I work for a remodling firm and am wondering about partion walls in existing rooms. Specifically, do you make the new wall parallel to the existing wall when laying it out (even if it means being out of square); or do you make the new wall with square corners thus making it out of parallel with the existing wall. Any thoughts would be helpful.
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Whichever you do, the boss and/or customer will have the opposite opinion.
I'd ask the boss.
One consideration is materials. If you're putting in strip flooring, parallel has a lot to recommend it. We had a discussion here a couple weeks ago about boards on the ceiling of a room with four different wall lengths. If you're adding sheet goods for underlayment of some kind, square corners might save you a lot of cutting. Crown molding is (slightly) happier with square corners.
I does depend alot on finish materials. Sometimes parallel is better. Sure goes against the grain to do something intentionally wrong. Visually appealing sometimes comes to mind. Occasionaly, hiding the goofiness is lessened with 3 walls (or two) that are square.
Or, screw the floor, counter, ceiling, wallpaper etc guy.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
A story:
Seeing as that he is in the neighborhood the boss checks on a new guy putting up a riser, and service on the outside of an old house. He rolls up and sees that the guy is progressing well. But something doesn't look right.
New guy tells him that he carefully used a level to mount the service. Boss steps back 30' and uses a watch chain. Sure enough the riser and service is plumb and level. The house , on the other hand, is not. The front of the building slopes forward something like a foot in ten feet.
This makes the side wall, where the service is set a parallelogram not a rectangle. The mounting screws are loosened and the riser and service were shifted to match the angle of the front wall. This makes it 'wrong', nothing like plumb, but it makes it look 'right'.
Matching new to old it is sometimes best to compromise or to match the existing structure. Whichever looks the best. A judgement call. Usually standing at a distance, or the longest available sight line, will make things clearer as to which way to go.
It depends. When hanging doors we hang them plumb...unless they are close to perpendicular walls... then we measure so the doors are parallel to the intersecting walls. So you need to think it through so in the end you have solved more problems than you created.
We become by effort primarily what we end up becoming
- Zig Ziglar
it always depends... in remodeling you have to go with what looks right..." fool the eye" trompe l'oile ( 'er somtin like dat )...
straight lines are better than level lines... parallel lines are better than square corners... bigger margins allow for more non-parallel conditions.....
....... but each circumstance has to be evaluated
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore