Handyman in Cotati, CA

An older town centre on a hexagon

Cotati's downtown is built around a hexagonal plaza — one of only two hexagonal street plans in the United States, and on the National Register of Historic Places. The street geometry is genuinely unusual, and so are some of the lot shapes that come off it.

Practically, that means more properties here have an angle in them somewhere. Fence lines that meet at something other than ninety degrees, gates hung in openings that are not square, and decks that have to work around a boundary that is not parallel to the house.

Nothing built to the opening is standard

A stock gate is square. Hang one in an out-of-square opening and you get a tapering gap down the closing edge that gets wider toward the top, and a latch that only meets when the weather is right.

Building to the actual opening — measured in several places, braced so the gate carries its own weight back to the hinge post — is the difference between a gate that swings true for years and one that is dragging by next winter. See gates and fence repair.

Small homes reward built-in work

In a smaller house, freestanding furniture is usually the wrong answer — it eats floor you cannot spare and the volume underneath it is dead space.

Built-in seating with storage under the seat, shelving that follows the wall, and doors that slide rather than swing all buy back room that a small floor plan does not otherwise have. See carpentry and installations.