Now I got to sort their mess out or otherwise the customer will think I can’t even cut straight.
Above the sink the trim is touching the ceiling and a meter to the left and I can fit my fingers between them.
Now I got to sort their mess out or otherwise the customer will think I can’t even cut straight.
Above the sink the trim is touching the ceiling and a meter to the left and I can fit my fingers between them.
The DIY’ers who owned my house before me were very confident in their ability and proud of their accomplishments*.
They shouldn’t have been. Inside corner trim cut at a 45° with the gap filled with wood filler. Chair rail molding installed in the dining room with up to a quarter inch gap between the molding and the wall.
Of course, I’ve had hardly any better luck hiring professionals. It seems like no one has any logic anymore.
To a certain degree, some screwups add to the character of the house. A closet door frame noticeably out of square becomes quaint when the finish carpenters match the odd angles perfectly when cutting the trim.
* Neighbors who live next door told us about the previous owners bragging about the work they did.
I made the mistake of trying to 3D model my home.
There’s not a square corner anywhere in it.
My house is a ~130-year-old brick Victorian that was picked up and moved about 40 years ago. There’s no sense even suggesting any part of it should be square. However, the closet I mentioned was very obviously always that way.
With all it’s gone through, nearly all the repairs we’ve needed have been related to modern changes. The only failure we’ve had from the original structure was when the wooden dowels that a radiator was hanging from finally gave out after a hundred years and dropped the radiator on the kitchen floor.
Mine is pretty modern, and I realize no one is finishing studs to be square, but being an amateur carpenter it does bother me.
I still haven’t decided whether I should model it with the actual angles, or what they should be.
My dad was notoriously cheap when it came to hiring contractors. Many, many years ago, when he built a building for his office, the results were ridiculous. Everything worked, but it was clear no one knew what they were doing.
The plumbing for the sinks in the bathroom was roughed in with the hot water on the right, and the cold water on the left, and then the pipes crossed each other under the sink to align with the correct valves.
When you stood at one end of the hallway, and looked to the other end, you could see that the walls, although parallel, twisted from one end to the other about 30 degrees.
I tend to go with the more expensive contractors, and I usually get screwed.
Part of my problem is people in the US don’t know how to work on old houses. We just redid our powder room. When I insisted on plaster instead of drywall, my contractor had to find an older guy who still knew how to do it.
The plasterer did a great job, but then the painters screwed up. The plaster wasn’t ready, they used the wrong paint, and after it dried the paint just fell off the walls.
Our contractor had to find a painter who knew how to work with plaster. Once he did, it was fine.
I’m not entirely happy with how they did the tile work. They did a sloppy, lazy job, which is probably what they’re used to doing. However, that wasn’t bad enough to keep fighting over.
Still, it looks nice: