Doors! We love the "barn door" style door for inside the home or outside on sheds and garages. It is fluid and space saving, as well as rustic and practical. There are many great hardware options depending on the size and weight of the door. If there is ample room for the door to slide back to open, it is a beautiful way to have an easy opening door and maximize the width of the door frame.
Doors can be salvaged from a home remodel or a place like the Re-builder's Center, and can be custom ...
It seems early, but what do you need to get done around your house for the holiday season and winter in general? A new or updated bathroom? paint or re-do the floors or windows in the guest room? Make a guest room?!
Fall and winter are good times to hire us after the busy summer season to repair and renovate areas of your home that will be getting more use during the inside months. We tent off interior areas we are working on in order to minimize the spread of dust and debris through out ...
Summer is a crazy time for the constrction industry. Trying to manage projects and not over schedule can be more challenging then the projects themselves. We often see work being done to a home and wonder if the people doing the work are a licensed company, or just someone who does work on people's homes "on the side."
This came in the recent CCB newsletter:
"CCB investigators turned up more than 70 potential violations of contractor law after unannounced visits to 400-plus construction ...
WE NOW OFFER DRAFTING SERVICES! Tricks of the Trades has teamed up with a local Portland drafter to start offering plan design services. We have drawn plans and gotten them approved for clients in the past, but this relationship is going to make that process much more efficient. We are very excited about being able to offer this service to our new and existing clients. Now when a set of approved plans is needed on a project, Niles and Victor can walk the project with you to understand what you want ...
We are currently on a remodel of a recently purchaced older home in NE Portland. The homeowners were excited to get going on upgrading the home and moving in. They had many great ideas, a good budget, and a willingness to do some of the legwork themselves. As our crew removed the dropped ceiling in the dinning room we were all suprised and excited to find wooden box beams, original to the home. They were in great shape having been hidden away all these years. The homeowners new our experience with ...
For most people summer is a busy season. There is lots of fun to be had in the sun and also lots of work to do before the weather turns again. We have noticed in the past 10 years that many people like to have projects done on their home in the summer. This can make it difficult to find professionals that are not booked for the season. Often small projects can be hard to get taken care of because companies are busy with larger jobs and cannot afford to divert attention and labor resources ...
Portland Business Journal Reports:
"The Portland area did its part to drive the gains.
Local home prices were up nearly 12 percent in March compared to a year ago and are closing in on their pre-recession peak. As of March, local home prices are about 13 percent lower than they were in July 2007, a far smaller gap than the gap of more than 30 percent recorded in March 2012."
"Las Vegas and San Francisco led the nation with gains of about 21 percent while Cleveland held up the rear ...
Mitchell Parker from the Houzz editorial staff writes:
Why Remodel?
"Skyrocketing home prices are likely causing already cautious homeowners to hold off on selling and moving, because while they can get a good price for their home, what they can buy isn’t necessarily bigger or better. So they’re deciding to plunk extra savings into their homes to make them more functional."
“Most people have just a sliver of equity in their homes right now,” she adds. “If ...
Spring through fall are typically the busy season for most contractors. Nobody wants their kitchen or bathroom torn apart during the holidays and painting exteriors of homes in the freezing rain is not a good idea either. Many interior projects are great to do in the winter and might even be less expensive. Materials are often more expensive in the summer time when building is going crazy and many contractors may make their margins thinner in the winter to keep busy. We have realized most people ...
Now is such a great time of year to be cleaning, re-organizing, and re-evaluating the spaces in your home and their functions. We have been working on a deck and a bathroom (photos to follow!) and are excited about the sunny weather and all the different kinds of projects that are coming are way. In the past few months we have done wood restoration on dining room wainscotting and several bathroom remodels. Some people just want surface treatments and others want a full demo and new bathroom. We ...
There are huge contractors who only want to take on full home remodels or complete kitchen make overs. Then there are the handy man operations who may be qualified to do everything, but they are just one person and prefer smaller jobs. Tricks of the Trades is somewhere in the middle. We can do additions, space conversions and whole home remodels, but we are also happy with smaller projects, rooms that just need surface treatments or getting you to a place where you can take over. In these photos ...
Your charming older Portland home has the attic, garage, or basement space you want to access. Now what!? How are you going to access the space and what are you going to do with it? Is it nice storage? Or livable space? Are the stairs legal? Is there proper egress for the space? Do you want to add a bathroom? How is the ventilation, natural light, and insulation? Can your foundation take the extra load of converting the attic space or adding an addition to the home or does it need to be reinforced? ...
If you love your neighborhood, or are looking to buy and fall in love with a home that just needs a little more space we often start looking in to garage, attic, and basements conversions to make it work. There are many factors to consider when creating more space. The best way to get an accurate estimate is to have plans of the proposed new space. With some graph paper and a measuring tape you can create plans yourself. There is all the information needed through the Bureau of Development's (BDS) ...
