Soooooo Excited!!!

Alright, I was too excited about getting this done, so I'm posting about it immediately.

The built-in doors are painted, finished, and installed! And they look wonderful! In the end, they did need a third coat, but I had time to do one last night, one early this morning, and one this afternoon, so I just finished installing the hardware and putting them in.

Installing these doors was pretty simple. The hardware was attached to the doors in the correct places, and then the doors were set into their openings, and held in place with shims. This makes the job super easy.



Once they're in the right spot, the screw holes get punched (my casings/frames are pine, so I didn't need to pre-drill anything), and then screw everything in place. It's important to note that the second half of the door catch (the strike, or "keeper") should be put in place LAST. You want it to line up properly, and no amount of careful measuring will be as good as simply installing it once the doors are hung, and everything works.

Note the wall colour sample, which is a nice warm light grey.





Basically, this is the view as you walk in the front door, and turn to your immediate right, in the office doorway. Also note that I haven't made the bottom casing for the "window opening" yet. I need to have it specially made at work to match my other ones.



Upstairs hallway linen closet.



I still haven't cut the shelves for it yet.



This is the "evening photo" without the bright light on in the other room. This is how it would normally look.



For this one, I had to have the hinges offset towards the door side, simply because I had so little room between the door and the casing. This doesn't affect the hinges or the door, and no one would really notice that they're off. You can also see the nice SLOT HEAD SCREWS. Nothing bothers me more (renovation or cabinetry wise) than modern screws on old (or repro) hardware/furniture.

Aaaargh!

I'm a bit annoyed at the moment. I am *this close* to being done my curtain panel, and now I can't find my iron. I have NO IDEA where I put it, and I haven't seen it in around a year (since I demolished the cabinets in the guest bedroom/laundry room upstairs).

And now it's too late to go over to Mom's place to use hers (since she just went to bed about 1/2 hour ago.

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In other news/updates, I got the two topcoats (paint) on the doors, and will start the fronts/edges tonight/tomorrow.

In preparation for the doors to be ready, I've also stripped the lacquer off the new brass hardware for the doors. If all goes well, I might have the doors installed by tomorrow evening, with photos on Saturday morning.

By then, the curtain project should also be done.

Finished Crown Photos

Here are some photos of the finished crown. As I mentioned previously, I decided to use a new crown in all the main rooms, and restore the missing pieces of original crown only in the living room and office. The main reason for this is because it will be very difficult to match it. If we had a very similar cutter at work, I would have made matching crown for the entire first floor, but that's not the case. The new crown is still a very nice match to the door casings (mini crown on the door and window tops).



View from the kitchen door. Office door to the left, front door in the centre.





Front door to the left, living room door in the centre, and stairs to second floor on the right.



I decided that I'm going to use my "oops" paint for the main hallway. This was a "slightly too dark" shade of beige that I had originally bought for the bathroom. This was an expensive "boo boo" at 50$ for the 4L can, but I think it will work nicely in this hallway. I haven't decided how I want to address the division at the living room wall/door leading up the stairs. Any suggestions? Ideally, I would paint the entire stairwell opening up to the second floor the same colour, but I don't know if I want to do that (it's going to be a huge pain, and I have a bunch of drywall repairs/patching to do up there.

Here's a shot of what I'm dealing with (I literally laid on the floor to take this). Living room door to the left, and you can see the bathroom fixture/fan opening upstairs. Just out of frame is the ceiling light fixture in this stairwell, which will eventually be that 4-light chandelier.

Note: the rectangular hole in the drywall at the top of the stairs on the right was from when I redid the sloped/angled ceiling part in the kitchen. It hasn't been fixed/patched yet.



Here are a few shots of the crown in the dining room.



Facing partially into the kitchen. The garage (ugly metal) door is visible. Note the beautifully repainted/restored arch. I'm very happy with how it turned out. This entire casing is warped. Like a LOT. I have about a half-inch thick gap filled with caulk in the top against the wall. You can't tell, though. And that's despite the crazy amount of nails I put into it, to try and flatten it out. It's solid white Ash (which is harder than oak), so that's the best I could do. There's also a TON (50+) of huge chips and holes in the front board that have all been carefully filled/patched.



Here you can see the basement door opening, and then the opening to the front hallway (where the first photo above was taken).



As for the doors project, so far I have the double coat of primer done on two sides. Next will be a very quick light sanding, and then the first coat of final paint.



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Side note, remember the other day how I mentioned my "ghetto curtains" situation? Well, I thought I'd share that. This is the one in the living room window, and the office window is the same. Basically just two nails in the top crown (where the holes won't show), and some old tab curtains from my old apartment.

What I've Been Up To...

Over the past week, I've completed the crown moulding/casings "project", and I haven't really decided what to tackle next. There are a lot of things on my "to do" list, but I don't feel like working on many of them.

Recently, I bought a bit of fabric and supplies to do a window treatment for the office. It will be very simple, and I'm not sure if it will be permanent, but I'm sick and tired of the ghetto-looking curtain that I've been using for the past 2 years (hung on 2 nails). So that will be a project I'll do soon.

The other thing I started doing was restoring/rehabbing old lock sets. I recently bought a whole lot of them for 9.99$ (plus 30$ shipping), but there were about a dozen locks and several mismatched handles in the bunch (well worth the price if you consider that I can resell any lock for at least 15$):



Here's one of my "before" shots (some of the ones I haven't cleaned up yet):



A typical "before and after" from this particular bunch of locks:



It's surprising what a good scrubbing with steel wool, and a Dremel wire wheel (brush) plus a quick coat of paint will do.

I discovered a wonderful (and very quick/easy) way to restore the nice soft black finish on most of these for under 5$. I bought some cheap Wal-Mart flat-black spray paint. The "Color Place" brand that is around 3$/can. One light coat on all the parts (marking off the brass front plate) gives a nice flat finish.

However, I noticed that after the paint dried, simple handling caused the paint to buff (note finger prints on the left piece). So I gave the painted parts a buffing with a soft cotton rag (ie: an old sock) and I got a wonderful soft shine.



For the lock above, I actually got REALLY LUCKY, and one of the spare parts from the junky lot above was a "near perfect match" for my missing piece. It was so rusty (before I cleaned it and repainted it) that it was orange. Check it out!



These old locks are incredibly well made. All the parts in this one are solid cast iron.



Likewise, several of the other locks in the bunch were quite sturdily made, boasting cast pieces. This one (below) is my favourite of the bunch. It has a flashed copper face plate in very good shape, and the internal parts still retain their original plating (not so much for the other locks). Unfortunately, I probably won't be using this one, since it has a very odd spacing/arrangement for the location of the latch/bolt. I'm not sure who the manufacturer is, but there is a club shaped leaf logo with the letters Y&T. The key is a spare from my collection that fits/works perfectly.



Here's another "before and after". This lock is HUGE, and it has a very odd setup. The latch is operated by a rectangular button on the bottom of the lock. I assume that it worked with some kind of handle that had a thumb latch that would have pushed upwards on the "button", but I'm really not sure. Additionally, the lock arrangement is very weird. I'm not sure what kind of key this lock would have used (shape-wise) but it would have had a large flat end with notches for the three "tumblers".

This lock was absolutely FILTHY. It was also badly chipped and rusted. You can see the paint chips through the new paint in the after shots. I scraped off anything that was loose and flaky.





These are all the ones I've cleaned so far.



Note the "really nice one" with the key, flashed copper face, and odd spacing on the extreme right. The second from the right is chrome plated on the face (so I can't use that one either). All of these are copper or flashed copper, except for ONE brass one. I might still use the copper ones (mixed-in with brass ones) since I don't see much point in buying more locks when I already have so many).



And if you're wondering, yes this was a lot of very messy work. Each lock took at least a half hour, and I've done one to three per day for the past little while. I'm out of steel wool, actually. I have at LEAST another 10 locks to do, since my other "good" locks that I set aside for my doors also need rust removal (even though the outsides look nice and clean, they look awful on the inside). I have another dozen or so that will stay filthy until I decide what to do with those. These are ones removed from salvaged doors over the past year. I may reuse them on their original doors, or I may not. Depends what I do with the doors.

Speaking of hardware, I'm still in need of some plates. The ones I need are shown below. They can be covered in 20 coats of paint, and lightly rusty (I don't care sicne some won't be visible), but I don't want to pay much more than 10$ per plate. I've been trolling around on eBay and Etsy without much luck for the past few months. These are fairly common plates.



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Lastly, and possibly even more fun and exciting, is the latest project that I started just a few hours ago. This has been "ready to do and waiting" for probably over a month, and I just haven't felt like doing them. I still don't. Painting items like these, with multiple sides that need to be flipped, and that need edges done (without drips and runs) are a huge pain in the ass. But at the same time, I'm really looking forward to installing them, and putting the beautiful old fashioned brass hardware on them.

For these, I'm going to try 2 coats of primer + 2 top coats of white. I want to see if it will turn out a bit nicer (since my "good" white trim paint really isn't that great).



Stay tuned!

PAINTING (Part 2)

All of the first coat of white is now done, as well as the touch-ups. Looks pretty nice, but the paint seems more runny than last time I used it, and it will definitely need a second coat, possibly a third (or just touch-ups here and there after the second coat).

PAINTING! And How to Install Crown Moulding by Yourself!

Oh man. So much painting... Well, technically just priming so far.

I put a coat of BIN (the shellac one which is super runny) all over the pine trim (all the crown in the hallway, all the crown in the dining room, and several pieces of random trim like the left hand side of the living room casing, the ones on the office built-in, etc).

After that, I did a regular primer (I use the super cheapo contractor grade stuff from Home Depot at 15$/4L can) on everything. I did the guest bedroom trim, the living room doorway, the dining room arch, the office built-in, and all the crown (hall and dining rooms).

Things are looking pretty good!

I didn't do the trim in the "L Room" bedroom, since I still have a few baseboards and all the caulking to do. While I was at it, I marked-off all the spots (throughout the whole house) that will need touch-ups. Things like door casings that got scuffed or dinged.

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A quick "how to" for installing crown moulding (alone):

I decided I did not want any joints in the crown, so I bought 16 foot long lengths of clear pine crown. The price was actually pretty decent at 2.99$/linear foot.

Because this is an old house, I decided to use coped corners for all the interior corners. The original crown in the other rooms (what little remains of it) was done with just regular 45 degree mitres, but the house has shifted and settled so much that getting perfect angles would be a total nightmare.

Another reason to do coped corners is because I don't have a mitre saw. Yup, you might be surprised that a "highly skilled professional cabinetmaker" doesn't own a mitre saw, but there's a reason. I don't really want to get a crappy one, and the one I want is 800$.

That said, ALL the crown was done using only these two saws:



The old mitre box is actually a very well made Stanley that's probably as old as the house (a very nice yard sale find), and the small coping saw is also just a yard sale cheapie. I actually have a much better quality one (or 5) but I'm not sure where I put it, so I used this one (which doesn't hold the blades very well).

The only other tools I used for the crown were very basic ones: pencil, stud finder, nail punch, hammer. I also cut some of the pieces to length with a Japanese Ryoba saw (Google it, they're awesome!).

I'll also add that although I'm very skilled at installing trim (mostly from having installed tons of it through work doing custom kitchens/baths), this is actually the first time I do coped joints. They are tricky, but give very nice results.

Step 1: Cut the longest pieces FIRST. I started with the long wall. Cut the ends square and flush at both ends.

Step 2: Attach your first piece starting in the centre. This makes it easier to handle.



Work your way to the ends, making sure that your crown sits properly squared with the wall/ceiling. I used overkill 2 1/2" spiral nails (which is what I used for all the door casings, baseboards, etc), but you can use a brad-nailer, or shorter regular nails. Just make sure you hit solid.

On my main interior wall, everything was nice and straight, so I only nailed it every 2 studs. If your walls are more uneven, nail it wherever it's needed.

Step 3: Once your longest piece is in place, continue with your next piece. If you're working in a plain rectangular room, the easiest method would be to do one full piece, then go around the room in a circular fashion. The second and third boards would have one cope and one square end, and the last piece would have a cope at both ends. Note: If instead, you did two full boards on opposite walls (with double square ends), you would then be left with two boards with double coped ends, which are harder to get "just right". If your room ends with an open wall, start at one end and work your way around. Don't start in the middle. It's easier to adjust your angles as you go around the room. If your crown needs to end abruptly, do a return. If you're not sure what that is, look up photos, but basically it's like the crown turns to end into the wall.

When installing your second board, you can't start in the centre, since you want a fight fitting joint at your coped corner. To hold it in place (as an extra set of hands), use two nails. The holes will be covered with caulking later (unless you're using pre-finished wood mouldings).



The two nails will allow you to slide the crown around and position your corner nicely before nailing it in place.

In my dining room, I had 2 corner walls, so I used short ends to make these, and used a cope in the interior corners and a mitre on the outer corner. Make sure to glue the outside corner. This is the spot that must look the best and most accurate, since it will be highly visible.

Below shows my "crappiest" corner (on the upper right). You can also see a bow in the wall on the left, and a wedge shaped gap on the right. These are fairly small and were filled with caulking.

Once the glue on the corner is dry, putty and sand it carefully to end with a nice crisp profile.



This shows the other corner, which had a different problem. The ceiling slopes so much in this spot that I had to use a shim (and extra caulking) in the upper left corner. I could not get a good joint otherwise.





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Yesterday I finally decided to pick a colour and refinish one of the two remaining pan fixtures (the one for the "L room"). It came out quite well, and I'll probably do the exact same finish on the other one for the staircase.

Here's how it will look (light fixture & shades for "L Room"):



Basically, I was trying to match the original paint on the shade bells (which were not originally with this fixture), but the paint is nearly impossible to match, so this was as close as I could get, using 3 different colours. It was also a challenge to keep some brass "rings" w/o paint to match the look of other original fixtures, but I found a trick to do this.

I'll probably be adding paint to the bells to get a better match.

Dining Room (quickie update)

The crown in the dining room is now all installed and lookin' good. Still needs painting, but I'm going to do a whole bunch of painting all at the same time (not yet).

Early November Updates (Part 4)

I mentioned that I started to install the bathroom vanity, so I thought I would share photos of that. It may hep you if you're thinking of installing a similar piece.

The vanity will need to slide into place over plumbing pipes and also carefully fit between a door casing and a baseboard. This involves a lot of careful measuring and cutting, and a definite "measure twice, cut once" attitude.

Normally, when we fit something into place around existing mouldings, we will trace the outline against the existing trim (on the wall) and carefully cut that to shape so that we can slide our cabinet or moulding against it. If both pieces are flat, you can usually install your pieces more easily, but the above applies mostly when you have two non-matching "fancy" profiles that need to blend together in a corner.

In my case, I have 2 flat pieces, and I decided to just cut my toe-kich moulding off the cabinet. Normally this would be a separate piece nailed on separately, but I didn't have the accurate tools to do a good corner joint, and I put mine directly on the cabinet.

Section removed to allow for the 3/4" thick baseboard:



This shows how it will look (with a piece of 3/4" scrap wood acting as the baseboard):



On the other corner, I had to notch a 3/8" portion with a rounded upper corner to allow for the plinth block of the door casing. I could just remove the door casing and block, and cut those to fit around the vanity instead (which would be easier), but this allows me to (God forbid) change the vanity more easily later, if I ever decide I don't like it anymore, or if it got horribly damaged (or something).

Yeah it was a huge mess.

Hard maple (aka Rock Maple) is **NOT** easy to cut and sand with crappy tools. This is when I found out that my belt sander is not very good. I tried to route-off as much as possible and do the rest (up to the line) with the sander.



Again, careful measuring is important, otherwise I'll have a lot of gap-filling to do with silicone.



That's as far as I got. I need to move the hot water pipe over, and extend/redo the PVC before I can do the next step, which will be to drill the holes in the bottom of the cabinet (which is often the part where things can go really wrong).

Lastly is the exciting news that I've been saving for last!

I mentioned a few posts ago that I went to Ottawa over the weekend (I got back yesterday). I was there to help a friend fix a few things around her place, and to do some shopping.

Here's a photo of my haul. You'll see why I'm so happy/excited!



A MATCHING GRILLE AND ANTIQUE LIGHT FIXTURE! And both were amazing deals!

Here's a break down of what I got:

- Antique cast-iron grille (a match to my existing one, and this one has the working thumb latch) 50$! This was a steal. The place where I bought it is an antique lighting and salvage store. The lady said that it's a common pattern (thus the cheap price). She actually had another 6 or 7 identical ones.
- Antique light fixture (there's a story behind this, see below)
- Mix of new and antique butterfly hinges.
- 2 lock sets that are near perfect matches for some of my other "good" ones. 10$ each
- 4 antique door knob stems (very hard to find, and only 1$ each)
- Set of 15 small cast brass handles. 5$
- Photo album 3$
- New (bound) sketch book 15$
- Set of 6 antique reproduction knobs. 30$
- Stained glass supplies ~180$, including:
- 6 sheets of coloured glass (wrapped in newspaper)
- Solder
- Lead antiquing solution
- Fid (the red plastic tool for lead work)
- Lead came (this is the long cardboard box which has 14pcs of lead for the office built-in doors). This was 120$ of the overall 180$ mentioned above.
- Marina and the Diamonds CD

All the old hardware (lock sets, spindles, hinges, and the set of 15 handles) all came from a trip to the East end Habitat for Humanity ReStore (in Ottawa). It was an absolutely amazing place. I saw so many things I'd want to buy, but with no easy way to get them home. They had a good variety of antique wood doors, many old exterior doors (some Victorian ones, even), they had old windows, too. One was a single sheet of antique glass nearly 4'x4'! They also had a huge selection of tiles, old lighting (not old enough for my house), and hardware. If I would have had more time, I would have gone to the West end ReStore as well.

Alright, the story behind the light fixture is quite fun and amusing. Right near the antique lighting/salvage place, is a large antique store. I was in there looking around at all the beautiful old furniture, and as I was leaving, a lady came in. She was talking to the shop owner and asking him if he would be interested in buying 3 old light fixtures from her.

One was this gorgeous brass 1920s fixture, and the other two were old wall sconces. The shop owner (who mainly deals in furniture) had no interest in them, and he thought they were in bad shape, so she left. I commented (to the owner) about a lovely old Empire sofa by the door that was sold, and then left to quickly catch up to the woman.

I asked her how much she wanted for the oval fixture, and she dug it out of her book bag. She said 20$. My jaw nearly dropped and I said "Sure!". We had a short conversation where I explained that I had an old house with this style of fixture, and she was very happy to be selling it to someone who would use it. She asked if I'd also want to buy the sconces, but I said no (since I have no where to use them and they're not a matching style to the other fixtures I have), but I recommended she go to another antique lighting place that would likely buy them.

Here is another photo with 2 (new/crappy) shades:

Early November Updates (Part 3)

Stair Project

I am not ready to replace the stairs yet, but I wanted to finish installing the casings on the living room door, and be able to finish the drywall on the bottom few inches of the dividing wall, so I decided to remove the bottom 2 steps.

Since these stairs were not properly installed, the bottom 2 stairs were a mess.



Here's where things get interesting. OBVIOUSLY, the stairs never went past the living room door (as they did now), and here you can see that there is original hardwood with ugly brown carpet covering it (the rectangle cut out of it was something I did the first year of owning to house, but it was one full piece). Obviously someone didn't carpet UNDER the stairs, so this was remuddled later.



After vacuuming/cleaning:



Hardwood removed for floor repairs:



Paper removed:
Note that the short piece on the extreme right is broken in 3 places. It's also a piece that ends on the log joist at this point.



I replaced the piece above with an old piece of barn wood (the same thickness) that I've had lying around in my wood scraps for probably over 6 years. I never thought it would get used, but voila!



In the basement, since I had NO SUPPORT left for the ends of these boards, I decided to add some nice (overkill) pieces of wood. I used old 2x4s (the *real* ones that are actually 2" x 3 3/4"). These were nailed to both log beams and to each other.

In the photo, A are the new support braces, B shows where the floor used to finish. It looks like they carved the log beams farther to move the stairs (or maybe just to get more head room at the bottom of the basement stairs). C is an old length of galvanized pipe that goes to my exterior hose. It's in a bad spot, and you almost bash your head on it each time you go down stairs. I will eventually change it to copper, and move it back.



It seems like normal construction practice (of the time) to simply chop a hole in the floor at any convenient location, and not support the remaining floor planks. This is one of these, where I will be adding a brace to support the ends of the barn boards that hold-up the floor (hardwood) above. Pretty much all the floor grates are cut like this.

As a side note, this is one of the last vents left to fix, and it's the one for the office (which I might be entirely changing (details later), but this is pretty much exactly how they had hooked up the heating vent in the kitchen when I first bought the house. I never took a photo of it, but it was basically this.



Lastly, I built a new temporary step to regain use of the stairs. It's NOT the best setup, since this one is high and awkward, but I'll hopefully be redoing the stairs soon-ish (in the next year). You can see the installed door casing on the living room door, which I can now paint, and cut to length once I have my stair stringers ready to go in.