Measure Everything During a Remodel

Are you under the impression that a 24 foot by 24 foot room is actually going to be 24 foot by 24 foot? Do you think a square or rectangular room that’s ten feet across on one side will be ten feet across on the other side? Would you be surprised if a wall that went straight up actually was an inch further in near the top than it was at the bottom? If you think everything is straight, you are in for a surprise when you begin to install your new cabinets or lay your nice square tiles.

Before you begin a remodeling project, take careful measurements and be sure you measure in more than one spot when you are measuring the distance between points. This helps you avoid that, “Oh, no!” moment when you realize the 24 foot by 24 foot garage you are turning into an in law apartment is 24 by 24 in the front corner, but is 24 by 23 in the back corner.

Once you see if the dimensions of the space you are remodeling are off, you will be able to compensate for the difference during planning instead of struggling to fix the problem when you are halfway through the project. For example, the space between a crooked wall and a row of cabinets can be shimmed with increasingly wider pieces of wood so that the final result is a perfectly square set of cabinets topped by a custom cut piece of granite that fits the crooked space perfectly.

Have you ever tried to remodel a crooked room?

Photo: SXC/Wouter Onbekend