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EXPANDING DOORWAY, ADDING DOOR--??

5:45 PM 05/18/2012

 

balanchinelover

hello. we want to expand the doorway to the living room of our brownstone (it is very narrow and looks weird), and add french doors and molding.
do we need a carpenter? a contractor? or...?
any recommendations for someone who could do this job well? thank you.
 

 

 

Carpenters and Woodworkers
5 answers
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  • vote

    arkady

    Park Slope, NY

    Many of those doors are in load-bearing walls so I'd certainly get a professional to look before you ask a trades to give estimates.

    7:58 PM 05/18/2012 | 0 Votes

     

     

  • vote

    pig-three

    Brooklyn, NY

    many people beleive and many will tell you walls are loadbearing when they are not.

    6:01 AM 05/19/2012 | 0 Votes

     

     

  • vote

    thetinkerswagon

    Look, we do these all the time.  As for the load bearing comments, we are not architects and sometimes I ask the customer to get an architect - and many times they are so confident that the wall is not load bearing (we usually have a pretty good idea) that they ask me to proceed; we do and we treat the wall as load bearing and since we have to install a header anyway, we just build an oversize header (err on the side of caution) and bill for the same. 
     
     Steve
     
     www.thetinkerswagon.com

    8:06 AM 05/19/2012 | 1 Votes

     

     

  • vote

    mopar

    Bedford Stuyvesant, NY

    Get a finish carpenter. As Steve says, you can work it out so the new framing bears weight. The finish carpenter can add molding to more or less match what you have and make it look nice. It may turn out you once had pocket doors with a wide opening there, and someone covered the opening to break the house into apartments.

    12:55 PM 05/19/2012 | 0 Votes

     

     

  • vote

    rick

    Brooklyn, NY

    Not a big deal. You can see examples of my work at RickLaddBrooklyn.com

    6:12 PM 05/19/2012 | 0 Votes

     

     

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