"L Room" Floors (Part II)

Well, so much for "in a few weeks". Guess what I did early this morning? Hehehe. I was actually up freakishly early for a Sunday morning. Generally, on the weekends, I don't get up until around 11am or so. If I'm SUPER exhausted, I'll even sleep until 1-2pm, but that's rare. This morning, however, I was up at 7:30am! I was going to go back to sleep, but I tossed and turned and decided to get up.

I decided to tear out the rest of the floor before showering and getting fully dressed (since I'd be covered in grime).





Note the area around the furnace vent (or rather, where a proper vent should be). They actually cut the board badly, and they had to add a patch to it. the rest of the board, and the following board were also loose and damaged, so in the next photos you'll see that they're gone.



The entire area around the vent is in poor shape, and it almost looks like they patched this flooring before, since it's cut and matched funny in this area. I'll probably just replace a whole section and redo it properly.



This last portion (like several others around the staircase) had to be cut against the edge of the wall, since they built the wall over the 1/4" plywood (and also over the floating laminate floor in the MB closet area).



Thank GOD for my "multi-tool"/flush-cut saw. It's probably the best tool I've got other than my trusty pry bar! No other two tools have gotten as much use during the renos so far.







Now that I have more room to work around in the room (from moving boxes/furniture) I can probably fix the windows, install my special trim mouldings, and work on the baseboards.

These two photos will show you just how much fun I'll be having, working on these two windows. I have no idea what the heck they did to these or why, but it looks like they troweled-on some drywall compound. There's also tons of bumps, nails, staples, and chipped paint. These are the two worst (and last) windows in the house.

"L Room" Floors

I've been aching to tear-up the rest of the floors upstairs for months, and this afternoon I finally decided to go ahead and do it. This will also let me be able to finish remaking the closet(s) and adding a linen cupboard in the hallway.

Be warned, this post is image heavy. If you get easily confused and disoriented, I'll try to explain where most of the shots are taken. You can also refer to the floor plan here: http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af308/clockmaker15/SecondFloor.jpg

For fun, here are a few before shots from April 2010 (when I first got the house).







Some of you will know that I had already started to tear a bit of it up about a week or so ago, so you know that I discovered that there may have been another room upstairs (6 total original rooms + 4 *TINY* closets).

The first step was to move the furniture out of the way. Once that was done, taking off the click laminate takes only a minute. Under this was loose foam (the MB had it stapled down in one half). I was not that surprised to find that they had just rolled the foam directly over broken and partly removed crumbly "Marbolum" linoleum tiles.



Another view. These are both pointing towards the front of the house, taken from the "laundry room".



Taken from the hallway outside the bathroom:







Taking up the first board revealed something I wasn't expecting. Red. the floor in this room (and only this room) was painted red.



After one more piece taken up, and a bit of sweeping:





This is taken from in the "L room" facing the "laundry" room. The open door (with the bright window) leads down the back staircase to the garage/side of the house (the window, which is one of two, overlooks the roof of the garage).



More plywood gone...









This is standing in the laundry room, and it shows the original layout of the closets, which had super thin walls (thickness of a 2x4 on it's side plus baseboards).



This is the last small section of the original closet, which shows how the wall was arranged. It looks like there was no drywall inside the closet originally, but it's very hard to tell if it was just painted later.



Standing in from of the "centre window" (the one over the porch if you're looking at the front of the house) looking into the room.



From the corner with the furnace vent/cable wire.





You can see exactly where the original wall and doorway(s) used to be.







This is the best photo to show the colour. The floor is also less dirty in this corner. You will notice in all the photos that there are light lines of red in the floor, and dirty black residue. I'm 99% sure that this is from a previous flooring (which I've found pieces of) which was a black tar paper, covered with a one-piece linoleum flooring. The black paper wasn't glued, but from all the walking on the floor, it left residue against the paint.





This will be the last corner left to do, but I have a ton of stuff piled in it at the moment, so I might get to it only in a few weeks.

Bathroom Lighting is DONE

I re-counted my spare turn key sockets and apparently I did have enough to do this fixture. The only problem is that both sockets are mismatched. The brands as well as the actual turn key knobs are different, but I decided to use them anyways, rather than spend more money for nothing. When the light was fully rewired, the knobs face opposite directions anyways, so you don't notice it at all. IF you want to hear all about the fixture's story, keep reading, otherwise skip ahead to the three stars below.

The fixture is pretty much a Frankenstein, too. I had originally bought it from eBay for VERY cheap (less than 30$ + ship). I got it for several reasons:
- price
- 2 shade fixtures are a nice size
- condition looked decent
- tons of extra chain

As you can see from this auction photo, the fixture hung down something like 64" with the shades. There's nowhere in my house that could possibly accommodate that, but I knew it would be handy to have all the extra chain links.



I was not too thrilled with the condition when it arrived, though. I had not noticed from the photos, that one of the shade holders hand been drilled straight through to use a push-through socket (which made the shade holder "ruined"), and the top canopy was also not the right style/vintage. The canopy on this fixture was the shallower style with surface-mount screw holes (hidden by the chains in the photo). It was also missing a decorative finial.



Later in the summer, I was able to find a spare antique canopy from a vintage lighting store, as well as a bunch of old sockets. I also won a set of 3 repro shade holders, which I talked about previously here: http://my1923foursquare.blogspot.com/2011/08/rant-and-bit-of-update.html
The canopy had to be drilled with 2 holes for the chain loops.

The shade holders were stripped of their factory-applied lacquer, then antiqued, and dulled to match the oval pan. Likewise, the canopy got the opposite treatment, and I had to polish it up a bit to get some of the brass to show through. To finish it off, I used a repro acorn finial (not the best, but easy to find), and rewired it using rayon covered wire.

***

Here is the finished fixture! I love how it looks. It hangs just ~4" over my head (I'm 6' tall). It's on a dimmer, so for the photos I had them on low to avoid just having it show as two huge glowing orbs. I've got 2 60w bulbs in there, which lights up the room perfectly. Task lighting for the vanity is provided by the sconces.

Bathroom Light Fixture / MB Floors

This is some of the work I did this weekend (not much since I had a friend visiting from out of town).

I mentioned already that I patched the floors in the MB floor. They just need a quick sand to remove the putty, and then the entire floor in the MB will be ready for paint. If the weather stays decent I might paint this week. We'll see. It's already starting to be really cold, and I might need ventilation since it's a stinky oil paint.



Last week (or the week before), I fixed the heating vent in the MB floor. They had butcheredly cut a hole for a vent and it never even fit properly. Secondly, the top "boot" of the vent had come disconnected, so I scrapped that completely, and recut the hole to cover-up the botched part. I also had to patch a piece of flooring into it to make it look good. Once it's painted it won't be noticeable. It's also in a corner where I will probably end up having a night table.



I also bought a bunch of brown metal registers for the newer style vents in the house. There's 3 upstairs (2 in the L room, and one in the MB), and there's 2 on the main floor. All the other vents are either wall-mounted (bathroom and one half of the MB), or they are antique, large sized cast iron registers.

The second small job I did was the finish the bulk of the fixture for the bathroom. This involved cleaning up the top canopy (polish it a bit to make the brass match the oval pan), and also antique the new fitters (darken the brass and dull the shine) to match the oval pan. As of now, the body of the fixture is done, but none of the electrical for it is ready. I am missing ONE antique turn-key socket for the fixture. Otherwise I'd be able to rewire it and use it right now.

I decided to hang it with my two spare fancy shades just to see how it would look, and to see if it would be too low, etc. It's only about 4" over my head if I'm standing under it, so it's fine (same height as the living room fixture), but I'm a bit afraid I might whack it with my arms if I'm changing.

I'll probably swap the shades for ones that match the pan's pattern a bit better. The shades (whatever the pattern) will be frosted white to match the new sconces.

OMG! A Steal of a Deal!

Holy cow. Lookit what I just found on Etsy for $10!!!



It's missing the rod for the paper, but I can EASILY make a new one. Especially since this one just drops into place in the holder.

I have been looking on/off for a vintage toilet paper holder for a few months, and they are all WAY too expensive. This similar one (below) sold on eBay a few months ago for $202.00 USD! It's in better shape and not missing any parts, but sweet lord! 200 dollars for a toilet paper holder? Really? I actually like the shape of mine better.



SO HAPPY!

Trim & Floor

I got a little productive last night. I decided to FINALLY patch the MB floor board that I had decided to replace (the two 2 foot boards shown here: http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af308/clockmaker15/HOUSE/P8200048.jpg).

I also decided to continue the trim on the upstairs staircase "doorway". I'm 3/4 done that. I reused one of the old casings to put over the door (since I needed an odd size, and I could use one of the damaged original ones (and cut it down).

I also made a new discovery about a week ago. I already mentioned that I started tearing out a bit of the floor in the L shaped room, and I found the original door opening, showing the original (square) room. BUT, I also discovered the beginning or another doorway, which seems extremely odd. This would (maybe) mean that there was a TINY room at the front of the house (the centre window) at the back of the stairs. IF this is true, the room would have been about the size of a walk-in closet at best. The room (if it was a room) would be around 5'x8'. It would basically be this tiny space if you came away from the corner wall the width of a door: http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af308/clockmaker15/HOUSE/P4306824.jpg

EDIT: Also, no antique toilet. I went back the following weekend, and it was nowhere to be found. They either brought it to the road early in the morning (and the garbage picked it up), or they brought it back in the house/gave it to someone.

Roof Vent (Bathroom Vent)

Alright, I promised I'd be posting photos of the terrifying job of installing the vent on the roof, and here they are.

To start the job, I looked at a few on-line videos, and I quite like the ones by "Ask The Builder.com". In it, he shows an easy way to locate the best spot for the hole, which is to just put a nail into the roof from the interior. You can see the shingle that's raised-up by the nail in this photo. This is where the vent will go.



As I mentioned previously, the hardest part was the actual drilling of the hole. For further details on that, just go back to the previous entry. Once I had that done, my aluminum 4" duct was easy to install, using 3 small stainless steel screws.





The next step was to remove the nails that would be in the way of sliding the vent into place, and to trim the shingles. Now this is where I screwed up. I had my measurements with me, but I cut an inch off the top shingle, and I shouldn't have. If I had brought-up the vent with me on the roof I would have caught this mistake. In the end, I was able to just piece-back the 1 inch strip, and bury it in clear roofing cement (along with the underside, and edges and anywhere that would help against leaks).





You can see the goof here. The cement is clear, and it's laid-down pretty thick here (about 1/4 inch thick) over the edges of the vent.





Lastly, here is my homemade ledge. Very crude, but it did the trick.





Yay! All done.



Now that it's been a few days, I've had the chance to use the fan, but I think there might be a problem with the top flap/shutter. It seems like after a few minutes of running the fan it then suddenly sounds like it's being obstructed. This means I'll have to crawl back up there again. Ugh...

Also, while I was up in the attic, I decided to run the "spare" wire that used to feed the bathroom light into a permanent overhead attic light with a switch next to the attic door. The attic actually used to have a working light in it, but it was on the old knob and tube system, and it's not connected anymore (the socket is also missing from the fixture).

***

Another fun side note is that while cleaning the garage last week, I finally decided to get rid of the old vanity. My dad had suggested that I should keep it and use it for storage, but it's just so disgusting that I dragged it to the road. I did take a few "glamour shots" of it for you guys. LOL. I'll spare you and only post the ONE photo, but do take a moment to bask in its hideousness.