House Parts You Didn't Know Had a Name

[Oren]

By Natalie Rodriguez, This Old House online

"TOH helps you identify all those architectural "thingamajigs" and "whadya-call-its" you find around the house"

Picture click through 21 of them.

[Gordon Shumway]

Picture No. 13 shows the "Kite Winder," the middle of a set of three wedge-shaped stair steps, or winders, that together make a 90-degree turn.

Why are there four wedge shaped steps in the picture, not just three?

[Dean Hoffman]

#3, check throat. It never would've occurred to me what the purpose of that is.

[Malcom "Mal" Reynolds]

so when does a gablet become a gable?

[nestork]

That TOH magazine article was written by someone who doesn't work in the drywall or plastering business, and is getting his words out of a dictionary that no drywall or plastering contractors use.

What TOH calls a "scuncheon", almost everyone else in the world calls a "return".

Whenever a wall is thicker than the door frame or window frame that's installed in it, you need to finish the exposed interior of the wall in an aesthetically acceptable way, and that's the job of the "return". You can have interior or exterior returns depending on how the window or door is installed.

This is the first time I've ever heard of a return being called a "scuncheon". If you google "scuncheon" you do indeed get a definition that matches a window return. But, teaching people that it's called a "scuncheon" when everyone in the business calls it a "return", is not helpful in my view. Having homeowners using different terminology than the contractors they're trying to deal with makes a difficult situation even harder for all concerned.

'Window Returns - Drywall - Contractor Talk'

'New wood window returns and casing'

'Window returns with Trim-Tex Super L-bead - Drywall Finishing - Drywall Talk'

I didn't look at any of the other pictures because I know that freelance writers will offer articles to DIY magazines to publish. The freelance writer gets paid for his article, but it doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about or that everything in the article is correct. If the freelance writer that wrote that article for TOH Online had spent any time in the drywall or plastering business, he'd call it a return just like everyone else does.

[joe]

Is there an official dictionary for contractors?

Do they call it a "return" in China? India? Japan? Mexico?

[Dave Stone]

A tradesman could prolly charge 25% more for installing a scuncheon.

[The Daring Dufas]

I don't do much with drywall except, cut holes in it, patch it and yell at the drywall contractor for tearing up my wires. I just call those odd architectural details, "thingamajigs". ^_^

TDD