DIY: How To Build A Faux Barnwood Dining Table

The farmhouse table: it’s a classic that’s been around for ages, built out of necessity using the same rough lumber farmers used for their barns. Planed and constructed using hand tools, these primitive barnwood tables were the center of the home, where all of the meals were prepared and served. Fast forward hundreds of years and that classic farmhouse table is still going strong. Many farmhouse tables are now being built from reclaimed barnwood, which is a wonderful way to repurpose this old lumber. This trend has become so popular that old barnwood is now scarce and can be costly, as homeowners desire to use it in many furniture designs. In this post, DIYer and Simpson Strong-Tie Brand Ambassador Jaime Costiglio shows you how to create a beautiful faux barnwood table.
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Engineering with Kids: Popsicle Sticks, Spaghetti and Marshmallows

Back in March, a few colleagues and I were discussing how to prepare kids for college. With that subject in mind, I wanted to do something fun and meaningful for the kids in our community. So I organized some workshops in my back yard for kids who might be interested in exploring structural engineering — and summer was the perfect time to do it! We had a group of 12 kids, aged 7–11, who signed up and were all set to explore some engineering concepts. It was a learning experience for me, as well!
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BIM Inception: The Construction Language of the Future

Robots. Drones. 3D printing. Self-driving bulldozers. If residential construction is ripe for so-called disruption (and sweeping advancements already made by commercial and industrial builders says it is), then most technologists, forward-thinkers and first adopters agree we’ll need a native, digital, data-based language to help run it all. Continue reading “BIM Inception: The Construction Language of the Future”

Girls Inc. Visits Simpson Strong-Tie Lab

On July 6, the Simpson Strong-Tie home office in Pleasanton, California, welcomed girls from Girls, Inc. of Alameda County. This visit provided an opportunity for the girls to hear from and interact with the many women leaders of Simpson Strong-Tie.

The construction and manufacturing industries continue to be male-dominated fields. The visit provided the girls the opportunity to meet several of our women leaders and also learn about other career paths that might not be automatically associated with the manufacturing industry. Our leaders — including Jacinta Pister, senior vice president, Worldwide Manufacturing; Jennifer Lutz, vice president, Human Resources; and Shelby Short, director, Global Quality Systems — shared stories of their personal success and professional growth at Simpson Strong-Tie.
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Little Locales Using Big Data to Prevent Bridge Failures

Situated on the northwest coast of Oregon, the resort town of Seaside — population 6,685 — seems an unlikely place for advanced seismic and tsunami simulations. But just offshore Seaside’s charming 1920s boardwalk and its broad, sandy beaches famed for razor clamming, the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate is slowly sliding underneath the behemoth North American plate.
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How to Build a DIY Mobile Workbench

One of our most requested DIY projects is a mobile workbench with drawers — so when Jen Woodhouse proposed designing exactly that, we jumped at the opportunity to put it on our site. Jen built her mobile workbench using a combination of Simpson Strong-Tie® wafer-head screws and hex-head Strong-Drive® SD Connector screws.
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Hurricane Season: Understanding High-Wind Home Preparation

As we’ve seen with the hurricane seasons of that past decade or so, homes are not always built to withstand a major storm. The hurricane season of 2017 was one of the deadliest and costliest seasons in US history. Countless homes and buildings were severely damaged or destroyed, leaving thousands of families displaced. It will take years for communities to rebuild and recover from such devastation.

Fortunately, there are solutions that can help protect your home from a hurricane or high-wind event.
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Deck Guide: How to Build Safe, Strong Decks

A little like Bugs Bunny’s, Simpson Strong-Tie’s favorite season is “deck season.”

This penchant makes sense, because for more than half a century Simpson Strong-Tie has been the leader in structural wood connectors. That history of fashioning solid connections makes us the perfect partner for homeowners and contractors who want to build safe, strong wood decks.

But did you know our deck solutions don’t end at connectors? Every year, our team of engineers innovates better ways not only to build new decks but to strengthen existing decks. Whether you’re a contractor seeking new ways to build faster and more safely or a DIYer embarking on a spring deck project, we’re likely to have the solution you’re seeking. Here’s our Ultimate Guide to Building a Safe, Strong Deck with Simpson Strong-Tie.
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Jump Start: Where Infrastructure Spending Typically Goes

Provisions of a $1.5 trillion infrastructure investment plan revealed by the White House this past February include $200 billion in federal spending to incentivize local governments, support existing infrastructure loan programs like the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA), build projects of national significance, and provide rural block grants to states for investments into transportation, waste and power projects.
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