Julian Cassell's DIY Blog

Fitting a door lining is a job that is required if you are replacing an old door lining, or you’ve built a new wall with a doorway, and therefore need to create a perfectly ‘square’ wooden frame onto which you then hang your new door. For more information on openings for doors, the anatomy of a doorway and frame, and measuring up for a new door lining, see my guide – ‘Interior door frames’. The sequence below shows how to assemble a door lining kit, and how to fit it into the opening in a wall. read more »

Interior door frames do vary in design and construction, but the most commonly used system in the UK is covered in this post. Before you go about changing an internal door, or fitting a new door in a new frame, it’s best to fully understand how the door frame is constructed. The two illustrations below show the main components of a door frame. Fig. 1 – shows the completed door and frame construction, whilst Fig. 2 – shows how the door and frame have been assembled. read more »

Planning a kitchen really does need to be an operation of almost military precision because there are so many things to think about, and therefore so many things that can go wrong. However, the result of good kitchen planning is right up near the top of what I would call the ‘Home Improvement Project Gratification List’. read more »

How to lay a deck or decking, or more specifically the techniques that are required, is much dependent on whether you are building at ground level, or creating a raised level deck. Raised decks are a much more involved undertaking as you need to build a substantial support framework, but with a ground level deck, the support is effectively already in place, and so it is much more straightforward. Building a ground level deck is shown in the sequence below. read more »

How to wallpaper a feature wall, as a topic, is mainly about deciding on the best position to start papering. In other words, there is no need to alter any part of the hands-on ‘how-to’ wallpapering technique, but there is a need to be as accurate as possible when deciding on where to hang your first length. Okay, with the smallest patterns, you don’t need to worry too much, but with most papers you really need to concentrate on centralizing any design read more »