The Home Ownership Thread

[Ataturk]

What are you going to attach the nose to? It needs a couple inches on the subfloor to stick when people put their full weight on it, which they will.

Maybe you're right, though. If you can't take constructive criticism you should stay off the internet.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

Non of it is constructive, you've yet to start up one of your tools, however you're on here telling me how to perform woodworking tasks and build things. It's all under the guise of knowing, yet a quick search proves you incorrect. There are 161,000 results for plywood floor on houzz.com.

 

[Ataturk]

I looked at houzz.com and tried the search. I went through about ten pages of results--most weren't plywood floors at all, and nearly all of the rest were painted or obviously pine. I didn't see a single finished hardwood plywood floor.

And I've used the table saw before, doofus. I just moved and my new shop is a second, detached garage that isn't wired for 220v. Now, admittedly, I'm not a veteran woodworker. I've done some turning and a lot of carpentry, and I got the saw about a year and a half ago so I could start cabinetmaking. I haven't really done much with it, that's true.

But I've put down several hardwood floors and picked up a thing or two in the process. One is that people with a trained eye look for repeating patterns in the floor. It's an easy way to spot laminate or amateur installations. That's why hardwood comes in random lengths (and alternating widths are becoming popular too...). Your plywood -- which looks like the top of an MDF desk with that veneer cut -- really just jumped out to me. I don't like it, and I know I'm not going to be alone in that. Look at the people on houzz.com -- they're using plywood extensively as stylistic choice. You're using solid walnut treads and presumably (hopefully) won't be using plywood elsewhere in the house. It looks really out of place.

I really don't get it, either, since hardwood plywood isn't cheap. Real solid walnut flooring wouldn't have cost you more than another hundred bucks or so, if that.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

http://www.houzz.com/photos/712239/Deep-Eddy-Residence-modern-home-office-austin

http://www.houzz.com/photos/843242/Rustic-Contemporary-Cottage-contemporary-kitchen-other-metro

http://www.houzz.com/photos/218122/918-modern-bedroom-san-francisco

http://www.houzz.com/photos/774309/Craft-Room-eclectic-home-office-nashville

http://www.houzz.com/photos/1821105/Pine-Street-Bedroom-Remodel-contemporary-bedroom-other-metro

http://www.houzz.com/photos/402619/Torres--Monclova-modern-kitchen-tampa

http://www.houzz.com/photos/218120/918-modern-bedroom-san-francisco

 

[otc]

I've not seen this Houzz site before...I like it

 

[Ataturk]

I see pine and birch, which are cheap wood and probably intended to look beat up eventually given the way they're finished. Even though they probably have a much thicker face veneer than walnut ply, they still won't hold up. It's just some dumb yuppies putting plywood down because it's different.

I just gotta go back to engineered wood. It's intended to be used for floors, and look at the wear layer -- it's thick, much thicker than plywood, for good reason. Walnut isn't even hard wood to begin with. And obviously you can't sand the plywood down to refinish it.

It seems like a really bad idea to me. But whatever, best of luck to ya.

 

[VaderDave]



I've not seen this Houzz site before...I like it

I saw a link to it about a week ago. I blew an entire evening clicking through pictures of all kinds of things.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

Birch plywood is hardwood plywood, it's furniture grade, often used as a substrate for high quality veneer work and it costs about $80 for a sheet in 3/4.

 

[StephenHero]



http://www.houzz.com/photos/712239/Deep-Eddy-Residence-modern-home-office-austin

http://www.houzz.com/photos/843242/Rustic-Contemporary-Cottage-contemporary-kitchen-other-metro

http://www.houzz.com/photos/218122/918-modern-bedroom-san-francisco

http://www.houzz.com/photos/774309/Craft-Room-eclectic-home-office-nashville

http://www.houzz.com/photos/1821105/Pine-Street-Bedroom-Remodel-contemporary-bedroom-other-metro

http://www.houzz.com/photos/402619/Torres--Monclova-modern-kitchen-tampa

http://www.houzz.com/photos/218120/918-modern-bedroom-san-francisco

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

Stephen, it rarely surprises me when you have something negative to add.

 

[Thomas]

SG, normally I keep an open mind, but I'd hesitate to go with a plywood product as a finished floor. Maybe there are better products than what I've used, or perhaps you won't use the stairwell much, maybe you're laying down a lot of poly, I don't know. But refinishing it is probably a one-off deal, if that. Maybe replacing it would be easier than refinishing it, anyway.

Walnut? I love it. Though your landing looks like plywood, not sure how I feel about that.

The only carpet in my house is on the stairs and it's an eyesore. Much too quiet and safe for my taste, so I'll be undertaking that project eventually. (...)

The bolded part needs more love than it got.

Anyone have any data on whether gas is now cheaper than electric for winter heat?

I can't find any. I have a carrier heat pump/furnace setup and cant decide what the break-off temp should be between both systems.

Considering I hear gas prices are at all time lows, I'm not sure its being reflected in utility bills.

As it was told to me a while back, the gas companies probably bought their inventory at earlier (higher) prices and aren't going to sell their inventory at a loss, no matter what the current rates are. Whether the behavior operates the same on the other side of the curve, I can't really say. This may or may not also be accounted for in futures / forward contracts as well.

 

[jgold47]



Here's something I find amusing--a color history of the inside of my house:

That's right, bright pink and then sky blue. And I say it's sky, but it's really a very dark sky. I'm telling you, it's damned ugly. Maybe as ugly as the pink.

And, yeah, as far as I can tell the whole house was originally pink, not just that room.

haha - we have an 85 year old house. As we've gone through and done project after project, we've uncovered all sorts of prior paint jobs. However, I think in like 7 of the 11 rooms in the house we've repainted, we've found evidence that the room was at one point or another either the same color, or a derivative color of what we were painting. Its pretty comical.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

Thomas, that's my thought process. Wanted to experiment a little, I generally enjoy the look of plywood and veneer panel. I saw it put to use and wanted to try it in a high traffic area that would test it.

 

[Douglas]

The Ataturk/SH Friendship Outreach Brigade has been here, I see.

 

[dah328]

Arg, what I thought was going to be a pretty straightforward project to enclose my carport into a garage is getting a lot pricier. The architect wants a structural engineer's assessment of the existing carport structure (that will cost $$) and knowing structural engineers, he'll probably need to justify his existence by recommending some kind of steel beam to correct a slight sag in one of the roof beams. I could easily correct the sag with some bracing but that's not good enough for them.