A Painting Primer

Tags

decorative, paint, primer, Sherwin Williams, shingles, siding

From 7:00 am to 5:30 pm today, I scraped and primed most of the upper half of the  southern section of the east side of the house. (Yeah, not much.) Priming the shingles was no fun at all. Well, at first it was gratifying, then it became tedious, then aggravating, then painful, and finally if-I’m-not-done-soon-I-will-jump-off-the-ladder-head-first. I bought the very best oil-based primer Sherwin-Williams had to offer. Great stuff, but it’s the consistency of thin cake batter so applying it takes time and effort.

It’s funny… When one has nothing but a wall of dry, bare decorative shingles to stare at, many things like world peace, deficit reduction, and the like can be ruminated upon. Or, in my case, perfecting my controlled run/drip method of priming the lower edge of the shingles. An all but useless, long-term skill to be sure.

Along with the priming, I replaced one piece of siding and reattached several others with galvanized finish nails. For the most part, if there is primer in the photo, there was no paint, meaning that the decorative shingles had little to no paint left at all by the time I was done scraping.

The photos attached have a bluish tint but in person it’s more of a battleship grey. The scheme we are going for is the Night Owl, March Wind, and Rock Bottom found here. Storms tonight and tomorrow, so a short reprieve is in store. As long as it has taken me to get to this point, I’m guessing this is an all summer-type project. Goody…

Let the Scraping Begin

Tags

cedar, gable, ladder, paint, repair, roof, scrape, shingles

I finally began the house painting project in earnest yesterday. It is several years way overdue. Originally, I was going to hire someone to do the three gables for me but after getting their $1200 bid, I decided I would try to handle it myself. The job itself isn’t really what you would call difficult, but it is massively time-consuming and back breaking work. I worked on the east gable all day long and only got about half of it scraped. Granted, I did some repair work while I was at it; something that I realized upon closer inspection was required.

To make it even more challenging, getting to the gable above the intersecting roof line of the office/garage was decidedly difficult. In the photos below, the ladder is the farthest to the right that I can possible get it. The pitch on the office/garage is 12/12 making it difficult (for me, impossible) to navigate. My solution was to build a little wedge-thingy on which to put my folding ladder. (A great tip from a blog post that should receive credit but I have no idea from where it came now.) The upper half of the ladder lays nearly horizontally on the roof so I can sit on it; I couldn’t bring myself to attempt to stand. I’m not afraid of heights, but I have a healthy respect for it. (It or them? (shrug))

I replaced about a dozen shingles. Certainly not difficult, but juggling shingles, nails, and a hammer while sitting on a ladder is decidedly challenging. Especially when your legs start to fall asleep…

Another beautiful day on tap today (60′s) but the day is jam-packed with other activities not related to the house. Guess the remainder of the scraping will just have to wait until it’s good and hot. Blech!

On a side note, we woke up to frost this morning along with ice in the bird bath. To make that even more insulting/puzzling, the forecast says it is supposed to be 92 in two days. For the love of Pete, will Mother Nature please just make up her mind?!

It is spring, isn’t it?

It sure looks like it.

Soffit Repair

Tags

corbel, pine, soffit

For the first weekend in ages, the weather cooperated enough (warm and no rain or snow) to begin the east corbel/soffit repair. The state of the soffit was one of those things that a casual observer may not realize immediately, but it has driven me crazy for 13 years now. As mentioned here, this area had “issues” due to ice damming. I’ll give the PO credit–they did a fair job of covering the damage but did nothing to repair it or the cause of the ice dams.

The patch consisted of a sheet of galvanized metal tacked over the damage with the old corbel nailed over that. As per usual, I couldn’t bring myself to only patch the problem but found myself doing a complete soffit replacement. It was only through the miracle of providence that I was able to stop myself short of tearing off the gutter and replacing the fascia as well. The time to do that is when new guttering is in the budget.

It was rather eye-opening to find that the soffit was a single, 15-inch wide board. Amazing when stores stocked that kind of stuff. Unfortunately, it was essentially beyond repair. I glued up two 1x8s as a replacement, even though that was still 1/2 inch narrower than the original.

I heat stripped the paint off one of the two original corbels and decided that was enough of that, leaving the paint on the other; it just didn’t seem worthwhile considering that I have no plans to do that to any others.

After taking out the crappy blown-in insulation that was laying on the soffit (and no doubt contributing to the soffit’s demise once wet) and adding new insulation to reduce the flow of warm air out out of the living space, I replaced the soffit and corbels (including the new one). There are still some very small cove returns that need to be put back, but I need to get my pin nailer back from my brother first. Then it’s caulking, primer, and paint.

Will anyone notice? Nope. Will I? Yup.

Bat haven

The old soffit, rotten on the right end

Lovely dry rot

Yummy. Gotta love old houses.

Poor thing has definitely seen better days

New soffit and corbel

Hardware Cart

Tags

birch, cart, hardware, plywood

Nothing new at the house (… yet … ). I did take today to finish up a hardware cart that I had gotten the urge to build. A couple of months ago, during the high school musical set construction project, the vocal music director asked for my help this summer in building a hardware cart for all the various screws, hardware, tools, etc that are constantly in use during set construction. Today, he has a tiny plastic cart that everything gets piled onto. Needless to say, it’s difficult and even nigh on impossible to find anything easily. It seemed like a simple project and request so I took it upon myself last weekend to get some birch veneer plywood and start planning out a cart for him.

This was a good way to get rid of a couple of drawer guides I bought years ago. It seemed readily apparent that I would never use them but this project was perfect for them. The plastic hardware containers are held in place by a beveled piece of scrap plywood. To remove them, just pull up on the front. There are two fixed rubber wheels and two free-spinning wheels. I went that way because four free-spinning wheels came sometimes lead to difficult to steer and runaway objects. I discovered that when I got a little aggressive moving the cart around, the drawers would slide open. The two zinc sets of hardware on the shelf are going to be used to “lock” the drawers shut. These are neat little gadgets that I salvaged off some large, plywood shipping containers from work. The little butterfly handle flips up, turns, and “unlocks” from the small bracket that will be attached to the drawer front. Being a hoarder occasionally pays off….

The only thing left is to get two small zinc handles for the drawers. I had thought about using some old, salvaged, brass handles that I had laying around, but they didn’t look right with all the bright zinc stuff I added to the sides. For a couple extra bucks, it’ll look better. I’ve already spent this much, what’s a tad more?

I plan on springing it on him on Monday. I hope he likes it.

Corbel Repair Project

Tags

corbels, eave, pine, soffit

For the past three weekends, I have been physically abusing myself by volunteering with set construction for the upcoming high school musical, Beauty and the Beast. The good (bad?) news is that there is only one more weekend before the performance.

That being said, I did find time to start my next, small house project. The eaves of the upper story of my house are decorated with corbels. I’ve never actually counted, but I would suspect there are around 50 of them. Years of ice damming issues in two locations took their toll on three of them. I’ve always meant to repair/replace them and now that I’m actively considering painting the house, now is the time to get started. Naturally, I’ll have to repair the soffit itself…

On Saturday, I sandwiched up three blocks-worth of scrap lumber (2 1×6 and 1 2×6) and this afternoon, cut the profile for each. The new ones are still a little rough at this point, but after another long day at the school I had lost all motivation to continue insofar as sanding them goes. Hard to imagine a time when one could walk into the local lumber yard and order up about four dozen of these…

These go around the house

Both need replacing. Note the PO’s repair attempt…

Might be able to get away with repairing this one

These were fun to make

Another Tree Bites the Dust

Tags

maple, removal, tree

The “spooky old tree” silver maple at the end of the driveway finally met its demise today. Sad, really, but a necessary evil. I would guess that it was at least 100 years old, but had definitely seen better days. Although it was 60″ in diameter at its widest, the trunk was only four inches thick at its widest. I have no idea what kept the thing upright these last years.

It took about 3.5 hours to remove it. There were only a handful of branches left; they cut those off and ground them up in no time. It’s amazing to me that the chipper just ground away those 14″ or so thick limbs! When the removers were done, I tried to convince them (tongue-in-cheek, of course) to give me a discount because it was such an easy job (few limbs, very little wood to cut on the trunk, etc.). They didn’t bite. (shrug)

No more spinners in the spring, sticks, and leaves to pick up but I will desperately miss the shade. And I won’t have to worry about it falling down in the next wind. I think I want to replace it with a flowering crab–small but colorful.

Last moments on Earth…

If only I had access to these kinds of tools all the time

Halfway there

Space slug from The Empire Strikes Back??? This was the thickness of the tree at ground level

Now I REALLY need to paint the dump.

Easy Come, Easy Go

Tags

antiques, confirmation

As it turns out, I made a bone-headed mistake–the confirmation document was for his father not his grandfather. As soon as my neighbor saw it, he knew it had to be his father because he remembered the day and month of his birth but not the year. They matched and the history book confirmed the year. The old document has made it home after all these years. It did my heart good to leave it with him. He plans to show it to his brothers yet this week.

During my visit we looked over old photos and had a nice visit overall. (contented sigh)

As for how this item got to the antique mall, it would be a fascinating story but, alas, one we will never know.

Five Seconds of Fame

Tags

fleeting fame and fortune

Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention that I’m now famous. Well, as famous as I can ever hope to be…

http://my1923foursquare.blogspot.com/2013/01/best-of-web_11.html

Be sure to check out JCs hard work on his home. I appreciate his ability to salvage and reuse a plethora of things for his renovation. It’s too bad more of us in this country can’t do more of the same to combat our throw-away society.

More Homefront Serendipity

Tags

antiques, bubble glass, confirmation, crumb catcher, frame, German, oak, ornate, oval, picture

Okay, this is getting weird… This post has nothing to do with my old house, but it seemed too good to pass up and so here it is. My daughter had an appointment on the other side of the city today that left me with two hours of free time to kill. There’s an antique mall not far from where she was that I hadn’t visited for years so it seemed like the place to go. It’s only by the grace of God that I’m not on television in an episode of Hoarders when it comes to antiques, but I digress.

Along with the glassware, I went with the intention of looking at picture frames. For years now, I’ve had a photo of my great-grandfather’s farm house that needed a frame. More to come on that, but that’s where this story started. I start perusing all the oval frames with bubble glass and also other frames. For some reason, the German Victorian Christian stuff was catching my eye. One of the booths had an oak frame looking forlorn and out-of-square with what looked to be a baptismal certificate. Upon closer inspection, it was actually a confirmation certificate from 1905. The name on it was Heinrich Hansen. I smiled. There’s a Hansen that lives across the street from us, wouldn’t that be weird if it was his family?

Further reading showed that the confirmation took place at Zion Lutheran church here in town! Did I mention that this was weird? Keep in mind that we live in a smallish town (albeit under somewhat radical transformation as of late) but nonetheless, a lot of the older folks in town are descendants of the original settlers. Could this be the neighbor’s grandfather or other relative? For $55, I figured it was worth a shot. Even if it didn’t pan out, the frame and the visual appeal of the certificate made it worth the money.

I’m no poet laureate, so you can certainly tell where this story is headed. After I got home, a quick perusal of the local history book that another neighbor gave me almost certainly confirmed that this certificate is of my neighbor’s grandfather. His grandfather’s name was Henry (Heinrich) and the birth date of 1898 on the certificate is also that of his grandfather.

Of course, they were not home tonight, so I’ll find out for sure tomorrow when I take it over to him and his daughter.

As for the other frame I bought, it is intended to hold a hand-colored photo of my great-grandfather’s farm house that has been begging for a home for years now. I found many oval frames with bubble glass but I felt guilty of depriving them of their original, old family photographs. Luckily, I was able to find a nice one with some crappy print in it that I will gladly liberate for my own purposes. I went ahead and paid a bit more than I had planned for this one but the frame is in nearly perfect shape and is larger and fancier than the one I first decided to buy. I can’t wait to see it in its finished state.

Finally, on the subject of antiques, I thought I would also share the coolest darned thing that my mom bought me for Christmas–a porcelain crumb catcher/tray. I have no use for it (which is true for 90% of the stuff I own), but it’s an amazingly interesting piece. Now to figure out where to put it and display it properly.

Okay, so I suffer from privacy paranoia.

In the end, it probably only protects me from honest people…

Early Christmas Wishes

Tags

Christmas, decorations

Not much going on at the dump recently. Between work, another trip to Groton, CT, to visit my son, and getting ready for the holidays, there isn’t much time left to do much else with the renovations.

With that, a few photos of the house decorated.

Merry Christmas, oh ye few but faithful…