Cork Encased in Glass

Shimmering cork encased in 100 percent recycled glass, custom-made Lavawood Day and Lavawood Night come in sheets up to 40 square feet or curved with a variety of radii. Used as a stylish surfacing material in everything from restaurants, night clubs, casinos, residential buildings, and retail facilities Livinglass will make a great first impression when remodeling your home or office.
Encased cork. $varies | livinglass.com

Behr interior semi-gloss paint

Go to your local home depot and grab a bucket of the shine level you want but make sure you get the can labeled “Deep Base.” The deep base paind is usually only for really dark or rich colors that they have to mix for you. Fortunately the deep base is also usefull for covering your lower shine level paint. When you open a deep base paint without ant colorants in it, it will look like milky water but will dry clear! So just roll the clear deep base paint over your existing paint and get the durability of a higher shine paint.

Do not do this the other way around…  only put a higher gloss finish over a lower gloss finish paint. Why? because the higher shine a paint has the more enamel content it has. This is what makes the higher shine paints more durable, but also makes it more difficult for other coats of paint to stick to it. Enamel can stick to other enamel and to the more porous flat paints, but flat paints will simply flake off of gloss finishes.

*Almost forgot – I’ve only tried this with BEHR paint, so I don’t know if other paint brands will truly dry compleatly clear.

Janka Hardness Scale

What, so called, hardwoods are the hardest and what are the softest? How do they test wood hardness? What does this mean for the durability of my floor?

All great questions. Lets start with how hardness is measured. The Janka hardness scale tells us a specific hardness number for each type of wood. The higher the number the harder and more durable the wood will be for your floors. This number is determined by measuring the pressure needed in pounds per square inch(psi) to sink half the diameter of a .444 inch steel ball into a plank of whatever wood we are measuring.

Scroll down for a huge list of woods and their hardness scale number...

Anyhow, it’s a whole kit to clean and re-surface your garage floor. Step one is a bag of cleaning product that you’re supposed to mix with a large bucket of water and then scrub your garage floor with. I have a feeling it’s mostly an industrial strength degreasing agent that will make the floor more porous and help the epoxy coating properly bond to the concrete. Really step one is getting all the crap out of your garage and cleaning all the cobwebs out of the corners and sweeping out the saw dust, lol. Next, We mix the quart of epoxy hardener into the gallon bucket of the paint looking stuff and roll it onto the floor. Don’t skimp on the quality of roller you get, you really don’t want little fuzzy stuff on your garage floor forever.

Rust-Oleum Epoxy Shield

While the coating is wet you have the option of sprinkling on the little flakes that come with the kit. The flakes are in various shades of blue and gray and will help hide the dirt you track into your garage. I got the gray colored kit, but the tan color kit also has flakes in shades that will compliment that look as well.

Epoxy garage floor coating

I also have a 5 gallon bucket of Behr one part epoxy garage floor coating in a much lighter shade of gray that I’m going to use for accents. For example I’m going to put an 8 inch wide stripe around where each car should park and the same around my workbench area. It’s basically like having a painted on area rug in the garage. It doesn’t have a real function other than making it look cooler and visually separating the different areas of the garage… and maybe helping her park properly if another girl ever lives with me, hahah. So that shouldn’t be real difficult either, just wait for the first coat to dry, then tape off where I want the stripes and roll over that section again. The only thing that worries me is that the two epoxies might not like each other and I’ll just make a mess with the top coat pealing off in various places and looking ugly. I guess I’ll find out the way I find out everything else,.. the hard way.

I’m hoping that writing this will help to motivate me to actually clean and fix up my garage… so far it’s not working. hmmm.

Woodworking Glues

Is it just me or does everyone that does any kind of woodworking use Titebond? It seems to be everywhere in ads and just people saying it’s good. Unfortunately, I wasn’t paid or compensated in any way to say this..  but I’d like to be      . Here are some of the recent ads I’ve seen for Titebond:

Titebond Fast Drying Woodworking Glue.

I mention these ads cause I’m always looking to save money on anything, especially my personal amusement projects. Also, since I’m a graphic designer by profession I always look at the ads in magazines before anything else. These aren’t bad as far as ads go, but are nice compared to the bulk of the ads in woodworking magazines.

I suppose I should mention the ads for Gorilla Glue also, just to give the competition some time also. I think they could use a better adverting firm to design their ads..  or a freelance graphic designer, like me(don’t mind my shameless self promotion). And after trying out Gorilla Glue I don’t think I like it so much. I mean it’s great for some projects because of its strength, but as it dries it expands A LOT so be careful otherwise you’ll have a big, bubbly, irremovable mess on your project.

Check this ad for Gorilla Glue:

Gorilla Wood Glue

….hmmmm, Elmers also makes woodworking glues…  sorry E you got left out cause I havent used your glue since elementary school posterboard projects with white glue and a glue stick..  that was purple or something wierd like that.  lol.  …If you send me some I’ll test it out!

Whether you live in a mountain cottage, a craftsman style home, or a trendy old downtown factory that was converted to lofts the problem of energy efficiency remains the same. Single pane windows are just not useful in keeping heat in or out. This, among many other problems with these types of living situations, is one of the main ways that you can over spend on your heating bill every winter. Fortunately, there are several ways to eliminate, or at least curb, the amount of heat energy your home is wasting.

Window Replacement:

The first most obvious way to fix old windows would be to completely replace them. Unfortunately, this may not be an option if you like the look and feel of your ancient windows or it may simply be too much of an expense to replace all your in efficient glass windows and doors(yea, don’t forget the doors, their expensive), or maybe you live in a rental and your landlord is cheap. Price and other negative factors aside new windows are probably the best long term more energy efficient solution. With low-e glass, multiple insulated panes of glass, and functionality like you have never seen before new windows have so many other benefits it’s a difficult choice to pass up.

Window Film:

Window film is less costly than window replacement, but still seems to be a rather expensive, especially if you have a lot of windows or glass doors. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about the science behind window film. The reflective properties and tinted films seem to have obvious applications for keeping out summer heat and direct sunshine but several window films claim to have insulating properties for winter energy conservation as well.

Is the trade off worth it? For example I have a large, three panel, sliding glass door that goes out onto a balcony facing southeast and gets indirect to direct sun for most of the day. This is a major cooling problem in the summer when it can easily get 10 to 15 degrees warmer in that room than elsewhere in the house. But in the winter I welcome opening the curtains and letting the sunshine in all day and give me all that free heat. So, again, is the trade off using window film worth loosing the positive effects of winter sun heat in order to gain maybe 15% heat retention at night? I think the answer has to do with the specific location of your windows, but it’s something to consider before you cover everything with film.

Here are some of the window film solutions I found for window film at the big box home improvement stores.

Energy Film - Retain More Winter Heat!

Artscape (Home Depot) Energy Film Window Film:
Size: various sizes.. 48″x84″, 24″x48″, 36″x48″
Cost: $17.98 – $34.98 depending on size
Tinted: No (I think I would prefer this non-tinted version to the other window films I found)
U Value: ? Does not say (Claims: Saves up to 12-18% of annual energy costs, so it should be comparable to the other insulating window films out there.)
Product description: “Energy Film is a thin, transparent window film that provides immediate year-round energy savings by retaining interior heat in the winter and blocking solar heat in the summer. Energy film is an inexpensive and easy way to make the home or office more energy efficient while providing UV protection. It is easy to apply and uses no adhesives.”

Gila (Lowes) Heat Control Platinum Window Film: (no picture available online,    Lowes)
Size: 3′ x 15′ = 45sq.ft. (probably enough to cover 4 windows or so)
Cost: $35.88 (online price)
Tinted: Yes (this could be bad in the winter when the days are shorter anyway, but it claims it’s only a very light tint, so maybe it’s ok)
U Value: .82 (The U-Value rating measures overall heat transfer coefficient and shows how well a building element conducts heat.  So, as far as I understand it, this product would make your windows transfer aproxamately 18% less heat in or out, depending on the season. Please let me know if I’m wrong about this.)

Product description: “Reflect up to 70% of sun’s heat.  Retains winter heat.  Blocks up to 99% UV rays to reduce fading.  Light tint won’t block your view.  Safe for dual panes. Installs in minutes, detailed instructions included.”

Window Film Application Kit

Home Depot also has a “Complete Window Film Application Kit” which I would say is total crap because you probably have most of the stuff included already and about $9 it really isn’t worth it.

Do-It-Yourself Plastic Window Cover:

The third option is simple plastic covering for your windows. Polyethylene Film most commonly sold as a moisture barrier or a drop cloth comes in several thicknesses from about .3-mil to 6-mil, the higher the number the thicker the plastic. This option is not going to let you see through the window because these plastic sheets are generally all translucent white, so it will still let light in. I would probably use a 4 or 6 mil sheet. I have actually seen up to 1.5 mil sheets that are clear (at Lowes), but I don’t know if that will be sufficient in thickness to be worth putting up.

Amazing CLEAR Duct Tape!

Installation can be as simple or complicated as you want, but just remember to seal around the edges of the plastic in one way or another, duct tape works well for sealing but will peal paint and probably leave a sticky mess, not to mention it’s kinda ugly, but than again so are the plastic sheets you are putting over your windows.  Amazingly you can now get CLEAR duct tape!

However you choose to put up your window insulation contraption all the supplies you need are either in the paint or flooring department at Home Depot. Strange, I know, but I worked at a depot for a while so, sadly, I still know where they keep everything.

Home improvement has come a long way in the last few years with the amazing realestate bubble that has recently burst in many markets. But the fact reamins, a beautiful renovation of your kitchen or bathrooms is a great way to renew you love for your home or put your house on the top of all the buyers lists! At 2by6.com you’ll find articles and helpful tips about doing renovations yourself and the benifits of hiring a contractor to do the remodeling for you.

Don’t think renovation is just a mans job, women can do any renovation project also! Starting out with simple projects and working your way to more extencive renovations is a great way to build the necessary skils and the confidence you need to follow through with your remodel or repair job.

From painting a room to installing a new kitchen 2by 6 has it all.
Remodeling tips.
Where do I start when I paint?
Painting with RED paint.
And so much more from people who have been there, done that and gotten through their remodeling nightmare one way or another!