Eventually, I want to build all of the cabinets in our kitchen. It’s up in the air at this point whether or not I’ll be able to do it for the initial build (largely due to the amount of time it will take me and the fact that we need a kitchen before we can move in). If our initial kitchen isn’t built by me, then the next one (10 years from now?) will be.

With that in mind, here are some links I’ve been collecting.

• Low-Profile Soft Close system from Blum – looks like a nice hinge – I don’t like slamming cabinets or drawers
• Marmoleum flooring – a variant on linoleum (with linseed oil, not vinyl)
• Cork flooring – we’ve always been interested in this, but don’t really like how it looks online – they also have linoleum in lots of colors
• Bamboo, cork, linoleum flooring and more
• Bamboo countertops – how cool is that?
• Clarks Fork Timber – totally out of place and we’d probably never use it (and likely can’t afford it), but it’s cool none-the-less

I’ve been thinking about concrete a fair bit recently because some time in the next two months or so, I’m going to have to form and pour (or have poured) the foundation for our house. With that in mind, here are some links that look interesting.

• The Rehab Guide: Foundations (690K PDF) – “This publication, The Rehab Guide: Foundations is one in a series of guidebooks produced by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to keep the design and construction industry abreast of innovations and state-of-the-art practices in home rehabilitation.”
• Concrete Floor Finishes
• Fly Ash Concrete
• Affordable Residential Construction: A Guide for Home Builders – Volume II (6.4 MB PDF) – ” offers detailed information for builders who want to incorporate affordable housing techniques into their house and lot designs, footings and foundations, wood frame floors, walls and partitions, firewalls, roof framing, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and business and marketing efforts”
• Concrete Materials Calculator
• Portland Cement Association FAQ – I linked to this before, but it’s worth repeating

Concrete Stain product manufacturers

• Increte
• Kemiko
• The Stamp Store

A recent Fine Homebuilding newsletter included a link to an article titled Making Sense of Housewraps.

I’m part-way through it, and it’s led me off to the Building Materials and Wood Technology site at University of Massachusetts which looks like a good source of building info.

Some links pertinent to housewrap and weatherproofing include:

• Housewraps, Felt Paper and Weather Penetration Barriers
• Leaky Housewraps
• Details That Keep Walls Watertight
• Insulating On the Outside

The latest Fine Homebuilding magazine also had a small bit on Delta-Dry housewrap which looks very interesting and I will be exploring further. Some related links include:

• New DELTA-DRY House Wrap Poised to Challenge Tyvek
• Delta-Dry House Wrap (hgtvpro.com)

Other weatherproofing links:

• Weatherproofing Dormers

I received a Fine Homebuilding GREEN eLetter (newsletter) yesterday and it led me to Fernando Page Ruiz’s blog and from there to the Partnership for Advanced Technology in Housing (PATH) website.

This site led me off to lots of wonderful information including:

• ToolBase – an amazing resource for “technical information on building products, materials, new technologies, business management, and housing systems.”
• The Portland Cement Association with what looks to be a very informative FAQ page
• Concrete Foundation Association
• Insulating Concrete Forms Association
• Info on Corrugated Stainless Steel Tubing (CSST) for gas distribution
• Design Guide for Residential PEX Water Supply Plumbing Systems (5.3 MB PDF)
• The Plastic Pipe and Fittings Association (PPFA) section on PEX

It’s absolutely incredible the amount of information that’s available online. I can’t imagine trying to do this project at a time before this ready access to information.