L Room Trim Work

I can't remember weather or not I mentioned any of this already (and I'm too lazy to check). I patched the old hole in the wall where the built-in bookcase used to be (formerly a window). Reasons for this have already been discussed/explained.

This is just the first (rough) coat, and I haven't done the second coat yet.





I did finish the drywall mudding on the portion of the (newly rebuilt) wall with the entrance door and closet door, and I installed the trim for those two doors.

I found a few scraps of wood for the bases, and I already had some side pieces. I was able to do most of the pieces, but then I ran out of nails. :(



I stopped by a Home Hardware and picked up 2lbs of nails (much MUCH cheaper to buy them in bulk than in packages), so I was able to finish these up. I had to make a set of parting beads (transition bead moulding over the side columns). These were done Tursday/Friday.



The real finishing touch is always the crown mouldings over the doors. I have quite a bit of this left, but I still need at least 6 more pieces ~40" and the pieces that are left are really chipped/damaged, so they may require more creative patching.

Side note: because of the angle, the doors look like they are odd sizes, but they are both 30".



I also started scraping/fixing/patching one of the two windows in the L Room (the last 2 windows in the house to fix). These had been heavily plastered-over with drywall compound to avoid fixing some peeling paint issues and other damage (nails, holes, and staples). They REALLY caked and blobbed it on, too. Luckily, though, it does scrape off pretty easily. I spent no more than an hour on this window, and it's about 80% done. I'll also need to make some more of my custom Roman Ogee trim to fit around the vinyl window gap.



The only other bit of house news is that this afternoon I finally put the issue of the door hinges to rest. For those who are avid readers, you'll know that since FEBRUARY, I've been waiting for some Stanley 3" ball-tip hinges. These guys:



These are the closest thing to a historically accurate (and affordable) ball-tip door hinge. They're not super cheap at 6.98$ per hinge, but I wasn't willing to settle for flat-top (plain) hinges, and I also didn't want to pay 20$+shipping for these (admittedly much nicer) ones from Rejuvenation: http://www.rejuvenation.com/fixshow7659/templates/selection.phtml?n=v&fin_selected=LQ&img=Z005768

That's 400$ + shipping, VS ~160$

I had originally wanted 20 (enough for 10 doors). They only had a few in the store and some of the packages were opened and re-taped, so I had them (Home Depot) order 20 of them. I waited a week or so, then I called in ahead of time to make sure that they had them (they said yes). When I went in, they only had 10 on the shelf. I asked about the others, and apparently the system was telling them that they were in the store, but not out on the shelf yet, so I was told that they might just be somewhere "in the back" and that they would be put out on the shelf by the next day, and to just come back.

So I did. Still no hinges. The guy said it was a bit of a "mess back there" and to try again next week. I went back AGAIN the next week, and he still had no idea where the hinges had disappeared to. So the guy in hardware ordered another 10 (after the second or third visit).

So this charade of going back again and again and again) has been going on since FEBRUARY. I literally go in every week (or two) and I'm told the same thing. I even went to the help desk and complained, so they took my name and number along with the item number, and they said they would call me as soon as the hinges came in. A few weeks back, I did manage to find 5 of them in the wrong place with some other hinges and I bought them, but I'm still missing another 5.

So fast forward to today. It's always the same guy from hardware, and he knows what I'm going to ask each time he sees me. But today he told me it was his supervisor who was taking care of it. So I walked away, and then decided to have some balls and I turned around and asked if I could speak directly to his supervisor. He said sure, and I was handed over to another older gentleman in charge, and I explained the whole story to him, and he checked some stuff on their system.

Apparently there's some kind of problem with this particular item since it wasn't even showing up in their system that they had sold any of them (and I bought 15 so far since Feb.), and the system was still showing that they had a bunch of them available. So he found a store in Brockville (a city 2 hours away) and they apparently had 39 of them in stock. He got on the phone with them, and got them to send over 10 of them (5 for me and 5 to add to their stock, since they only have 2 on the shelf).

So now they are supposed to be in by this Wednesday/Thursday. He also printed out an invoice with the info/details/price, etc.

So yeah. WHY this took so long to sort-out is beyond me. It's just a bunch of hinges. I should not have had to wait over 2 months and bug the employees about the same issue over a dozen times before the issue got fixed. It took less than 10 minutes to fix this.

I'm not impressed with Home Depot. At least the last time they f-ed up, they compensated me slightly (20$ bag of mortar to redo all the bathroom tiles that didn't stick and never dried). All I got was an apology for having to wait so long.

Sossy if that turned into a bit of a long rant. This has just been dragging and annoying me since I really don't want to end up stuck with missing hinges. I tend to end up getting screwed by buying obsolete/discontinued items, and then not being able to find equivalent replacements. It's the exact same problem that happened with the mortise lock sets. The ones I bought (and liked) are not sold anymore. They are still selling them, but they're another brand and I don't like how they're made.