Categories Basement

Turn your Basement in a European Wine Cellar

The dark seclusion of an unfinished basement is reminiscent of the underground caves of France and Italy. For centuries, European underground caves have cultivated the fine wines that satisfy even the most discriminating palette. The discriminating homeowner can take advantage of a basement’s natural starkness and remodel their basement to embrace a refined passion for wine. Turning a basement into a wine cellar will not only provide pleasure and sophistication to family meals and household entertaining, it will also improve the value of your home.

If the idea of turning your basement into a wine cellar sounds as tantalizing as the finest of red wines, start by looking at the temperature, humidity and stability of your basement before you begin your basement home improvement project. If you want your fine wine to remain a good wine, controlling basement temperature, humidity and stability will determine success.

Fifty-seven degrees is the ideal temperature for wine storage. Extreme fluctuating temperatures can turn a fine wine into a dine-and-dash wine. A humidity level that stabilizes between 65% and 70% will keep the corks from drying out. It’s also important to keep your basement wine cellar free from excessive heat and ultraviolet lights.

Keeping the basement free from vibrations is just as important. Wine aficionados know that even the quiet vibrations of a refrigerator’s cooling coils can affect the quality of wine. Although building a wine-rack under the basement stairs may seem to be the most convenient location, the vibrations that naturally occur from footsteps can affect the quality of wine.

Temperature, humidity and stability can all be controlled. If your basement currently looks more inviting to bats than people, a basement wine cellar is an exquisite, financially sound solution. Turn your discriminating tastes into a fine-wine home improvement project and you’ll see your fine wines and your home’s value improve with age.

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Categories Basement

Measure Your Moisture Before Your Basement Remodeling Project

You might be excited about your basement remodeling project, but don’t start bringing in the gypsum drywall and putting down the shag carpet until you survey the basement for moisture mayhem. Moisture problems can creep up slowly, and in many cases a small, unseen problem can escalate into an avalanche of moisture-related catastrophes. Water and moisture problems can add staggering expenses, or even halt the basement remodeling project.

To make sure you can avoid moisture mayhem, you can start with a simple home moisture test on your basement using just foil paper and tape. Simply cut square patches of aluminum foil and use tape to completely seal them onto various spaces of your basement walls and floors. Make sure you have a patch on each wall, upper and lower. Look for foundational cracks on the floor and walls, as these are likely spots for water. Leave the patches in place for at least a week. If you see moisture droplets under the foil paper after a week, moisture is seeping its way through your basement walls from the outside. If the moisture droplets are on top of the foil paper, it’s condensation – simply from warm air hitting a cold wall.

A faulty foundation or plumbing problems are likely the culprits for any water-related problem. Start investigating before you start remodeling. Brown stains on floor joists are signs of leaks. If you poke the stain with a screwdriver and it’s spongy, you have a leak. If it’s stained but not spongy, the stain could be from an old leak that has since been repaired. If you don’t find and correct the problem before remodeling, walls will crumble, mold will grow, allergies will be aggravated and shag carpets will turn into sponges. If your house isn’t yet in the Registry of Historical buildings, you’ll find that many moisture problems can be remedied with modern appliances and materials.

Test your moisture, find the cause, fix it, retest and remodel when all is well. It might take some time and even delay an exciting, eagerly anticipated basement remodeling project, but it will save you and your budget from moisture mayhem in the end.

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Categories Living-Room

Trim Your Room to Perfection with Plain Cove Molding

Cove molding isn’t a necessity of life, and many houses are built without the benefit of having cove, crown or cornice molding installed. But installing cove molding adds architectural interest, visual continuity, and improves your home’s insulation. Cove molding joins walls and ceilings with a clean, simple line, creating a seamless transition that works to define a room. Installing cove molding is a relatively simple home improvement project that can add to the beauty and value of your home.

Cove molding is a “Plain Jane” when compared to the ornate cornices and stylish crown moldings that are available in wood, plaster, vinyl and even foam. But when cove molding is installed to join walls to a ceiling, it smoothes out the harsh lines between wall and ceiling and lets the eye continue to move fluidly throughout the room bringing uninterrupted attention to the focal points of the room.

Smaller rooms require thinner trim, and you can tame down an over-sized room with wide, thick molding and prominent cornices. If you have an uneven ceiling, you can find foam replicas of cornices and molding that are adhered with a latex adhesive caulk or nailed down or plaster cornices that are adhered with gypsum adhesive.

Leveling and measuring to ensure exactness are the greatest challenges when installing cove molding. Measure the gaps between the wall and ceiling, and make sure you use a carpenter’s level. You will also want to locate the studs in the room before you start the job. Nailing the molding into the studs keeps the molding firmly attached. When you start installing the cove molding, start in one corner of the room and work your way towards the least noticeable part of the room.

For wood molding, attach it with 2” finish nails. To save yourself from trying to extract needle-thin finish nails, drive the nails in only partially before you countersink them. You should not only double-check your measurements with a level, but you should also get off your ladder or chair, and make sure that the trim is aligned straight. (It wouldn’t hurt to ask for a second opinion.) Once you are confident that the molding is level, countersink the finishing nails, and if you’d like, fill in the nail heads with matching putty. To keep the trim sealed tight, fill in any gaps above or below the lines with sandable and paintable silicone adhesive. You can smooth out the silicone with your fingertip.

Sometimes even the simplest home improvement can make a pronounced difference. If your room needs fluidity, subtle architectural interest, or a tad more insulation – installing cove molding could be the simple home improvement project needed to trim your room to perfection.

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Categories DIY Tips

Another issue for avoiding repairs

For example, at higher latitudes, even a clean rain gutter can suddenly build up an ice dam in winter, forcing melt water into unprotected roofing, resulting in leaks or even flooding inside walls or rooms. This can be prevented by installing moisture barrier beneath the roofing tiles. A wary home-owner should be alert to the conditions that can result in larger problems and take remedial action before damage or injury occurs. It may be easier to tack down a bit of worn carpet than repair a large patch damaged by prolonged misuse.

Another example is to seek out the source of unusual noises or smells when mechanical, electrical or plumbing systems are operating—sometimes they indicate incipient problems. One should avoid overloading or otherwise misusing systems, and a recurring overload may indicate time for an upgrade.

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Categories Exterior Renovation

Examples of home maintenance

That should be regularly forecast and budgeted include repainting or staining outdoor wood or metal, repainting masonry, waterproofing masonry, cleaning out septic systems, replacing sacrificial electrodes in water heaters, replacing old washing machine hoses (preferably with stainless steel hoses less likely to burst and cause a flood), and other home improvements such as replacement of obsolete or ageing systems with limited useful lifetimes (water heaters, wood stoves, pumps, and asphaltic or wooden roof shingles and siding.

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Categories Home Maintenance

Periodic maintenance also falls under

These are inspections, adjustments, cleaning, or replacements that should be done regularly to ensure proper functioning of all the systems in a house, and to avoid costly emergencies. Examples include annual testing and adjustment of alarm systems, central heating or cooling systems (electrodes, thermocouples, and fuel filters), replacement of water treatment components or air-handling filters, purging of heating radiators and water tanks, defrosting a freezer, vacuum refrigerator coils, refilling dry floor-drain traps with water, cleaning out rain gutters, down spouts and drains, touching up worn house paint and weather seals, and cleaning accumulated creosote out of chimney flues, which may be best left to a chimney sweep.

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Categories Exterior Renovation

Perhaps the most perplexing repairs

In today’s era of built-in obsolescence for many products, it is often more convenient to replace something rather than attempt to repair it. A repairman is faced with the tasks of accurately identifying the problem, then finding the materials, supplies, tools and skills necessary to sufficiently effect the repair. Some things, such as broken windows, appliances or furniture can be carried to a repair shop, but there are many repairs that can be performed easily enough, such as patching holes in plaster and drywall, cleaning stains, repairing cracked windows and their screens, or replacing a broken electrical switch or outlet.

Other repairs may have some urgency, such as a broken water pipes, broken doors, latches or windows, or a leaky roof or water tank, and this factor can certainly justify calling for professional help. A home handyman may become adept at dealing with such immediate repairs, to avoid further damage or loss, until a professional can be summoned.

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