Painting & Touch-ups (Photos From Earlier This Week)

Here are some of the photos from a few days back. When I was preparing the door jamb for the front door (using BIN Shellac Primer and a coat of white trim paint), I also repainted a bunch of casings in the house where pine knots were bleeding through, as well as to touch up small nicks from the past year or two. Also shown in these pictures is a bit of the "under the stairs" drywall and mouldings.

Here's the basement door casing taped-off. The main reason for taping it off was to prevent any difference in colour that might show with the BIN primer. I removed the tape when I was ready to use the normal white trim paint.



Here you can see some of the visible knots. There are more than just these two or three, they just don't show up that well on the camera.



Two of the corner stakes on the main floor (which are cedar) had yellowed a lot, so I redid those too.



The casing in the hallway upstairs (showing knots). This had been sealed, but not enough, apparently.





The worst ones in the whole house were the 3 that make up the archway in the master bedroom. These were put in by the POs (that's old-house-speak for "previous owners"), and when I was originally redoing the master bedroom, it already had at least 2-3 coats of paint on it. I added primer, and then 2 or 3 new coats of paint, followed by additional touch-ups a year or two later, and the knots were still bleeding through. I figured that with close to 7 or 8 coats of paint it would stop bleeding, but this is why you really need to use a shellac sealer on pine. Nothing else works.

Again, I was not repainting all the mouldings, only these 3 boards, so they were taped-off.







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Here's the basement stairs after all the mouldings were installed and primed: large 1/4 round along the stair runners, and plain casings on the reverse side of the door (same as upstairs closets):





The top casing is just notched to fit around the stair runners.



Nothing too exciting about the "after" photos of the casings. Basically I just did 2 coats of BIN, plus 2 coats of white trim paint. It looks white again, and hopefully it will STAY this way.

Things Are Getting Done!

Lots of work on the house today!

I am really focusing on trying to finish-up the front door project, and this means sealing the jamb with shellac-based BIN primer (a really wonderful product). Because I bought a can pretty much just for this, I decided that I should make the most of it, and fix up a few areas of the house that have been bothering me, and that were on the "To-Do Later" list.

Before I continue, I should take a brief moment to explain what I mean by "make the most of it". A lot of people don't understand shellac, or how it works, what it's made from, etc.

Basically, fresh-made shellac lasts maybe a WEEK max. Any longer than this, and you have to throw it out because if you apply it, it will not dry properly, and it will stay sticky/tacky. Shellac is a natural varnish that comes from a secretion of the Lac Beetle. The raw shellac is refined and most of the wax is removed, and then it is dissolved in alcohol for use. The dry shellac flakes last indefinitely, but once it's mixed, it needs to be used quickly.

Commercial "canned" shellac has additives to make it last longer (since it has to sit on the shelf for a while before it gets sold), but even with these additives, it doesn't last forever, and most cans also have expiry dates on them for this reason. Once you open the can, it's best if you use it up completely within a few days if you want to get the best results from it. If you have a can of BIN (shellac base) primer that you've kept, there's a good chance it's no longer usable. To test it, just brush some onto a board. If it's not touch-dry within 15 minutes, it's no good.

BIN primer is nothing more than ultra blonde shellac (very pale yellow) with a whole bunch of white pigment added to it. Shellac is normally orange, which is why BIN always ends up looking "off white" since it still has a touch of yellow tint left in it.

The best use for shellac based sealer is sealing knots, and for restoration work where you need to cover over stains, odours, or mildew. I usually always need it for covering knots in pine, and nothing else works better for this job. Failing to seal knots with BIN means that the knots will bleed through the paint, no matter how many coats you put on it.

Anyhow, I had a bunch of knots bleeding through the archway in the master bedroom, the casings on the basement door, as well as on one casing in the upstairs hallway, so those got BIN-sealed today, along with the door jamb. I also had 2 "corner stakes" from the baseboard that had yellowed quite a bit, so I sealed those too.

I also got in quite a productive mood (on top of the above work), and I decided to finish-up the area under the stairs on the main floor. I sanded all the drywall, cut and installed the door casings, as well as the mouldings under the stair runners. Now I'm patching nail holes, and I can run some Dap (acrylic silicone) on all the seams.

Hopefully I can update with a bunch of photos tomorrow or Sunday, but don't hold me to that.

Side note: This is not a sponsored post, but I wish it was!

News

Hey blog buddies! It's been a little while since I wrote-in with an update, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to do that.

I've been kind of lazy lately, so I haven't gotten a lot done (big surprise), but I did do SOME work.

I started fixing the electrical in the kitchen and living room. The living room already had all the outlets fixed, but I still had to move the light switch over to the left so that it would clear the new casing. So I started doing the mudding on that. Actually, I think I already posted photos of that. Oops! - short memory. I also patched those two unsightly holes in the upper corner near the new cold air stacks. Those were large holes from when they blew-in the wall insulation. They had been patched over only with paper drywall seam tape, which is why I opened them up to redo them. I suspect that many of the other insulation holes are equally poorly patched, but I’m not going through all the trouble to fix all of them (there would be one every two feet along all the exterior walls on both floors - not worth it).

The kitchen electrical is eventually going to be a big job, but I just started with moving the light switch for now, and combining it with the outlet that was only a few inches away in a separate box. I also left a centre spot for another switch for the hanging fixtures that will eventually go over the sink (maybe) and peninsula. I didn't run the wiring for that yet, but it will be ready once I get to that point.

Here are some photos of that.

This is a photo when I had just started. I was really excited about finally being able to yank off that unsightly baseboard "being used as a chair rail and poor excuse not to do the drywall seam".



The main reason for needing to move the switch and plug are threefold. In the next photo, you can see A, B, and C. A is a mark showing where the bottom of the upper cabinet will finish (18 inches up from the counter top), B is the approximate height of the backsplash, and C will be the countertop height (36"). Based on this, both outlets were too high. Because of the fire stops, they were also over the average switch height (the average height for a light switch is 48" from the floor, or lower). Some new houses have light switches closer to 36" high for handicap accessibility, but it's up to you. Most of the outlets on both floors of my house are around 50"-54" because of the fire stops, which is a bit higher than normal, but I'm only moving the ones that really need it.



Cutting the drywall (a "minute or less" job if you’re using a multi-tool):



I also moved the whole box farther away from the casing, because depending on what I use for the backsplash, I don't want the box to be right on the edge of it. I want the switches to be "in" the backsplash, with a bit of a wall-paint stripe before the casing starts.



The dimmer isn't wired yet, but it's filling the opening while I need to use the circuit (main kitchen lights).

A quick safety note: when putting two different circuits in one box, make sure that both breakers are tied together (for safety). You can use special dual breakers, or tie-bars for this.



While I was working on this circuit (the main kitchen lights circuit), I decided to finally fix the rest of it, which is just a single plug (formerly 3 of them) and a switch & light for the power room (the power room light and kitchen light(s) are on the same circuit). This proved to be a very frustrating exercise. I won’t go into all the details, since it’s long, complicated, and confusing, but basically, I got some help from my Dad (who knows way more about residential electrical and electronics than I do), and we fixed the problem.

Once I had the “power room” part of the circuit done, I returned my focus to cleaning-up and re-tacking the mess of electrical wires. I got quite a lot done.

I drilled a new hole in the floor to PROPERLY run these two wires (which were running over the edge of the basement stair opening).

Before:
A: This is a rather large and slightly alarming crack in the log. The other side is solid (no crack), and it’s not really sagging, but it’s borderline.
B: These two wires needed to be moved.
C: This is the miniature Vienna clock hanging in my Office/PC room!



And after (viewed from the opposite side):



These are all the wires that I fixed and re-tacked on some new boards/runners (B). The section marked A were done previously (about a year ago).



This last photo shows A: the new plug and light/switch that replaced the old wiring that used to be in the power room, before I demolished it, and B: newly reorganized/tacked wires. There’s still a lot left to clean-up, but it’s getting there. It’s quite time-consuming.



Next will be more drywall work, or I might do a few small woodworking projects.

OH! One last note.

If you noticed the drywall in the kitchen, you saw that they installed it horizontally. I’ve seen a few places where they recommend installing it this way, but DON’T. Here’s why:

The better way to install drywall on walls is vertically, butted-up to the ceiling. When you install it this way, all three edges are screwed to wood, and the entire perimeter is solid. The only edge with minimal support, is along the bottom, and your baseboard protects it.

When you install the drywall horizontally, however, that entire middle seam has very little support in between each stud. If you push in the wrong spot, you can easily pop the seam, or break through the drywall. It’s also at elbow height, which doesn’t help.

But the main reason NOT to install it this way is because seasonal shifting will give you a nice, permanent, and unfixable crease all the way down the wall. I took two photos from 2 rooms to show you what I mean:

This is the Office wall, just over my computer (other side of the hallway wall with the large black photo frames):



And this is the load-bearing centre wall in the dining room:



There really isn’t any good way to fix it. I can scrape it, sand it, and re-mud it, but next year it will look the same again.

L Room Ductwork DONE

I finished connecting/assembling/taping the rest of the run for the duct work going up to the L Room. I had to get a little creative with the pieces I had left, but it worked out well, and looks great! I'll post photos tomorrow since I'm off to bed (and I didn't take any photos yet anyways).

I also picked out a paint colour for the Office. Basically, I got the colour from my coworker's house. His kitchen/dining room are painted a really nice, mellow shade of grey-beige, so when I had to chip away a piece of drywall around a door (to fit a casing properly - while we were installing his new kitchen), I saved a piece of the painted drywall paper, and I got a colour match for it at Home Depot. He was supposed to ask his wife for the name of the colour for me, but I didn't want to wait forever (since he tends to take forever to get back to me when I ask him for something), so I didn't "steal" their colour, hahaha. Well, not *technically*.

The colour, oddly enough, is pretty close to the colour of unpainted drywall (the grey type), and it's a very similar shade to the darker grey-brown that will be going in the upstairs hallway, so it should blend-in quite well with the colours I have picked out so far.

I should also show you guys the green that will be used in the Living Room, since I've had that one picked out ages ago.

Alright, Photo Time! (Part 2)

This is the Office floor register I mentioned earlier. The way it was set-up, the house used to have several ducts that were basically just the spaces in between the log beams filled-in with boards on each side, or along the bottom (as in this case), and tinned on the bottom. They reused part of this when they did this newer duct, but they had left all the useless large bits of wood along the beams. I wanted all the extra head room, so I took that all down. This was a bit tricky since there were a few wires that passed through these boards.



One of the boards can be seen on the right, and the other one on the left is a vertical one, which I had to partially chop. I wanted to remove it entirely, but for some odd reason it goes into the foundation (into the cement) and is nailed into the wooden log in many places, so I left it. There's a similar one on the opposite side (both facing the front of the house. I would have thought that they might have been for a porch, but it would mean that the porch would have been a LOT wider, and I'm pretty sure the existing one is original, so these are a mystery.



This is an updated photo as of tonight. You can sort of see that I decided to also remove the old drywall and scraps of wood on the left side of the electric panel. I also cleaned out all the wood/dirt.





Fixing the duct/floor upstairs in the L Room was a fairly routine job by now. Cut out old damaged planks, mark for the location of the new register "boot", add supporting blocking below floor, and patch. Also note that I fixed the loose cable wire and put a cable plate/outlet for it.





You can see down into the Office!



Ta-Dah! You can see light shining up through the vent since I had not installed the round stack yet.



Stack redone:



This area is still a mess of wires until I start to do the actual column and reroute some of the wiring, like that spare cable.



As I was working in this particular corner, I was able to reveal some of the GORGEOUS original hardwood. It's actually not maple, as I had thought, but Birch, which has a beautiful orange-yellow glow to it. These two pieces were cleaned-up and have pretty much no original finish left on them.



This is how far I got with the duct in the basement. I ran out of reusable pieces, since some were either too butchered, or too short to use. I will try to get more tomorrow. The pipe comes down at a slight angle because I want to continue the duct tight under/across the trunk beams. I also added that diagonal cross-piece to help support the sub-floor properly since the floor isn't really supported where it's cut through the diagonal boards.



This photo shows the underside of the Office floor register. You can also see the beam that I partially cut to be able to pass the duct later. If you look at this photo and the next one, you can see that the two ducts used to criss-cross over each other. The shorter one used to feed the Office, and the longer one, the L Room, but I plan to switch the two, and run them side by side, which will look/work much better.





This is the end that was jammed up into the floor of the L Room. It's so mangled and mutilated (this photo really doesn't do it justice) that about a foot or more of the piece is now completely unusable.



Now, fun stuff! I finally got hinges. I already went on about them 2-3 posts ago, but here they are. They are Stanley hinges (Stanley would very likely have been the same company that made the original hinges for the doors in the house, which is pretty neat, since they're still around). They are brass-plated steel, with solid brass tips/pin. I love how they look, since they are nearly exactly the same as old hinges, but I don't like how they connect/assemble together. I actually had a very hard time disassembling the first hinge until I figured out how they work. USUALLY, the bottom ball is fixed in place permanently, and the top ball is attached to the pin, which lifts out. Hinges have been made this way for AGES. But these work very differently, and If I had really forced them, I would have broken one. To get the pin out, the bottom ball has to be removed first. The second photo explains why.





Basically both ball tips screw on. Not the best system, since most people wouldn't automatically think to remove the bottom ball. But at 7$/hinge, they are decently priced, and they're the only usable hinge I've found in this style w/o having to order them online (and most of those are even more expensive anyways).

I stripped the lacquer on this first batch. I'll be picking up another batch soon (possibly tomorrow), and once they're all ready I'll antique them all at the same time.



They look about the same, but the lacquer is now off. I used hot water (just barely simmering) with a bit of TSP. Worked great! Soaked them over the stove on low for a few hours.



Lastly, this is a photo of Mark. This is the sample of orange-gold-brown that I had on hand. I want the dining room to be a sort of yellow-gold, but I don't want it too bright, or too dark, or too brown/bronze, so finding the right shade will be very tricky. This one is NOT a good candidate, but I wanted to post it anyways. If anyone else DOES like the colour, I have the recipe/code from the sample for it.



I will try to get another photo in natural light later.

That's it for now. That only took like an hour or two.

EDIT: There! Finally all fixed! Enjoy~!

Alright, Photo Time! (Part 1)

Alright, this ACTUAL non-bitching update will focus on the recent work done on the ducts, and in the power room downstairs, along with misc other goodies.

Here are some "before" photos of the awful duct work job that they did in this part of the house. This is the duct that passes through the power room, goes up through the Office, and into the floor in the corner of the L Room. This was taken after all the awful column/drywall around it was removed.



This is the top, where (if you can remember from previous photos - which I can't link/show at the moment) it was all buckled and bashed-in at the top.



And this is how well connected it was in the basement, just over the electrical panel.



Yes, the corner joint is literally just roughly pointing upwards into the vertical duct. I also can't figure out why, but they had also re-crimped the joint even more onto itself. I'm guessing that they didn't have enough patience to carefully fit the joints together, so they just scrunched it up more, and jammed it in.

The following are a group of photos that show the interior of the power room in the basement.



The duct you see here is the one above, which has a lot of unnecessary twists and turns in it. Just awful.

This is the most simple shot of what the power room looks like (or rather... looked like, but I'll get to that shortly). As you get in you have to duck under the main water line with the "Watch Your Head" sign on it. You also need to duck because of the other flat duct over it for the vent in the Office floor (which will be shown below).



This wall doesn't even touch on one side.



It's literally made of cobbled-together random scraps of wood and 2x3s, along with a newer section in 2x4s instead.





My dad said that one of the people who lived here not long ago was a drug dealer, and my friend Devin confirmed this by pointing out the 3 outlets on the wall, and the fact that this room had a padlocked plywood door over it (which I removed a long time ago).

You can see a small leftover of an old linoleum floor covering. There are still a bunch of old tacks in the wood floor that I need to take off.



Neat! Blogger automatically detects broken links. I had forgotten a few closing brackets. Oops.

This is looking back out (by the electrical panel). You can see the other flat duct for the Office floor register on the upper left.







You can see that the last 3 feet or so is the newer section in 2x4s.



This is the wall facing the power room, as viewed from the bathroom door. The wall looks fine, but it's actually bowed and curved in several places.



Another overall view "before".



DEMOLITION TIME! Did you see it coming? C'mon it was awful. As I was tearing it down, I could see that MOST of the upright 2x3s were not even attached at the top. There was not much holding this "room" together.



See?







The aftermath. What a dusty mess.





Continue in Part 2