Kitchen design

Ever notice when you go to a party or a dinner at friends or family’s house or if they come to yours everybody seems to congregate around the kitchen area.  Besides the obvious that is where you can sometimes catch a sample and enjoy the good smell of food, I believe that people just tend to like to socialize there.  People just want to be in the middle of the action and that is where it starts.  People that don’t normally cook a bit at their home a lot of times likes to roll up their sleeves and lend a helping hand.  A great kitchen design goes a long way in how all of these people can enter-twine with each other and things get done.  When we are designing house plans to build for clients the number one request is they want a open kitchen lay out and if possible to have a big center island to work and prepare things at.  Our company not only designs the plans but also we have our own in house carpenters that build all the cabinets in our new homes.  Solid surface counter-tops are a must in virtually every home we build.  Roll out drawers once considered only for a luxury kitchen are certainly finding there way into just about all price ranges of kitchens built today.  Stainless steel appliances are  very highly requested and a very nice look.  Most of the upper end kitchens in our houses that we build will have a nice custom stain on maple cabinetry with a glaze finish to give it a very nice furniture look.  So next time you are invited to a get together, and everyone is in that kitchen hopefully the people that brought all of the design together was thinking of you, I know we do.   

Installing crown molding

I have been a trim carpenter for over 25 years and my family and myself take great pride in doing all the cabinetry and trim work in our new homes that we build each year. Several times people have asked me could I tell them any tips for installing crown molding as they would like to jazz up a room a little bit. So today I will go through my procedural steps of cutting and installing crown molding. There are two ways to make an inside corner a mitre joint or a coped joint.   I prefer and use the mitre joint so that is what I will be discussing.  The 1st thing I do is cut myself two pieces about 12″ long of the crown molding.  I use a compound mitre saw to cut my molding so I set the mitre angle and the bevel angle to what is needed and by cutting it this way the crown molding is laid flat on your saw table. I then cut the two pieces with a mitre, one  left and one  right.  I then take those two pieces and put them up into the corner of my room and test fit the corner.  When you get them positioned correctly where your mitre joint looks correct I then make a mark along the bottom of the crown molding.  I do this at each end of the room.  When I have established these points  I then take my chalk line and snap a line from end to end on the wall from the two points I marked earlier.  I then like to locate my studs that I will be nailing the molding into.  Generally speaking if you locate one  stud then measure over 16″  to find the next one.   If you are installing the molding on walls that will be painted after the molding is installed then you can make a small mark below your chalk line to indicate the stud location.  I then measure from corner to corner and if it is a fairly long run of molding I will usually add about 1/16″ to my measurement to insure some tension is put on the joint.  I then set my saw on the correct settings that my two test pieces were on and I cut my molding to length.  Note it is always recommended to use a guard on your saw.  I then like to test my piece to insure a correct fit.  I personally like to run a small bead of glue along the top angle of my crown molding to adhere to the ceiling as the ceiling joist will not always be running perpendicular to your molding, but this step does not have to be done as you do have to be careful and not let that glue get on your ceiling.  At this point I take my air nailer which makes the job much easier than the old hammer and nail set method and I put the bottom of the crown molding on the line I chalked earlier and I start nailing the molding into the stud marks I made. I like to take the small test pieces that I have and check my fit at each end before I nail right at the end  and make any small adjustments up or down. I then move to the next adjacent wall and repeat the same steps I did earlier and work my way around the room. Crown molding can be some tricky stuff to work with with, but with a little patience and a few wrong cuts along the way, you will have yourself a nicely enhanced room with the addition of  the crown molding and the pride of knowing you did it yourself.