I've never been a big fan of composite decking, for a variety of reasons that I'll get into later, but I've always been particularly against using composite decking on older houses. I mean, you wouldn't build an addition onto a 100-year old stone cabin and clad it aluminum siding, right? But to my eye, composite decks on older homes was roughly equivalent to that. Still, I recently had cause to rethink my ...

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Italianate is considered a style from the “picturesque movement”, a departure from the preceding classical styles of architecture.  As far as I can tell, the style came from Great Britain, not Italy.  It’s details though, are based on the 16th century Italian Villas of the wealthiest class.   In America, there were some built in the 1840s, but Italianate houses were predominately built here between 1850 and 1890. The most common details ...

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An apartment dwelling friend called me last week and complained about her upstairs neighbors who sounded like they were raising cattle. The clomping noise was driving her nuts and she wanted to know how much acoustic ceiling tile would cost her. I told her that ceiling tile would be virtually useless in this application. That's not what it's made for. There are two basic types of noise control: ...

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