Trim Color

In construction, the decorative baseboards and casing around a door opening that we use is commonly referred to as trim. There are many types of trim styles available to you. When it comes to painting them, typically you see the wall or base color one shade and then the trim color a contrasting color that stands out. A real elegant look that you can do is to paint the trim color the same color as the base color, but change the sheen. In the attached picture, we have used a base color that is flat and then painted the trim the exact same color, but painted it in egg shell. This creates a subtle variance to the eye, yet doesn't call attention to the trim as loudly. "Understated elegance" is a term I would use to describe this technique. The good news is it's cheap to do and makes a great impact. If you are contemplating doing a quick weekend remodel job, try painting the trim for instant impact.

2010 San Antonio Parade of Homes

I am proud to announce that Mattern & FitzGerald will once again be participating in the 2010 San Antonio Parade of Homes. The Parade will be held this year in a new exciting subdivision called Cresta Bella, located at Camp Bullis and IH-10 West, just across the street from The Dominion. Cresta Bella will be a mixed-use community with businesses, cottages, multi-family, 90' wide product and estate product at the top of the hill. The views are amazing and we will be building in the estate section at the top of the hill. This is a rapidly growing corridor for San Antonio and is located across the street from The Rim, Fiesta Texas and the Shops of La Cantera. This year we are going to take another step forward in modern design, with hill country elements and traditional style all wrapped-up in our version of the next big thing in San Antonio. We have broken ground and are preparing for the September grand opening, so stop by and say Hi next time your in the area.

Basketball Gym Floor

This was a fun project to do. As a guy, you pray for the day someone asks you to build one of these. What kid wouldn't want to have a basketball gym in their house? What was really cool was shooting hoops on it when we were done. The flooring was an interesting process. In the NBA and college, maple floors are used most of the time. Unfinished maple to be exact- no stain. Under the floor it gets really interesting. On professional and college courts, there is floor leveler for the concrete, plywood, felt, thruster pads and maple wood. The thruster pads are what give the floor that hollow sound and the spring back that you may have noticed before when you bounce a ball. We didn't get to use them for this court, but we did use everything else. We ordered the wall pads after measuring the dimensions from an online source, and we spray foam insulated the room since it's 18' high ceilings were alot to air condition. We scaled the court to have the lines of a college team and put several coats of polyurethane to protect it. All in all it was a show stopper and another example of how fun construction can be.