Porch Door Update & Misc.

I finished the joinery on the window insert for the porch door. It's got quite an interesting range and combination of joinery, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. It's not perfect, but it's more than adequate, considering it's supposed to look old, and it will get puttied and painted.

I wanted to finish it, and mount it into the door frame, but I ran into an unforeseen problem. I was sure that I had a suitable router bit to do the groove for the glass, but I don't. I have a bit that would work, but the bearing that's currently on it is too narrow, which would make the groove too wide. I want no more than 1/4" and I think it would give me 3/8" (which if a lot if you consider that it's going on two sides of a wooden strip that is only 3/4" wide. It would actually eat up all of the 3/4 and leave nothing left in the centre. I'll either need to buy a different bit (which I'm sure I could use several more times on other stuff), or get a set of bearings, which I can swap on my bits.

While the frame was glued and drying, I also put one coat of paint on one side of the door. It looks pretty damn awesome (if I say so myself), and I can't wait to see the finished product.

So I actually uploaded some photos just now, so this won't be a boring post.

Here's a TEASER for the porch!



Note that the tongue and groove floor boards will later be painted grey like the bottom of the porch. I painted them white for now, since they needed protection, and since the new side pieces needed to be painted before winter/rain, etc. I will paint the porch floor (grey) and the bottom of the porch when I have all the lattice/bottom trim redone, as well as the new steps. It will all go in gloss oil paint (floor paint). That won't be until next year.

***

Here's some of the joinery on the window frame. All of this was done with just a table saw, a HAND SAW AND MITRE BOX, and a chisel. Very basic stuff. I was still able to get nice tight joints, with a good amount of accuracy. A lot of stuff was measured by eye (going off the frames, etc).

The centre bar, as well as the two dividing bars that make up the 4 top panes were done with dowel ends. These are ONE PIECE. They are basically a mortice and tenon, but I just used a 1/2" round hole, and I cut the tenon on the ends into a rough circle.



The top horizontal rail is done with a bridle joint on each end. The side stiles (vertical bars) are done with matching bridle joints in each corner, and a mortice for the centre rail.



The bottom rail is twice as wide, and I wanted to use the same setup in each corner, so I made a combination bridle joint and mortice joint. Note that the tenon is cut shorter, since it doesn't protrude all the way through the side stile (like the bridle joint).



The centre bar is one continuous piece that crosses the centre bar, so here, I used a lap joint.



Here's a detail of the mortice and tenon from the centre bar.



Now, I'll just mention that making a window frame like this is NOT a beginner project. You need a lot of time, patience, and accuracy to end up with a decent end product. HOWEVER, if you have some experience with woodworking, there's no reason why you can't build something like this. The joints used are all pretty simple, and you can easily make test samples (as I did) to check all your cut depths, and heights before cutting your good pieces.

Additional Note: Some of you may notice that the frame is built-up from THREE different wood species. The reason for this is because I used what I had on hand. I wanted to make it entirely out of cedar (like the rest of the door), but I did not have enough usable (straight) cedar. The board I used cupped HORRIBLY when I cut it, and there were too many badly spaced knots for the lengths I needed. Bonus points if you can name the three wood species shown!

And no you don't get to see the full shot of the assembled window yet! :P

***

Here's a photo of that mini access door for the office. It's not attached yet (just sitting there for the photo). I'm not sure if I want to mount it flush like this with minimal hardware (and paint it the wall colour), or if I want to deck it out in mini door trim and paint it white like the rest of the trim, along with antique hardware. Thoughts?



***

Remember this old apartment building that had a fire (over a year ago)?



Well, as suspected, it's being gutted to the studs. I can't say that I blame them, and I don't feel nearly as sad for this building as I do for some of the others. It had nice, but fairly plain trim (inside), and it has some nice old doors (which are getting scrapped soon). The windows where what really made it look its age (1920-1930). These too, are all being changed.

I've been checking the dumpster weekly, and I was able to grab the hardware (hinges and lockset) from an old door (which was badly damaged). I also went with my mom to salvage some of the windows. There were at least 3 pairs of the nice 6 panel minis, but I was only able to find one pair. A lot of the other windows were smashed when they were chucked in the dumpster, but I saved two of the upper 3-panel sashes (in near mint shape).

Here's the transition when they were changing the windows. The only thing I'm sad about is that they didn't make any effort to get matching ones with a fake grille for the upper sashes.



Here's the set of 6 panel doors (which I will make into a wall hanging cabinet or some sort of cabinet). You can also see these in the background in the joinery photos above. Note the original (and VERY LARGE) drip edges. The other surprising part of these is that they were still in use up until last year, but they have absolutely no signs of any weatherstripping. They are literally just hinged, with 2 latches to keep them closed. They must have been VERY drafty.



Here are two of the upper 3 panel ones. The paint on them is a nice pinkish oil paint, and it's still in perfect shape. It looks like they were never repainted in the past 60 years or so.



The next two photos are a bit random, but I thought I'd just post them now.

This is a nice, plain Victorian house in town. I pass by it weekly on my way to do groceries. They have remuddled it, and I have mixed feelings about what they did with the house. Some stuff they did an amazing job (like repainting the porch), other stuff is just awful, like blocking off the second porch door, and adding pot-lights (in the porch t-g), removing interior walls, etc. Overall they're keeping the house well maintained, but they're modernizing it a bit too much.

Ok, that was a bit of a tangent, but yeah, they added these two old enameled street signs. These are very recently added, and they look freakin' awesome. But I'm left wondering where the heck they came from. They look like they're in absolutely mint condition, but they also look EXACTLY PERIOD ACCURATE. They are an identical match to other old ones in town. I think it's possible that they found them (unused) in the house. I'm pretty sure they don't make these anymore (not in this exact style/font anyway). And yes, you can totally go on Google Maps and see the whole house.



I noticed this recently, too. A nearby church - St. Columban's, which is just a few blocks away, is being repainted. It looks like it needed it pretty badly, even though the building/roof looks to be in pretty good shape. I took this at 6am on my way to work, which is why the lighting is dark.



Alright, that's it for now! :D

House Numbers (Part 2)

I have come to love these old house numbers, and I've photographed quite a few of them. Several of these are the same vintage, while a few are newer, or older. Most have the same font, but I can see at least 3 variations.

The following are a collection of the bulk of the remaining numbers in my neighbourhood (roughly 25 blocks?) There are a few others I didn't photograph (since people were out on their porch, for example.

Also note the general state of disrepair on most of these homes. Some are nicely restored, others are literally rotting and falling apart.

I still don't know how to cut one of these posts with a "keep reading after the cut", so this will be a rather large post with 28 photos.

117 & 115 Fourth Street West
A series of townhouses/apartments. There were also numbers 123 & 125 (not photographed).



121 & 119 Fourth Street West



129 - Fifth Street East
This is a nicely restored Victorian. Original wood siding (in a dark pink).



129 & 127 First Street West
Townhouses with original doors, porch roof/columns.



A lovely number 142 on the historic Stormont Cottages. See: http://www.cornwall-lacac.on.ca/
York & First Street West



On the same building are a set of old enameled street signs (these are very scarce). Note that these are in different styles, both in the shape of the plaques and the font.





219 First Street West
Sadly this number is now gone, since the entire porch roof has recently been gutted. That nice original dentil moulding - gone. I'm not sure if the porch columns were still there.



224 Fifth Street West
A house just down the street from me.



227A - 227B First Street West





231 First Street West



248A Pitt Street
This is one right on a main street that I had never noticed until yesterday.



312 First Street West



316 Water Street



318 First Street East



328 York



40 First Street West
The historic Chelsey's Inn (built in 1820). See: http://www.cornwall-lacac.on.ca/



47 Fifth Street East



519 Bedford



138 Second
Amelia & Second Street East
This is a stunning Victorian in near perfect shape.





Augustus & Seventh



Fourth Street West & York





Sydney
This is on the Historic Grammar School. See: http://www.cornwall-lacac.on.ca/



102 Fourth Street East / 341 Sydney
I'm not sure why this house has two addresses.

House Numbers (Part 1)

Alright, I'll start off by showing my restored house numbers, and part 2 will be just a photo montage of other old house numbers in town.

After I finished cleaning up the plaque and removing paint smears, dirt, and even some previous repairs (someone had repainted the chipped portions in black), I was left with this:



You can clearly see the "blue over white" enamel around the edges, as well as the corrosion.

I'm a bit hesitant to give away all my trade secrets, but in the next step, I went over the metal with a clear product to seal it (yes I'm being vague on purpose). After this, I started colour matching the blue.

The problem with the blue is that it's NOT BLUE. It's indigo. It you look at it under good lighting, it's rather purple.

I wanted to use enamel (oil) paints for the touch-ups, since they are more durable, but FINDING THEM was insanely difficult. I had a few on hand, but some of the colours I needed (dark blue) was all dried out. I went to about 5 different stores and I couldn't find them. Michael's (art supplies) was my absolute last stop (and the farthest away), and I found exactly what I wanted.

My colour match was a mix of blue and red, but it turned out a bit darker than what I wanted. It's still very close, but it could have been better if I had spent more time on it. After the paint dried, I went over the entire thing (front and back) with a clear coat designed for car paint (since it won't yellow).



This was the finished product. Not perfect, but WAAAAAY better than before. I also painted the heads on 2 brass screws to mount it.



Unfortunately, the rest of the porch still looks rather ghetto at the moment, but here's how it looks. You'll notice that I mounted the numbers centered ABOVE the door, rather than poorly tacked ONTO the door mouldings.





This photo set shows the full transformation:

349

I've been dragging my feet when it comes to the house. I had today off (Friday) and I wasted much of it in front of the computer.

I did force myself to do a TEENSY bit of work, namely a bit more drywall patching, and installing ONE piece of trim for the office built-in (the sill piece).

But, I got inspired (quite randomly) to yank-off my house number plaque and start fixing it.

I'm not sure if this is the case in your particular home town, but I've noticed that a lot of older homes in town have these wonderful old blue and white house numbers. My house was no exception. I was THRILLED that my house still had the original number.

I'll go into more detail about these later this week (maybe tomorrow).

But here is my number 349.



As you can see, it's in pretty rough shape. It was nailed in place (rather than held with screws as I'd have thought it should be). I was surprised to find that these are actually enameled numbers. I had always thought that they were just painted tin. They are actually a fairly thick steel plate, enameled in black on the back. The front is coated first with white, and then the blue is added, leaving the white background showing the numbers (this is very obvious when looking at it from an angle, and if you notice where it's chipped (not really visible in these 3 photos).



You can see all kinds of grime, as well as careless brush marks from a painter. The portion above is rusted right through the plate. I plan to fix this.



I've already cleaned it up, removed all the grime, dirt, etc, and begun repairing it. BUT, I'm not showing any additional photos until it's ready for the reveal. I'll need to wait 24 hours before I can paint it, so realistically it won't be ready until Sunday.

Stay tuned!