This week Rob is working on an 8ft pocket door in a commercial building. When installing a pocket door, it is important to plan ahead so that you know where to install the track. You must consider the height of the door, the clearance you want, and how thick the floor is if it has not been installed yet, as you can see here. 

The bottom brackets need to be screwed to the floor, however before you drill you want to ensure that there is no in floor heating. In this situation, I used tap cons and also construction adhesive. 

Hanging a pre-hung door is not always as easy as pie.  Plaster walls in older buildings are roughly 5 and 1/2 inches thick.  When you want to install a new door, you may have a problem because most pre-hung doors are only 4 and 9/16 inches wide. The solution is custom-made jam extensions.  I was faced with this exact problem this week.  The picture on the left shows the gap that needed be covered and the picture on the right shows the new jam extension I made and installed. 

Tile borders bring visual interest to a room but require some planning prior to installation.  This is particularly true when, as pictured below, the border tile is much thinner than the wall tile.  In order to set the tiles flush, you need to build up the surface evenly with thin-set mortar and let it set overnight.  This is an essential step.  If you tried to apply a large amount of thin-set mortar all at one time to offset the differential, the tiles would sink  unevenly, creating a wavy surface.  These extra steps are what create a great finished product and why quicker and cheaper are not always better.