Danny’s Blog
No More Cold for Me
Frigid winds blew down snowcapped Mt. Rainier and swirled around the buildings of Puyallup, Washington, where my friend, Kurt Allen, and I were constructing a KinderCare day care facility. Although it wasn’t the furthest north I had ever built, it seemed like we were in Alaska or Siberia. We began framing in late summer and by early [...]
(read more)Stairs
Stairways come in all shapes and sizes. Outdoor stairs can be simple or complicated but have to be weatherproofed. Indoor stairs can be tricky. A day of work might end with a gap in the landing or the second story may not have even a basic safety railing installed… Several years ago, my stepson(Tyler McCallick http://newbraunfelscabinets.com/) was working [...]
(read more)Crawl Space
One of the least pleasant tasks of remodelling is having to scope out the underpinnings, posts/beams, water lines, and electrical cables beneath a building. It’s not too bad if the space is adequate, but sometimes there is too little space for claustrophobic me. It is also a place where spiders and other critters reside, where broken bottles or rusted [...]
(read more)Copper pipes
Remodeling a bathroom usually involves the plumbing. Older homes have copper pipes, which can sometimes present a problem… A couple days ago, after removing a bathroom’s vinyl flooring, I needed to reroute a copper pipe. This was a challenge, since the pipe was inside the concrete slab. I chipped the concrete above and around the pipe, approximately 2-1/2 inches [...]
(read more)Sometimes It Pays To Be in the Way
When I was an apprentice, partnering with my corrosive, but brilliant, brother-in-law, we were doing piece work at a large tract of houses. [Piece work is being paid for a set price per square foot for certain phases of house framing, such as rolling joists, framing walls, and cutting/stacking the rafters to form the roof. [...]
(read more)A Tale of Two Metatarsals
Three days into my apprenticeship as a journeyman carpenter I had an unfortunate incident. For the lack of one nail in the scaffolding I fell from a three-story building, along with my friend. Not only was it the third day of my apprenticeship, it was also the third day of marital bliss. After driving 75 [...]
(read more)It was a dark and dreary night
Today the stormy weather has traversed Spring Branch, Canyon Lake, New Braunfels, Wimberley, San Marcos, Kyle, Buda, and beyond. The state is taking a soaking, but it does not compare to the pounding one of my custom homes received years ago. We were building atop a hill overlooking the neighborhood, much like the hilltop remodeled [...]
(read more)Unexpected perk
Before I began specializing in additions and remodelling, I framed small housing tracts (5 to 10 homes), as an apprentice carpenter in southern California. We cranked them out as fast as we could, until one day work came to a standstill. The five-home tract we were working on was next door to an established neighborhood. There [...]
(read more)In the Beginning
Here in New Braunfels, I wake up every morning with a smile, ready to start the day. I love being a contractor! It doesn’t matter if the job site is in Canyon Lake, Spring Branch, Wimberley, San Marcos, Buda, or a few blocks away. I just enjoy the heck out of building and working with [...]
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