 1×6 clear Redwood. The gate was...

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Refurbishing a fireplace.  My client Richard M. has hired me on and off to do work at his home. Richard presented me with blue prints from his architect. Redo of fireplace. As simple as it may look, It was quite a challenge. Precise framing work to create perfect squares and perfect spacing required some serious calculation. The picture shows the final product of the fire place. Resource:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireplace Over time the...

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