Back in February I wrote about my attempt to find a distributor who would sell me Custom Building Product’s LevelQuik ES underlayment. Most suppliers wanted a business license or Maryland Home Improvement Contractor (MHIC) number to make a deal. As a DIYer, I have neither.

Of course, I tried the big box. Big orange wanted $34/bag + delivery charge to get the product for me. Others I contacted told me I should be paying $25-29/bag, (even though most weren’t willing to sell to me - no business license). Since I require 60 bags for the job, a $7 per bag difference means an extra $420 on the bottom line. I kept looking.

Sita Tile Delivers Results

After many failed attempts with other distributors, I contacted Custom directly and asked for the names of companies local to Baltimore/Washington who would be willing to help. They gave me four companies to try. The only company that would meet my needs was Sita Tile in Capitol Heights, Maryland. Incidentally, they were Custom’s first recommendation to me.

I called the main number for Sita and was transferred to the voicemail of Jim Sita, Jr. This encouraged me. I like working with owners and owners’ families. I left a message explaining what I needed. Jim called me back within a day and already had a quote worked up based on my voicemail. I won’t reveal the exact price, but will say it met my expectations.

Jim ordered the product from Custom based on my verbal commitment to mail Sita a check. It came on their delivery truck the following Friday, and Sita was ready to ship it to me the following morning. Unfortunately, there were predictions of rain over the next 5 days in our area. I asked Jim if he would be willing to hold the product in his warehouse until it could be dropped off when the weather improved. He agreed, and held the product in inventory for another 7 days.

On delivery day, Sita’s driver called me on my mobile to verify he was at the right location for delivery. (Easy to identify by the white metal reindeer still standing in the front garden from Christmas). He then unloaded the product in the exact spot I requested (in my driveway, near the garage). The product was delivered on two pallets, both neatly and thoroughly wrapped.

I was very impressed with Sita Tile, and would highly recommend them anyone in the Baltimore-Washington corridor who needs tiling materials in the future.

A Note For the Skeptics

One more thing: Sita Tile neither asked nor paid for this endorsement. They didn’t know I write about home improvement. They simply performed excellently at their business. Every business deserves kudos for that.

What do you think? Did you have an extraordinarily good experience with a contractor? Have you shared your good experience?

photo by Jose Miguel Serrano.

We’ve been thinking about colors for our living room. We just painted an early American-style brown color in the dining room, and we’d like to find a lighter, complementary color for the living room. I’m no good with color selection, and Kim is knee-deep writing her term paper, so I immediately looked for an online tool to help. I ran across Sherman Williams’ Color Visualizer.

The tool requires you to select from a number of pre-canned rooms. The idea is to pick the room that reminds you most of the room you’re trying to work on. Once you have the room selected, you can “try” different primary paint colors on the walls, and the tool will show you complementary colors that will go well with your selection. It also offers a nice save and reload feature.

I picked a whacky combination in the room above to show the flexibility of the tool. Notice in the lower left how the tool will show you the colors that best go with the paint color you’ve picked. This is particularly helpful for me.

I noticed that Behr also has a tool available on their site but I have yet to explore it. It looks like Behr’s version will allow you to upload a picture of your room and paint it, but they charge $4.95/year for this functionality. I find it hard to understand why Behr would charge a nominal fee for this tool. Aren’t they likely to recover their investment in paint they sell to folks “painting” their rooms with the tool? The cost seems like a big deterrant, if for no other reason than the hassle of payment.

What do you think? Do you use a tool to help pick paints? Do you have any experience with a vendor other than Sherwin-Williams?

Several weeks ago, I wrote about sanding down our stipple ceiling in the dining room. Jennifer commented on that post that she would eventually do the same at her house, but would need to get her ceiling texture checked for asbestos. And then I thought…. ASBESTOS!?!…. in my stipple textured ceiling?

Turns out, many popcorn and stipple ceilings built between 1950 and 1980 contain asbestos. Undisturbed, these ceiling textures are harmless. It’s only when the asbestos fibers become airborn that they represent a health hazard. We didn’t even think of this when we started sanding! (Incidentally, sanding is about the worst thing you can do to any hardened asbestos-containing product).

When Was Asbestos Eliminated From Building Materials?

Our house was built in 1984. Since asbestos awareness hit its height in the 1970s, I thought for sure our house wouldn’t have any asbestos in it, and particularly not in a ceiling texture right above our heads! I scoured the web to confirm my opinion. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any definitive information on when asbestos-based interior texturing products were outlawed. Several sites noted a ban on manufacturing in 1978. But, subsequent to the ban, builders and contractors were allowed to use whatever inventory they had in stock. Some sites suggested that interior finishing products could have been asbestos-based as late as the early 80s. I asked myself: What constitutes the early 80s? Is 1985 the early 80s?

The bottom line here is that if your house was built between 1978-198x (e.g. 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989), there is always some chance there will be asbestos in the ceiling texture. You can look elsewhere on the net, but trust me, no one will tell you that a ceiling put up in this timeframe won’t have asbestos in it.

Finding a Testing Lab And Sending a Sample

I couldn’t take a chance. I searched the net for an asbestos testing lab that could do a quick test to put me at ease. My search led me to Western Analytical. I followed their instructions for obtaining samples (essentially a careful removal of a small amount of the texture from the ceiling), and sent the samples to them.

Western provided detailed instructions on how to take a sample of the ceiling without potentially releasing asbestos into the air, and recommended taking 3 samples from different areas of the ceiling since I was testing more than 1000 sq. ft. They charged $20.00 to analyze each sample, for a total cost of $60.00, a relatively cheap price for peace of mind.

The Result

Three days after I mailed away the samples, I received a confirmation e-mail from Mike @ Western that all samples were negative. Whew. I was impressed with the timeliness of their response, and relieved that we didn’t just expose our kids to a huge amount of asbestos in the air.

So I ask myself after the fact: did I really need to send three samples? Or was that just something Western asks for to make more money? I get their reasoning here: a builder could have used more than one batch of materials on any given ceiling. I question the liklihood of this occurring, but I personally wasn’t willing to take the risk.

What do you think? Did you have a good experience with an asbestos testing lab? Do you have a popcorn or stipple ceiling that is suspect?

Photo courtesy of Dan Taylor

Soon after we (Jocie and Ethan) moved into our house, Fred and I laid ceramic tile as part of our kitchen remodeling project. Everything turned out beautiful….for a while. The problem was I never took time to seal the grout. Over the past two years, our beautiful floor became rather dingy looking, even with regular cleaning. It really surprised me how much the dirty grout affected the overall look.

A local tile contractor recommended Miracle brand grout cleaner and sealer. It isn’t the least expensive option, but it was well worth the cost (and available at most big box stores). Miracle gives instructions for both basic cleaning and concentrated cleaning. The latter is used for the tough spots.

I considered our whole floor a tough spot. Jocie and I used the concentrated instructions for the entire thing, and went through a few grout brushes along the way. Now it’s time to seal the grout. I figure a good sealer should give us about 2 years before having to clean and reseal again. Check out the difference!

Before:

After:

What do you think? Do you have dingy tile? What cleaner / sealer do you use? How long before it needs some attention?

Some Background (You Can Skip This)

About 4 months ago, we completed the framing in the basement and moved to electrical installation. I’ve done minor electrical work in the past (replacing fixtures, switches, outlets), and a small amount of medium-skill work extending circuits. Our basement, presented a big enough challenge that I didn’t feel completely equipped to proceed without help.

In Baltimore, Co. MD, you cannot obtain an electrical permit unless you are a licensed electrician. Fortunately for me, my sister’s husband’s father (Jim) is - and that’s a close enough relationship that he agreed to help me out. He would pull the permits, help me plan the job, supervise and inspect my work, and do all the final wiring to the main panel. In exchange… well… he didn’t really ask for anything in return. So, Kim and I are planning to send he and his wife out to a couple of nice dinners when the work’s done.

Stanley’s Complete Wiring Manual

OK. That was a lot of background to tell you this: The first day we got started, Jim handed me Stanley’s Complete Wiring Guide and said everything I needed to know about simple home wiring projects could be found inside. The book includes everything from running receptacles and light fixtures, to installing radiant heated floors, to common outside jobs like installing path lighting. The book’s illustrations are top-notch. It’s so good, in fact, that I found myself reading from one chapter to the next, even though I had no immediate plans to do all the jobs it describes.

If you’re considering an eletrical project around the house, I highly recommend this book. You can pick it up from Amazon for a surprisingly good price. Here’s the link.

What do you think? Any other books that impressed you enough to recommend them? Do you have a better home wiring manual?

For some time, one of my friends at work has been touting the qualities of premium wall paint. Every time I tell him of a finished painting project, he asks, “Did you go with that cheap Behr stuff again?” (Behr is Home Depot’s run-of-the-mill, cover-all paint). Of course, I had. Premium paints cost about $8+ more per gallon than regular paint, and I’ve always figured “paint is paint.” What value could there be in spending an extra $8.00 on the good stuff.

Two weekends ago we decided to paint the dining room. This offerred a great opportunity to try out my friend’s advice and spring for the premium paint. I figured I wouldn’t see much difference in performance.

Home Depot offers Ralph Lauren as an upscale alternative to Behr. RL paint costs about $28/gallon, an $8 premium over the $19.95 Behr. Now, my friend would have preferred that I were buying Benjamin Moore paint. I didn’t realize this until after I told him proudly I had bought RL. So, there will probably be another post on BM paint after the next paint project. Maybe BM will be even better.

On to the project: Our dining room has about 390 sq. ft. of wall. We decided to go with a darker brown color to give the room an early American look. (The color and pictures of the finished room will be the subject of another post). Since the room started as a lighter beige, the brown represented a relatively major change in color.

On the side of the can, RL claims their paint will cover 400 sq. ft. per gallon. I’ve seen claims like that before. Usually, if a paint or stain says it will cover 400 sq. ft., it will cover at least 25% less, particularly if you are changing a wall color dramatically. So, I bought two gallons just to be safe.

My wife and her sisters painted the room. They covered every square inch of the wall completely — with only 4/5 of one gallon. In many places, they had put on two complete coats! RL paint went on effortlessly — even thin. But, the coverage was amazing.

Needless to say, I was impressed. I’m confident that Behr paint would have required two gallons to achieve the same look. Further, the RL paint looks great in subtle ways. We chose an eggshell finish that gleams ever-so-slightly in the light. The only downside: Now I have an extra can of brown paint and no plans to use it.

What do you think? Do you have any experience with premium paint? Did you notice a difference? Do you think the differences are in my head?

P.S. If you live in the Baltimore Washington area and are in need of brown paint, I’ve got a great deal waiting for you

We finally made the switch. Over the weekend, I bit the bullet and went to the local big box to purchase several different brands of energy efficient bulbs to replace our “dinosaur incandescents.” We installed the lights in several rooms with various results. As we work over the next few months to “go green” on lighting, we’ll be trying several different brands and styles of lights to see which ones best meet our needs in different rooms. As we do that, I will update this post with my findings, and I’ll periodically post updates in the current day’s post pointing back to this one. (This post is the aggregate).

I know many people across the blogosphere are switching to CFLs and other forms of efficient lights (I’ve chatted with a few of you via your blogs). I hope that you’ll add your experiences here, particularly if your experience differs from mine with one of these products. Feel free to link back, too. Without further ado, here’s my review(s):

1. Sylvania 23 Watt (100W Equiv.) Soft White Micro Mini “Instant-On” CFL.

My Rating: OK

Pros: Really, really bright white light. (Seriously, it nearly blinded me!) Lasts forever (12000 hrs). A little smaller than the other 100w equivalent bulbs.

Cons: Too harsh; Requires 1-2 minute warm-up time to reach full glow. Doesn’t really suffice as a traditional incandescent replacement.

My Experience: This CFL’s packaging claims that it is “Instant-On,” so I figured it might work great in our laundry room where we use the light for about 20 minutes each day in small spurts. The bulb definitely comes on immediately, but the light output is only about half the final output. It still takes about 1-2 minutes to warm up to full glow. This proved to be very annoying in a space where you turn the light on and start working immediately. At first, it’s too dim, then there’s an eerie feeling as the the light slowly increases while you’re working. On the plus side, at full brightness the bulb puts out A LOT of light. I decided to use 4 of them as temporary lighting in the basement during my refinishing project. I can afford the warm-up time there and the “harsh” light actually provides good visibility throughout the room.

2. Bright Effects 23 Watt (100w Equiv.) (Item# 153972)

Sorry, I couldn’t find a good picture of this one! I’ll need to upload a pic sometime in the future.

My Rating: Very Good

Pros: Casts a light that looks very similar to an incandescent. Lasts a long time (8000 hours).

Cons: Takes about 2-3 minutes to reach full brightness.
My Experience: We used these bulbs in 5 lamps in the living room and family room. There was certainly some immediate reward in realizing that when all 5 of these lamps are on, we’re using about the same amount of energy as we were on only 1 lamp last week. Better yet, these bulbs don’t make us feel like we’re sacrificing in the way of quality. Other manufacturers could take a lesson from Bright Effects. Of course, there is still the 2-3 minute warm-up time, which can be a bit annoying depending on the task you’re trying to perform, but in rooms where lights stay on for a good amount of time, these are a great substitute for Edison’s invention.

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What do you think? I know many folks out there are making the move to CFLs. What bulbs do you like the best? Which ones are the absolute worst?