It is that time of year again when our attention turns to the outdoors and the curb appeal of our homes. One easy way to give your front porch a quick face lift is to add or replace an outdoor stair rail.

We received an email from Tim in Southwest Oklahoma. He had seen the video we made of our adventures while constructing our metal building house/shop. His main questions centered around our experience with insulation. He wanted to know what type of insulation we used for the home and if we had experienced any problems with home sweating during the winter months. He also asked if Tom had any advice on how to prevent sweating. Thanks for the questions Tim and we will do our best to try and answer your questions. By the way, best of luck with your building project and send us some updates and pictures for our website!

I continue to blog on the great pictures and notes that my brother in law sends updating family and friends on the home they are building themselves in northern Wyoming. Not many people can say they built their home themselves and really mean it! Way to go Chip and gang… keep the updates [...]

Most auto body shops have small covered anchor pots with a removable chain feature installed into the floor. It is easy to incorporate anchor pots into a concrete floor while constructing a new shop. Tom included several anchor pots into the new addition of his machine and welding shop.

We have been busy. It has taken us forever to rough in the electrical work. To date we have run well over 2000 feet of 14-2 wire, 500′ of 12-2 wire, 150′ of 8 gauge wire, 100′ of 10 gauge wire, 750′ of CAT 5 communications cable, 500′ and counting of plenum rated [...]

The Millers continue to plug away at building a new energy efficient home themselves…

Do it yourself home construction continues.

One great way to save money and boost the look of your home in any kind of economy is to replace carpet yourself. Tom usually replaces living room carpet about every 3-5 years. The living room is heavy used in the Gabriel household and it is directly adjacent to Tom’s busy shop area. [...]

An easy and attractive way to attach metal stair rail to a concrete or stone wall.

Tom builds new metal roof finials to match antique finials.

Check out designer metal handrails.

When traveling in the northern New Mexico area, one stop along the way that you won’t want to miss is the Visitors Center for Earthship homes. These structures are very interesting.
Earthships are buildings that are designed to be built with recycled materials. These structures take green living to it’s extreme. Each structure is basically old tires packed with earth and stacked on top of one another to form walls.

These series of articles will include pictures and email from Chip and Peg. They are embarking on building a new home for their family in northern Wyoming. They will do much of the work themselves with an eye on incorporating sustainable construction. They are building a home, shop and green house.

Tom received this letter from Daron and MaryAnn of Idaho. Sound familiar to anyone?
Tom,
Daron and I have a new segment for “Tips by Tom”. We found water in our
basement a few days ago. We found out it was coming in around were the
sewer line exits the house. Luckily there is a [...]

Brother-in-law, Dave, was in town over the weekend and filmed Tom welding up a few metal posts for Summit Structures out of Laramie WY. Summit will use these posts to help support structural beams for a house they are building.
The metal posts are designed to rest on the top of a concrete footer. The bottom plate fastens into [...]

This video shows how Tom built his dream shop/house.  The shell of the building was ordered through Fast Trac Buildings, Inc. in Colorado.  Much of the interior of the shop and home was purchased as was needed through local building supply houses and stores like Builders Square, Lowes, and Home Depot.
The two and a half [...]

Tom and crew pour a slab of concrete for his new building addition using the TTI Screedright Pro.  The TTI Screedright Pro utilizes a wooden 2X4 as a screed bar.  A wooden 2X4 allows for better screeding with no expensive screed bars to purchase.  A wooden board can be cut to any length for a [...]

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Tom chose to put 8, 4 foot by 4 foot  windows on the south side of the new addition.  The solid steel framed windows will allow the southern sun to come in and heat this part of the building.  Tom also included two slide windows with built in screens on the west and north walls [...]

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Tom puts up the skeleton for the new steel building addition.  After the concrete footings and floor were complete, it was time to erect the steel structure.  The main frame steel is put up first.  Those are the large steel girders and serve as the main support for the metal structure.  Tom started in the [...]

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A plate compactor compacts sub base for concrete and gets your ground to grade.  Tom added granite fines to the existing base for a level surface prior to pouring his concrete floor.  Leveling your floor surface allows for a more accurate estimate when purchasing concrete.  After grading the sub base, it helps to water down [...]