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With home renovations, home improvement or home repair, it is always nice to get some ideas. Good ideas can come from magazines, TV programs and the Web. Here are a few different ideas that may be of interest to you. I got these when I built my house.
Here is a picture of a window dressing my wife did. She did all the 'toppers' herself. In some instances she used bed sheet material instead of curtain fabric, which kept the cost way down. On the larger, living room windows, she lined them. I'll ask her to answer your questions on them if you have any.
This picture is primarily for you to look at for one option of making a window sill. The sill extends out from the wall about 3/4" and is accented with a piece of casing upside down with it's ends cut at 30º.
We have had a lot of comments on our window seat. My wife got the same material from the store where we bought our furniture and covered the seat and fronts with material to match as well as making cushions for the top. This is a good idea for useful storage.
I designed this mantle piece from a picture in a magazine. Give me your dimensions of your fireplace opening and I'll give you a price on designing one for you to make. Send along your own picture and I'll design a mantle piece unique to your home, just give me your specs, i.e. wood preferences, color of stain or paint, heights, etc.
Here is my idea of bordering a ceramic tile hearth with strips of hardwood left over after installation of the floor. If you decide to do this it is very important to have the hardwood down first with the finish applied. This prevents the grout from the tile from turning the hardwood black.
Hardwood steps make a nice feature in a house. Put the risers on first, then place the nosing in position. Scribe a line along the inside of the nosing. Remove the nosing and layout the pieces of hardwood that come to that inside nosing line by ripping the first piece that's against the riser, to the correct width. The risers can be cut out of plywood 1/4" to 1/2" thick, usually. The stairs should be framed in before hand with 5/8" minimum plywood, as used for the sub-floor. The hardwood is attached to this plywood by nailing through the spline and face nailing at the back of the riser. The nosing is face nailed and glued securely. TIP—When installing oak flooring, don't use a nail set to set the face nails. Use a slotted screwdriver instead, aligned with the grain. These marks, when filled in, will blend better with the grain than a round hole from a nail set.
Notice the detail of these pictures for an oak handrail support ending at the newel post. These parts are available from finishing stores and are glued and screwed together. The parts are made from oak—for staining or clear finish—and hemlock—for painting—with hemlock being quite a lot less in price.
A curved handrail is not that difficult to make. The base and handrail are made up of thin strips of material which are glued together and clamped in place to dry, thus forming the desired curve. After the glue is dry the curved shape is taken to a millwork shop and machined to the suitable profile. The average person doesn't have the equipment needed for this purpose. I laid up this shape on the landing itself, before the carpet was installed. I made up a bunch of plywood 'clamps' and fastened them around the curve at close intervals exactly where the handrail would go. I then used little wood wedges to squeeze the glued strips tight. This is a common technique used by innovative carpenters who don't have the large number of c-clamps required for such a purpose.
I hope I've encouraged you to use your resoucefulness to create additions to your home. With a little care and a computer nearby, the two of us can do wonders. There's a great sense of accomplishment when you can tell your friends, "I did it myself".
