Updating Rock and Brick Walls in Your Home

So you fell in love with the “bones” of your new-to-you home… not so much the 70s décor. As you renovate your new found treasure, it’s easy enough to replace wood paneling with sheetrock. And, while it’s not easy, scraping a popcorn ceiling is doable.

And you love the full rock wall inside your sunroom. Or the all brick fireplace. Well, “love” is a strong word. Maybe it’s more likely that you love the idea of it, but the deep red color of those bricks certainly dates the room.

There are a few easy fixes here – they might even be easier than you expect – where you can change the appearance of your interior rock and brick surfaces while maintaining their integrity, emphasizing their beauty, and not getting all Italian-villa-exposed-brick-cheesy.

Painting

The obvious answer to changing the appearance of interior stone or brick, shy of doing a complete demo and starting over, is to paint it. But this approach only has appeal with certain décor choices. It’s a very pristine look and works well with a modern design. 

Painting brick is fairly simple and shouldn’t take more than a day if you’re working on an interior space. Keep in mind that, depending on the color you go with, painting stone or brick may require a primer.

Whitewashing

If you’d like to keep the natural integrity of the stone or brick – maintaining a rustic look, but without the stark contrast to the rest of the room – then whitewashing the stone may be a great option. All you need to do is:

• Take a before picture of the stone or brick
• Clean the stone with a wet cloth
• Place a splash guard over the floor b/c there will probably be dripping
• Water down the paint of choice in a bucket of 1:1 ratio paint and water
• With a cloth or sponge, soak up some of the water mixture and  ring it out tow where it’s wet but not dripping
• Rub the watered down paint on the brick surface until covered

Allow each coat to dry and then take another picture. Compare it to your before picture because the changes you see with the naked eye will be subtle, so the pictures will help you to determine if you want to apply another coat or not. Continue to apply coats until you reach your desired muted tone to fit the design of the room.

If you’re unsure how to get the look you desire, or want some other ideas on how to deal with an unsightly stone or brick wall or fireplace, HA Construction is happy to come take a look and help brainstorm with you. Our expertise may come in handy in helping you to think outside the box. 

Here Fishy, Fishy | Best Ways to Display Your Home Aquarium

Are you a fish lover? I don’t mean tilapia on tasty fish tacos. I mean the kind you could just stare at for hours as they swim and scuttle around an aquarium. There is something rather soothing about the rhythmic to-and-fro of anything from little guppies to puffer fish in clear water among decorative stones and “sunken treasures.”

There are a number of options for displaying your aquarium, big or small. What it really depends on is how much of a feature you want it to be in your home, and whether you go with salt water or fresh water creatures.

Salt vs. Fresh Water

Let’s start there. And I’m going to be honest right from the start: salt water aquariums are significantly more expensive to establish and maintain than fresh water aquariums. The fish and other water creatures cost more, and you need live algae and plants to help keep a saltwater tank clean. You need sand as opposed to rock and not only do the sides of the tank need to be cleaned, but the sand does too. In fact, with a larger saltwater aquarium, you’re better off hiring a professional to come clean it once a month so that you know it’s done correctly and regularly.

That isn’t to say that saltwater aquariums aren’t worth the expense; they are certainly more colorful and more beautiful than a fresh water aquarium, which often requires brightly colored rocks and other accidents to give some punch to the duller colors of most fresh water fish.  

There are, of course, exceptions to the dull tones of freshwater fish, such as brightly colored goldfish, bettas (be careful what you pair these aggressive buggers with – especially avoiding other bettas), mollies and discus, to name a few.  An added benefit to a freshwater tank is that they’re easier to clean, especially if you also use a filter. The fish are significantly cheaper (which means they’re easier to replace too).

Where to Display Your Aquarium

So, we’re going to sort of skip right over the small 10 gallon tanks that go on a counter somewhere. They don’t add anything drastic to your home décor and are often there for the sake of having fish (a noble cause indeed). But when you get into the big kahuna that becomes the centerpiece of your living room, there are a few things to consider.

If you plan to do a built in tank – such as built into a wall or around a fireplace as pictured here – you have to make feeding and cleaning easily accessible. If you read the link above, you’ll see that a saltwater tank requires at least 15 minutes a day of maintenance – so you need daily access to your swimming pets.  A cabinet disguised as a wall that gives you access to the top of the tank is a good idea.

As you look at your aquarium location, keep these factors in mind:

• Keep it away from windows, especially those facing the east or west. Sunlight is the leading cause in algae growth, so if you want to minimize it, no tank by the window.
• Avoid placing an aquarium near a door; the sudden movement may not stir you up, but the vibration can scare and cause stress on your fish.
• Large vents, radiators, or air conditioners can change the temperature of the water in your tank, which is something you want to keep relatively the same at all times to keep your fish healthy.
• Use a stand, table, built into the wall, whatever you desire, but don’t put a fish tank directly on the floor.

There are a lot of options depending on what you want and where you want the aquarium to be. HA Construction can certainly help in that design, and work together with your “fish guy” to showcase your fish in the ideal location of your home. 

Meet Jeremy | The New Guy

Jeremy started working for HA Construction in March of this year. While he may be the newbie of the crew, we see him sticking around for awhile.

Jeremy moved from Florida to the Springfield area in August of 2014 to be closer to his parents. His dad was injured in an accident, so Jeremy brought his daughter to the area to be closer to her grandparents. He discovered the job opening with HA Construction and the rest, we hope, is history in the making.

“I do whatever they ask,” he says of his work for the company.  “We’ve done a wide variety since I’ve been here: hung ceilings, worked on some floors, poured concrete, hauled bricks…” But Jeremy likes the diversity of work and the opportunity to show his skills in several areas. His background is in framing, and he’s working in construction off and on for the last decade.

“I’ve worked for a few different people. Andy here has a good heart. I think he cares and he wants to do a good job. He’s definitely involved and it’s been a joy to work for him so far. Some places it’s a number syndrome where you’re just a person coming in to work – I’ve worked in other places where you go to talk to someone and they don’t even know your name. But when Andy stops by he’ll talk to you for awhile – he’s down to earth which is nice.”

Working on the master bedroom/bathroom addition has been Jeremy’s favorite project so far. “Other then the fact that for two days I had to haul all of this brick out of here by wheelbarrow to a trailer, which pushed the limits of what I like to do,” he jokes.  “But we got through it and it’s been great framing this. I know a little about that stuff so it’s been easy, and Nick and I get along pretty well so it’s just been smooth.”

What’s Jeremy’s favorite part of working for HA Construction so far? “Seeing it come together – from the ground up, the progress – and when it’s finished, that’s the coolest part.”  

Meet Nick | HA Construction’s Framing Guy

Nick Lewis has been working for HA Construction for a little over four years now. He is our go-to framing guy, though he has a wide range of skills. Nick did custom house framing in California for 10 years before moving back to Missouri about five year ago – he had family here and was looking for a slower paced life than the California scene.

“Since working for Andy, I’ve learned a lot of different skills,” Nick says. The newest being laying hardwood floors;  he really enjoys laying tile flooring too. Every now and then, Nick fills in where he’s needed, but his framing work is unmatched in our books.

Nick says that it’s the variety of what HA Construction has to offer that makes the company stand out among competitors. “If you have a job that has a lot of different items that need to be done, we can cover it all. You don’t have to go to different contractors to get it all done. We can take care of it all and the projects don’t get dragged out – we’re efficient too. We pride ourselves on having good communication with the customers and making sure they’re informed on what we’re doing and our schedule.”

“Andy and Lisa are good people and it rubs off when you work for them,” Nick says. “Work is never an issue – Andy keeps us busy and there is definitely job security. It’s never mundane – we’re constantly doing something different. The job is always a surprise, to a point.”

One might say that last fall, Nick got the ultimate job site surprise. HA Construction acquired a job replacing over 600 windows in an apartment complex. Nick was in charge of the window project, and that’s how he met Heather, the office manager for the complex. Because of the nature of the job, the two of them worked together every day and soon started spending time together outside of the job site. On Valentine’s Day, Nick proposed and the two will be married in May of 2016. Talk about a job perk!

In his spare time, Nick is a radio-controlled gas powered racecar enthusiast. He’s pictured here with his nephew and all his racing gear. In 2013, he received forth place at the nationals in Texas, and he’s received various other trophies and awards with his racing skills. HA Construction is proud to be a sponsor for Nick’s car – we like seeing our decals on it, especially when he wins!

Are Your Gutters Prepared for the Rainy Season?

One of our clients has huge, two inch deep rivets in the siding on her house. A couple of years ago we replaced the gutters around her front porch. They were bent, cracked and leaking everywhere. But the damage had already been done to the wood where the gutter touched the side of her house. Now a woodpecker has left his mark, shredding the pliable, damaged wood to find his next meal.

Poor Gutters Cause Damage

To protect your home from damage, functional gutters are a must. Just as important as a roof and siding, gutters fend off water damage. Without them directing the flow of water, it would pour directly over eves, eroding the soil around the foundation of your home. And even if you have gutters, they may not be functioning optimally. Bad gutters can cause just as much damage, including:

• Leaks that damage and weaken siding
• Water collecting around the foundation of the home, which can cause flooding and even foundation damage
• Backed-up gutters can cause roof damage from excessive debris, ice dams in colder temperatures and water pooling under shingles
• Mold growth anywhere the water is pooling and not directed away from the home properly
• Damage to landscaping from gutter overflow

If you need to install new gutters, HA Construction can certainly help you with that. We recommend that all eves and overhangs have gutters directing water flow to an appropriate run-off location in your yard (i.e. downhill, away from the home).

Keep Those Gutters Clean

Once new gutters are in place, then maintenance is key. First, we recommend gutter guards of some kind, whether that’s the full-throttle gutter system with covers, or mesh wiring to keep most large debris out of the gutter (such as leaves and sticks).

Even with guards in place, you’re going to need to clean the gutters. They will likely need to be cleaned at least once in the fall. Even if you don’t have large trees, wind blows leaves everywhere. And if you do have large trees that require raking your yard multiply times throughout the season, then you should add gutter cleaning to your yard work regimen each fall.

It’s also a good idea to clean the gutters after the final thaw in early spring. This will give you the opportunity to check the gutters for damage from ice and snow (snow is actually quite heavy and, in large accumulations or a long winter, can create bends, breaks and leaks).

Really, at the end of each season is an ideal time to at least check the gutters for debris and damage, otherwise you may find yourself replacing them again long before you should be. As with any aspect of your home, diligence is key to keeping everything functioning as it should and preventing damage.

The Evolution of Entertainment Centers

At the beginning of the 20th century, home entertainment consisted of family gathered around the radio, sifting through static to catch up on the news, listen to some swinging tunes and follow stories shared via sound wave. But shortly after the Great Depression, Americans got a big surprise in the way of entertainment: the television set.

It was a marvel.

The fact that you could sit on your couch as a family and experience things as if you were there, live-and-in-person, was astounding. They didn’t care then that the screen was smaller than the television set itself; viewers were in awe.

Fast forward over 75 years to the television sets of today, and you likely find yourself still in awe of how far they’ve come. From units as big (and as heavy) as a 100 gallon aquarium, to tv sets so flat and lightweight, they’re more like a picture hanging on the wall, televisions sets are a center piece of our home, and so is how we display them.

Entertainment on a Pedestal

Some experts cite Frank Lloyd Wright with created the first entertainment center in 1917 for his Hollyhock House in L.A., though few details remain depicting his creation. Regardless of when it actually started, families have always sought to make their home entertainment a centerpiece. Conceptually, displaying entertainment pieces for the family home has gone through just as many transitions at the electronic devices that entertain us have over the years.

By 1962, following the introduction of color television sets, there was a TV in over 90% of U.S. homes. Since everyone had one, furniture manufacturers and home builders saw a booming market in the way to display them. You could certainly display your television set by putting in directly on the floor, of course, but why would you want to? Instead, why not give it a place of honor?

The Bigger, the Better

For the next 40 years, picture tubes were the thing. The bigger the television – and people wanted them big ­­– the bigger the tube. The bigger the tube, the heavier the television. In most cases, it would take three, full grown men to safely maneuver a 32 inch TV.  Units were nearly square in size in order to house all of the functioning components and the screen, and the larger sets weighed a couple hundred pounds.

In the 1980s, entertainment centers became a household concept that was just as essential as the television itself.  Because televisions were so large and heavy, entertainment centers had to compensate. They often spanned the entirety of one living room wall just to carry the weight of the television and everything else on display.

In the ‘90s, it wasn’t uncommon to see construction companies building homes with built-in entertainment centers or television cubbies.  Home owners sought out custom made entertainment units – ornately carved or featuring lights and accessories that stood out – to display with pride the television and all of the additional entertainment components, such as movies, VHS and DVD players, and equally cumbersome surround-sound systems.

Basically, it was go big, or go to someone else’s home for a grandiose entertainment experience.

The Minimalist Approach

In the early 2000s, picture tubes were essentially replaced by flat panel screens, eliminating the need for the television set to be exceedingly cumbersome (well… depending on the size of the screen, that is). In most cases, one person could safely carry a flat screen television.

For awhile, gigantic entertainment centers stuck around. But that evolved into entertainment cabinets (in which the TV sat on a pedestal mount on top of the cabinet), followed by console tables and finally, wall mounted televisions. Wall-mounting then required a large brace hooked to the wall studs to carry the weight and a protruding television (in some cases, the mount even allowed the TV to swivel to some degree). This isn’t unheard of today, but is less common.

Now, most every television manufactured is an LCD TV, and with them have come flatter and flatter sets. So much so, that televisions are now practically flush with the wall, like a canvas picture. But the smaller scale entertainment center isn’t fully excluded from modern style with the recent release of curved televisions, designed to provide a more movie-theater quality experience in the home.

Instead of the display-for-all-to-see approach, however, modern home entertainment set ups are minimalist, with outlets and cables running behind the television and even through the wall to an offset or hidden cabinet/closet, which also houses game consoles and surround sound equipment, if such a system isn’t already built into the television itself.

While the television set and its subsequent display in the home have come a long way since the 1930s, and will continue to evolve, HAConstruction is prepared for anything. We can help renovate your living room (or man cave) into the home entertainment center that your heart desires, regardless of your preferred style of television set. We’ll work with you to come up with a design that pulls together every component seemlessly, so all you have to do in the end is kick back and enjoy.

Copper is the New Black

Copper is nothing new. Estimations place its origins at approximately 9000 B.C. It was used for tools in Jordan, tubing in ancient Egypt, and jewelry in the Far East – which is obviously a very brief blip of its history of uses over time, including in the home.

Architects favor copper as a home accent in many respects because it ages beautifully. But homeowners are seeing those benefits more and more, resulting in more copper accents and home elements available. The International Builder’s Show in Las Vegas earlier this year reflected that, with many traditional accents now sporting a vintage style, dressed in copper.

In the Kitchen

Copper sinks provide a beautiful accent to your kitchen design, but there are also several other benefits. First, the anti-rust properties of copper make the material an ideal choice for the kitchen, since sinks are rarely completely dry.

Additionally, there is no special approach necessary for cleaning them – clean a copper sink just like any other. In fact, copper contains several antimicrobial properties that kill bacteria in a matter of hours, as opposed to traditional sink materials that can foster a rich bacterial environment for weeks if not cleaned properly.

Other great places to put copper in your kitchen might be:

• Suspended range hood
• Countertops
• Refrigerator
• Cabinet doors, or alternatively, door handles and drawer pulls

In the Bathroom

Copper sinks in the bathroom are lovely too, but what about a copper tub? In the vintage, claw-foot design, a copper tub and shower fixtures, sinks and drawer pulls can really turn your bathroom into an Italian-style oasis. Not to mention, there’s that anti-rust benefit and the antimicrobial properties that make copper a great fit for the bathroom.  

Design Options

Not only is copper pleasing to the eye, but, unlike many other materials, you can choose from a variety of styles to get the exact look you desire for your room. If you want a little more bling in your style, consider a smooth, shiny finish. If the look you want is a little more vintage, consider brushed or hammered copper.

You can even find copper sinks and tubs with etched designs and tones. Have the copper coated (or frequently use a light wax coating) to preserve that rich, red-brown color, or you can have it exposed to water and air to form patina designs in blues, greens and yellows.

Copper is known to have a “living finish,” which means that how it looks over time can’t be controlled entirely. It will age and it will react to acids that come in contact with it (for example, lemon juice, pineapple, tomato and vinegar will damage a patina finish). So, while it’s stunningly beautiful, if you’re looking for perfection, copper may not be for you. But if you’re looking for a one-of-a-kind accent to your kitchen or bathroom renovation, HA Construction is happy to add copper accents of your choosing to the final design.