Early November Updates (Part 2)

Here are the photos of the work done in the main hallway.

One of the first things I worked on was the bulkhead over the staircase. I'm not sure if "bulkhead" is the appropriate term, but that's what I'll be using.

I started by removing the drywall. This is what I found:



View from below, with 2 boards of ceiling tongue and groove removed:



Obviously, they tried to redo this at some point, and stopped since these X braces were in the way. These are to keep the joists at 90 degrees, and to prevent them from twisting. They are not 100% essential, and the t-g floor above, combined with the t-g below (ceiling) prevent the joists from moving much.

That said, these two were removed and the end of the joist was re-cut to the new angle.



I also cut the drywall around this repair to a triangle (with a square corner).



An interesting note on the 1920s construction of my house is that the non load-bearing walls on the first floor don't have a top stud. The studs are nailed directly to the second floor joist. You can see this above, although it's not 100% clear. What you see is the 8" joist, and a 2x4 below it. There is a small corner of pink batt insulation. You can see this better two photos down.



New blocking to hold and support the drywall. Note the old knob and tube wiring (all non-functional and abandoned in place throughout the floors and some walls).



In this photo, you can see the two ends of t-g ceiling boards that I cut, but what you can't see too clearly is that those two additional board ends, and possibly one or two additional ones behind the drywall were once part of the original ceiling (they were cut later, since all the other boards finish at the end of the dividing wall). This tells me that this bulkhead has been modified at least twice before.



SOME of the mess.



Some of the first pieces of installed crown moulding.







The dividing wall needed a lot of work/reconstruction on the end. It had a good (metal) drywall corner on the right, but on the left it had a poorly installed and badly puttied metal/paper combo corner (not good for a high traffic corner). So I ripped that off, and then I had to chisel-off large lumpy chunks of mud, and I also had to re-cut the edge of the drywall (the one on the inside the staircase) since it passed the end of the corner in places (meaning that if I installed the new metal corner over it, it would have been crooked and lumpy.



New corner:



New drywall and corners on bulkhead:



The second or third (or 4th?) coat of mud on the bulkhead:



Most of the new casings installed on the living room door:



I installed the rest of the casings on the guest bedroom door at the same time:



More mudding on the bulkhead. Note that I am trying to blend the corner onto only ONE piece of the ceiling t-g for a seamless transition. Dividing wall (corner) mostly done.



Not all the crown moulding was seamless and easy to install. To get nice corner joints, sometimes you need to do things like this:



Note ceiling/t-g transition above.

Finished crown photos. The crown is all caulked, puttied (nail holes) and ready to paint. A bunch of places have curves, gaps, and inconsistencies, but this is to be expected in an old house. Because this is going to be painted, caulk (acrylic) is your friend. It LOOKS perfect, but I assure you it's NOT (as evidenced by the shim photos above).









I still have work left to do on some of the bulkhead (more mud touch-ups), but it's almost ready for painting.

Early November Updates (Part 1)

Alright. I have over 40 photos to post, so I'll do it in multiple posts.

Let's start with the miscellaneous items.

This is the progress I made over a week ago on the "shop storage hutch" project. I'll just note that the doors look crooked (especially at the tops) because they haven't been trimmed to fit the openings yet, and they are just leaned in the openings for the photo.



Again, random scrap wood was used on this project, and as much as possible, I'm trying to build the entire thing for as close to "free" as possible. Salvaged windows, salvaged flat doors from the upstairs kitchen/laundry room, and tons of scrap plywood and 2x4s. The only thing I'll be buying is hardware, paint, and maybe crown moulding for the top.

Here's another odd job I did last week. Since removing the new floor from the original in the living room, I had clear access to this rusted pipe fitting (for the gas line to my furnace). I've been meaning to clean/sand/paint it for over a year.





Next is a 5 minute (and 30$) fix that's been bugging me for a few years. I bought this nice antique dresser at a yard sale a few years ago (for next to nothing, I think it was under 40$), and it had these awful 1980s floral knobs on it. So while I was in Ottawa this weekend, I picked up some antique brass reproduction knobs for it.

I plan to eventually strip, repair, and refinish this dresser. It has functional locks on the top drawers (but no key), and it's made of maple. It used to have a grain-painted finish, but I'll likely just put a dark walnut or mahogany stain on it.

Before:



After:

Always Doing Things the Hard Way

I will have a bunch of posts and tons of photos coming very soon.

As some of you know, I'm currently laid off, so I've been fairly productive with the house. Yesterday I finished installing the crown moulding in the main hallway (and it looks awesome). I've also done some work on the living room door jamb (which had to be shimmed-out to match the new (thicker) drywall that the PO put in).

This is a copy of a post I made to my personal (online) journal about what I did earlier today:

I seem to like giving myself extra work and extra headaches. I tend to do this often, and intentionally, but always in the pursuit of a better looking finished product.

What the hell am I talking about? The bathroom vanity.

I started to install it today and I didn't get that far. I wanted the vanity to fit into place with as few "tack-on" pieces as possible. Normally when we install a cabinet like this, we would install the main cabinet, then a filler piece on the side near the wall/casing. I chose instead, to have the "filler" piece built into the cabinet. That's fine, and I left enough room for it, but it's a lot more work.

I also went and used solid maple on the entire face and bottom, which I had to cut-away/sand to shape, and my belt-sander is a piece of crap.

I did manage to get it cut and shaped exactly how I wanted, but it took like 2 hours.

Additionally, I'm going to have the exact same problem when it comes to cutting/sanding the base of the vanity, since I need to remove at least 1/4" along one whole side to make it sit level.

Again: the finished product will look so much nicer, but what a headache.

Cornwall Homes

They are still painting St. Columban's steeples/roofs, and I thought I'd add another update photo. They're just using a regular metallic paint, which I thought was surprising, since it's so incredibly shiny depending on the light.

I'm torn with weather I liked it better before (drab silver), or now (shiny new silver). I'm obviously happy that they are keeping the building well maintained, but it does look rather flashy/new from certain angles. I'm sure the gloss will dull over time, too.



One of the reasons I post about the church is because it's right near my house. I'm on 5th, the church is on 4th, and a few blocks east.

I never attended this church, but my grandmother's funeral service was held there.

There's a photo of the interior on their website here. It's actually quite nice inside.
http://www.alexandria-cornwall.ca/diocese_sept_069.htm

The only detail I wish this church had, is more stained glass. The panels around the altar are fancy but all the main windows are plain. My old church (when I used to attend as a kid) was GORGEOUS and very ornate - at the opposite (and poor) end of town.

I couldn't find any photos of the windows of Nativity, but here is an interior shot:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ricklerocker/6082249545/

Right near St. Columban's and also in my "hood", is the newly revamped Big Brothers & Big Sisters building. They recently had a local artist (with several other artists/painters to help) repaint/decorate the whole building. I actually met the artist before, and she's a nice girl. She has a very unique and distinctive "whimsical" style, and I think it works quite well here.

What do you guys think? Too much? Totally cool? An old building crime?

The entire building used to be a pale mint green, which you an see on the far left.





I like it. I think it's the use of so many bright colours.

Lastly, here's probably one of the final updates on a very VERY sad renovation story. I'm still not sure if they're planning to gut the other half (the right side) of this duplex. I walk by it almost daily, and it doesn't look like anyone is occupying that half.

The building used to have casings just like mine (slightly different crown on the doors/windows), and 2 panel wood doors. It was gutted to the studs, had all the original 3-over-1 windows removed, and any other architectural detail(s), and the inside now looks like a cheap condo apartment.

This last update is to show the awful looking remodel of the front porch. They actually demolished half the cinder-block centre, removed the centre t-g divider, and rebuilt the entire decking. Then they made these awful LEGO-looking planter boxes on each side. They didn't even bother to take off the lumber tags/staples on the raw ends. TRUST ME when I say that this photo makes it look pretty flattering, since it was taken from at least 30ft away.



Compare with "before" (this was taken shortly after they started butchering it):

Front Hallway and Living Room Floor

A lot has happened with the house in the past few weeks. I am currently laid off due to a work shortage, so I've been home alone and bored. This means I've had some time to work on projects.

But first, I thought I should show off a bit more of the stuff you guys haven't seen yet.

Here are a few shots of the vanity. The first shows what the glazing process looks like. The effect in the photo looks pretty severe, but you have to remember that the first sealer coat of lacquer has been scuff sanded, so the overall door colour looks paler than normal. The glaze is also wet, so it looks darker. After the final coat, it shows up as just a slightly darker shadow in the crevices.



Here are a few shots of the main cabinet after it's been glazed and with the final coat of lacquer applied (and fully cured):



You can just barely see the glaze in the ogee detail on the toe-kick.





Here are the office built-in doors propped-up in place temporarily (just for a preview):





And the linen cupboard door:



Alright, so the first big project I tackled recently was the tear-out of the living room floor. I knew what to expect, and I ended up with no real surprises. Work started off with the removal of the large finger-joint 1/4 rounds (which is why they're in so many small pieces), and other garbage patch work.



I removed 90% of the furniture from the room, but the TV stand and the pine bookcase were too big (I had no room to put them anywhere else). I worked around those.







This large patched hole was expected...



I have no idea why there's an electrical box inset into the floor here.



I knew about the hole since this was the view from the basement:



I have an old vent that I THOUGHT originally went here, but it's about an inch too narrow for the hole. I can probably make this work by moving all the short boards near the wall inward.



The bright peacock blue visible in this corner is the original CALCIMINE paint. It is powdery and chalky, which is how I know it's calcimine, and there's nothing below it. There are several wallpaper layers and paint over it, however.





A few areas that will need annoying and painstaking patch jobs:





These were taken the following day in daylight. The floor looks absolutely terrible (worst than a barn floor) but I know that it's nice birch under this filthy crud layer.







This is where I had to stack many of the books from the bookcase. Believe it or not, but all of those fill only TWO of the three shelves in the bookcase. The cabinet it only 50"x50". With all the books in it, it's absolutely immovable even on a slippery laminate floor.



Lastly, this is just one quick and crappy photo of the latest major project, which has been the repairs and drywall work in the front (main) hallway. I decided not to make a narrow built-in around the duct stack next to the front door, so I built the framing around it and drywalled that.



I also made repairs to the dividing wall between the hallway and the staircase, as well as the office wall (in the hallway).

I also completely gutted and rebuilt the entire portion above the stairs as you go up. It was at a bad angle, and I've hit my head on it (lightly) once or twice. This was a pretty big job. I had to cut away two of the ceiling t-g boards, and I also discovered that they had stopped this "arch" piece short because they came up to the joist "X" braces. I actually had to remove the "X" braces and add other 2x3 pieces. I also had to re-cut the end of the joist to accommodate the new angle. The slightly
scary thing is that this joist isn't really well supported either. It just kind of sits there and the floor above, plus the ceiling t-g below kind of keep it in place. I added a bunch of screws on the end of the joist up into the wall over the "arch". Photos of that later.

I also started installing crown in the hallway. It's not going to be a match to the original crown mouldings. I plan to restore the original mouldings only in the office and living room, and everywhere else is getting new crown. This is the same crown as in the master bedroom (on the arch), and it matches the profile on the door and window casings (only it's larger).