L Room Floor Done! + Vanity + Other

I wanted to post photos of the finished floor, but I'm actually a bit more excited to show-off a piece of furniture that I've had for years.

This is the "Vanity" dresser that is part of the solid walnut Gibbard set that I have. I've had the piece for years but I've actually NEVER in my life seen it with the mirror installed on it! My parents had the original mirror in the basement for all the time I lived at home, and the original mirror bracket was "broken" (one section had come unglued). I just repaired it about a month ago.

Since I'll more than likely have the piece in this room, I decided to put it together to see how it was meant to look. In the past, I've used this dresser as a TV stand (in my old bedroom), then as a computer desk for a while (at the apartment), and since I moved to the house, it's just been sitting around until this room got done (soon!)

I have just quickly dusted it, but I plan to go over it with some stain to touch up a few scuffs and worn edges. I also need to properly clean the mirror. Both large mirrors in the set are the originals, and even though they're not bevelled, they are both 1/4" thick glass, and weigh a TON. I estimate that this smaller mirror weighs at least 20 lbs.



I have to say, it looks pretty much exactly how I thought it would, but it's just so odd to see it put together after so many years without the mirror attached.

The other two matching dressers can be seen in this post:
http://my1923foursquare.blogspot.ca/2012/06/bedroom-furniture.html

Here's the finished floor. It looks great, but sadly, as I had suspected, the colour is off. This shade (which is supposed to be an identical match to the previous can) is more brown while the other shade on the master bedroom floor and hallway is more orange. I'm kind of pissed about it, but I'll find a way to blend the two together because I'm not repainting.







Also, just for fun, here's the same floor a few years ago. You can see the PO's lovely fake laminate oak floor on the far left, then foam, then peel and stick Marboleum tiles over 1/4" plywood, and finally the original pine tongue and groove under this.



Another "before/during" photo:



I haven't specifically chosen that spot for the vanity, it's just there for now. There's actually 4 places in this room where it could fit.

The "Other" part of this post is that over the weekend, I restored, repainted, and rewired the 4-socket chandelier for the main staircase. I don't have photos of the finished product since it's hanging in the garage (with atrocious lighting and an even uglier background) but I'm hoping that I can install it soon-ish. To jog your memory, it's this larger one on the right in this old photo:

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

Major October Update (Part II)

Alright, so as I was saying last night, I started working on the "L" room* upstairs. The plan is pretty simple: Rebuild the closets (which were too tiny to be useful), redo the floors, redo the ceiling (new drywall), and general stuff like clean-up the mouldings, patch the walls, paint, etc.

* Note: I only call it the "L" room because it's L shaped.

I had started to tear down the closet walls ages ago, but I did a lot more work recently by opening-up the hallway wall. The reason for this is to add a built-in linen closet. The house has very little storage space other than the basement, so I wanted a spot near the bathroom to store bath towels, bedsheets, toiletries and other items.

Here's the spot where the built-in will go. I originally wanted to make it almost up to the ceiling, but I took a look at all sorts of gathered photos of old 1920's built-ins, and none except for very rare exceptions were taller than an average door, so I plan to make this one the same. This means that all 3 openings will be done in one set of continuous casings(mouldings), with the doors to the spare/guest room, and the "L" room on each side.

This is viewed from the bathroom door (the doorway to the right is the main staircase).



Doorway to the "L" room:



From the "L" room looking towards the bathroom:





From guest room (aka Laundry room):



The ceiling in the "L" room will be a fun job. I plan to drywall over this, but some of the plaster/mud that they added is caked-on super thick in places. If it's still fairly easy to scrape off, I might take it all down, otherwise I'll keep going until I'm at a relatively thin spot.



I also started to patch the floor. These are spots left to fix.







Lastly is the porch window. I removed the porch window in spring or early summer so that I could replace the missing muntin in the bottom (see main blog photo for the before).

I don't think I posted about the muntin repair here, so here's a very quick recap.

Match the profile (as close as possible) on some clear pine. In my case, I was able to do it entirely on the table saw (close enough profile that no one will notice a difference).



Carefully cut and notch your pieces to fit (measure carefully, and aim for a snug fit).





Glue, clamp, putty, sand, prime.





So yeah, fast forward to Monday night, when I finally decided to install the glass and do the glazing. I did the top 2 1/2 panes on Mon night, and the large bottom 2 last night. For an idea of size, the window is 3 feet wide by 5 feet high.



The glazing job isn't perfect, but the entire window is in rough shape, with many edges gouged, chipped, puttied, filled and re-filled, etc. But the new centre muntin one looks great!



This is what the porch has looked like pretty much all summer/fall. Notice all the dead leaves starting to drift in by the opening.



I have the window in the MB (since there's lots of room to work), so I'm hoping that the crappy Dap33 will dry in a week or so. I'd like to paint and install the window before winter.