Commercial Interior Finishing

StarCraft Custom Builders also does interior finishing in office and commercial buildings and retail store displays.

Here is some of our commercial work.

Warehouse to Office Conversion

This project was a conversion of a very old brick warehouse to modern office space. The original two-storey warehouse had burned at one time, and the burned out second floor had never been rebuilt. As part of this project, the second floor was restored and the entire space, including the full basement, was converted to offices and conference rooms. Accessible women's restroom on the main floor. The moulding was salvaged from a period building by Conner's Architectural Angiques cleaned, refinished and reused here. It is truly one-of-a-kind. Painting, finishing and wall coverings in the building are by by Jerry and Lois Gowler. Typical six-panel oak interior door. Law office library and conference room included rows of cabinets and shelves and some creative design to hide plumbing behind removable panels.


Two large staircases were built, one from the main the the second floor, and one leading to the basement offices. The banisters and posts were oak, but the ballusters were wrought iron, prefabricated by a decorative metal shop.

Basement staircase. The English paneling is red oak. Main stair bannister and handrail detail at the landing between the first and second floors. Traditional stair bannisters no longer meet new accessibility requirements for handrails in commercial buildings.

Handrails may no longer terminate into posts, but must wrap around the post in a continuous line. To comply with this new requirement, we installed an extra handrail inside the original stair bannister that does meet the new rules for commercial spaces while preserving the heritage look the owners wanted.

The photograph at right shows the handrail wrapping around a post on the second floor landing.

Kudos to Sid Conner for the design, and carpenter Rick Sliva for the execution of this fabulous staircase. The decorative metal ballusters were manufactured by Miller Fabricating.

Hospital Expansion

Display case in the third floor waiting area. St. Elizabeths Medical Center built a new wing in Lincoln, east of the existing facility. This six-storey addition contains some of the latest advances in hospital architecture and facilities. We were responsible for part of the carpentry and part of the cabinets and countertops. There were a lot of companies working on this large project. Veneered door. Glazed birthing center door. This glass is multicolored although the subtle differences in color are hard to see in this photo.

Most of the doors are typical steel fire doors in steel frames with special hospital latches — not very interesting. But some office doors are wood laminate on MDF, and there are a few glazed doors in birthing rooms. By and large the doors are large and heavy and mounted on heavy-duty commercial grade hinges.

Wall cabinets are installed under soffits that extend from the top of the cabinet to the false (suspended) ceiling. Hospitals do not allow dust to collect on top of wall cabinets. Dust and dirt is a breeding ground for the germs that cause infections. These soffits are essentially laminated dust shields — and they were required over every set of wall cabinets. There were a lot of wall cabinets. Fully automated patient monitoring area. In this photo the room is still being wired. A patient refreshement center is located at each end of every floor. Beverages are piped in from a central location in the basement. Typical nursing station. A nursing station is located at each end of any floor with patient rooms.

Patient room cabinetry. The closet doors fold back into pockets inside the cabinet when fully opened. The cabinetry was manufactured by Storecraft of Beatrice, NE. There are striking differences between commercial and typical residential cabinets. First, cabinetry for use in commercial application is generally much heavier and stronger. The hinges, latches and drawer slides are typically the best available and the laminates very thick. Staff training room. The cabinets and electronics are complete in this photo, but the chairs have not been set up yet.

Also, there are few embelishments. The cabinets have to last for many years of hard use, and continue to look good year after year. All of the engineering is devoted to durability and serviceability rather than stylistic elements such as fancy doors. The doors on these cabinets are, for the most part, as plain as they can be.