Clock’s Ticking

Well, it’s a new month and it’s time to make my 30-day appearance. Be forewarned–no photos today.

Not sure if I made mention of the new furnace that I was forced to purchase in December. Our local utility company switched out the old meters (yes, I have two–a legacy of my house’s multi-family history) with remote-readable meters. When they came in to relight all of the gas appliances, the installer nixed relighting the upstairs furnace (and, yes, I have two furnaces as well). He was very nice about it, even going so far as to show me why he didn’t think it was the best of ideas. Once the furnace burner kicked in, flames started shooting out the front of the unit. Apparently the flames were so starved for oxygen they decided that coming out the front was the best choice. Carbon monoxide concerns aside, it’s amazing the d*** house didn’t burn down. Four days later, it was goodbye to the old unit (inspected in 1970) and hello to the new high-efficiency unit. Considering that the temperature never went below 62 degrees upstairs even in the dead of winter, I think we fared well.

So what has this to do with anything?

Now that the new unit is in place in the basement, adjacent to my shop but separated by a wall, it seemed prudent to consider investing in a dust collection system. It’s one thing to have the dust floating around furnaces that are 40 years old; they’re already disgusting beyond words. It’s another once your wallet has hemorrhaged to the point of issuing a Code Blue; the desire to protect your new investment at all costs wells to the surface. So I find myself in a position that I feel compelled to spend money to save money.

The wainscot up the stairs and trim for one window remains uncompleted. As a result, many hours of wood prep, milling, and construction remain before those projects can be put to bed. Under normal circumstances, I would simply wait until the weather is more cooperative (warmer) but with the holidays over, only one birthday in four remaining, and an impending high school graduation party in May, these delayed projects must be given a higher priority.

Does anyone out there have suggestions regarding or experience with using a dust collection system? It seems relatively straightforward, but oftentimes what seems from the surface to be simple oftentimes turns complicated because of an unpublished learning curve.

Here’s to the next step in the maturation of the wood shop…

New Year, New Post

I seem to be on a 30 day minimum posting schedule lately… Not a lot of major, new stuff going on but a little touch-up on trimwork and accessorizing the foyer. My father-in-law is an artist so we decided to raid his store of items. We have a couple of pieces scattered about the house, but never really had a good place to display them until now. One wall in the updated foyer is large enough to display some of his larger works and we happened to find a piece that we liked and worked well in the space. Now I’m sure that all of you true artists out there will spit at your screen for my having said that. I would argue that art in a residential setting is just as much about a sense of overall design as it is about the intrinsic value of the piece apart from its environment.

The setting for the large oil on canvas piece was inspired by a now-demolished church in my hometown. The piece to the right is an oil pastel portrait of my son from a couple of years back. The pottery on the table is from last year and the bowl/plate on the lower shelf is from several years back. We really like his work and I’m scheming of new ways to incorporate more into the space.

Stair base trim

Many Changes

Where to begin? As with any project, I suppose, in order to complete one project, five others upstream must be done first. So it was true regarding the stair paneling. I so desperately wanted the large panel out of our parlor. Unfortunately, the way the original carpenter had built the stairs, it required that the lower panel be installed first. Before I could install that panel, I wanted to make sure that the final three stairs were complete since I would need access from behind. Before I could install the stairs, I had to design and build the bull-nose riser and tread for the initial step. Before I could install the steps, I had to figure out what to do with the hole in the oak flooring. At any rate, you get the idea…

I can now say that I have bent wood; something I have always wanted to try. But I didn’t take any photos. I have no clue why. Lazy, I guess. The slightly modified technique I used came from a copy of “Handbook of Doormaking, Windowmaking, and Staircasing” by Antony Talbot. It actually worked quite well and I’m pleased with the results.

The reclaimed baseboard is now nearly completely in. I like the looks of the corner blocks. It’s a marriage of two different homes’ trim, but it works. The outside corner base trim piece came new from a local lumber yard. Who would have guessed? The corner protector came from a salvage yard. $3!!!!!

Once the steps were in, the paneling could be installed. Since the plaster and lath were removed, it changed the way in which the panelling fit, but luckily one cut off the top made it fit nearly perfectly. The panel itself took my son, my wife, and me wielding a finish nailer to get it in, but it worked! I’ve decided my son cannot leave home this summer for college. Who will help me with the heavy lifting-type projects?

With the panelling in place, the remaining trim could go up on the east wall. It’s beginning to look like a room, believe it or not…

Detail of the initial riser

Initial coat of orange shellac. Darker tinted coat yet to come

Funky angle; it was the best I could do

Brief Note

Yesterday, the vestibule picture rail was installed. Mating the rail to the arch was a head-scratcher but it worked out in the end. I really like the look and utility of picture rail. I suspect that I will hate it when it comes time to paint…

Comment in a Post

I was reading Bungled’s blog paint stripping series this morning. Their most recent topic about whether or not to remove trim and subsequent nail removal reminded me of a couple of things I have learned/experienced that seemed worthy of sharing. I have done my fair share of renovations in my own home and salvaging of trim out of abandoned homes and nail extraction is near-and-dear to my heart.

1) Nail removal, as they indicated, should ALMOST ALWAYS be done from the back. By definition, sinking finish nails drives the head of the nail below the surface of the wood. When doing so, the surface of the wood will be pushed away as the nail is driven through but once the head has passed, it will retract slightly. If you drive the nail back through, especially on old, dry wood, breakouts and significant tearing can occur, damaging the face of the trim. This should be avoided at all costs.

2) To facilitate nail removal, I would highly recommend a $25 investment in nail extractors designed specifically for this task. See Van Dyke’s version of this tool. I bought one just this year and consider it one of my most prized possessions. I have used standard pliers, slip-joint pliers, fencing pliers, and vice grips for this task in years past. All these tools work but require an enormous amount of effort and more often than not result in the nail slipping out of the tool for one basic reason–all of the force from the tool (pinching) is concentrated at the very tip.  The genius of the extractors from Van Dyke’s is that the tool is designed specifically to apply pressure to the entire nail along the full surface of the tool. That coupled with the “built in” leverage in the head of the extractors for prying, and no nail is a match for it.

3) Now that the nail and the tool are out of the way, a comment about the wood itself. I have worked essentially exclusively in pine, so take my comments within that context. One must always be cognizant regarding the wood itself in determining how to deal with nail removal.

• Quarter sawn/rift sawn/straight grained trim where the growth rings run perpendicular to the wood surface, while very beautiful, is very brittle when applying the pressure necessary to pull the nail from the back. Older finish nails often times have relatively large, cone-shaped heads compared with modern finish nails’ smaller, bead-shaped heads. The pressure from pulling the head through the trim coupled with the force of the tool being applied can occasionally lead to the wood splitting, especially at the extreme ends of the trim. Work slowly on a solid surface with a scrap piece of lumber to spread the force of the prying over a larger proportion of the trim to alleviate the risks from damage.
• Trim that is not straight such as that found in my reclaimed archway is extremely vulnerable to damage from removing nails if, as was my case, the trim was cut from a wide board (12 inches or more). This technique of creating the trim results in the grain running to the edge at a severe angle. Either extracting the nail or the tool itself is quite likely to cause the trim to completely break. In my case, I opted to cut the nail off with a metal cutting wheel using my grinder. This works extremely well if there is any danger presented from removing the nail or if removing only the exposed portion of the nail is feasible/necessary.

To make a long story short, finish nails should almost exclusively be dealt with from the back side of the wood. Removing nails from old trim is much more than simply grabbing, pulling, and prying. It requires a considerable amount of thought and consideration regarding the nature of the wood itself in order to prevent damage to the greatest extent possible.

My thanks to the folks at Bungled for the topic!

Foyer Update

My wife informed me the other day that once this project is complete, she is putting a moratorium on projects. Suits me for now… The vestibule (as I now call the area between the arch and front door is coming along. The hard part will be the corner to the right of the door. That will take a little ruminating to resolve. I need to find a cold air return large enough for the opening and to cover the old hole for the outlet. With any luck, picture rail will be the order of business tomorrow.

Now that I’m getting the trim put up, space in my basement is being freed such that I can actually see the floor. I’m so tired of stepping over and moving things to get to something else. The big relief is to get that large, curved baseboard out. I was always afraid I was going to trip over, drop something on, or somehow damage it.

Off to trick-or-treating with the youngest. Happy Halloween!

Arch Trimmed

The archway is now trimmed. It took several hours dry fitting the trim to make it all fit back together again. I was surprised in that I only had to make three cuts to make it all work. I’m happy with the way it turned out; it’s a nice focal point for the space.

I also married what was left of the original newel post trim pieces with new. It also turned out reasonably well.

Still shellacking and hope to get more trim up over the next couple of days.

As a diversion, I’ve included a photo of the yard. Somewhere under all those leaves is grass. I think…

Full view including my junk pile.

Newel post repaired

View from front door

I need a REALLY big wind!

Rest In Peace

On Thursday, we put our oldest pet cat to sleep. I’ve put two other cats to sleep over the years, but this one the most difficult. We adopted Ash right after my daughter was born 10 years ago. I was telling a cube neighbor colleague/co-worker/friend/Josh at work that I was having him put down and justifying that he was, after all, “… just a cat”. I have since realized that he was much more than that. He would meet us at the door every evening, and, of the three cats, he was the one that would always sit in my daughter’s lap. We always had to be careful in the morning going downstairs because he would race ahead of us in anticipation of being fed. He loved to help open gifts at birthdays and Christmas.

We buried him in the back yard on Thursday wrapped in the blanket from his bed.

Ash was so much more than just a cat or even a pet–he was a member of the family and a loyal companion. He will be sorely missed.

In Memoriam -- Before 1999 to 2009

Naked Trim

Since today was in the 70’s, it was devoted to stripping trim–the closet door jamb, plinth blocks, the stair newel, and the hand rail, and one stair riser. The newel took longer than I expected so I ran out of time and energy. The photo shows it after all the remaining decorative trim was removed. Overall, not a lot done today, but progress nonetheless.

Now I’m off to work again tomorrow to relax…

Dinky Piddlin’ Stuff

I spent the entire weekend doing the drudgery tasks that go with DIYing. Here’s a quick recap to get caught up.

1) Painted the crown moulding with a white semi-gloss. It looks much better now.

2) Watched the installers put in the new office carpet. It looks great, but I remember it being more on the gold side than green. But it looks WAY better than what was there before…

3) Started shellacking all the trim. I invested in a breathing apparatus that is designed for organic vapors. Holy Cow! Where had that baby been all my life? Now I can shellac for hours and not become dizzy or get a headache.

4) Finished repairing the stair panels. The panels are 1×10 or 1×12 3/8 thick pine boards attached to a half-lap pine frame. The original carpenter had secured the panels to the frame with screws around the perimeter of the panel. Either pine behaved differently back then or he just didn’t know any better. At any rate, five of the eight panels had split. Most of them I was able to cut along the crack and glue together. The others, I simply tried to stabilize by gluing the cracked end but leaving the panel intact. My solution was to eliminate all but the screws in the middle of the far end of each panel and secure them with new blocks rabetted to hold the panels in place yet allow them to move with changes in humidity. Once these panels are reinstalled, I won’t be able to easily remove them to do any repair work so I’m hoping this will be a long-term solution.

5) Put up another wall’s worth of wainscot and finished adding the last outlets.

6) Tore out the bottom landing of the steps in order to finish adding insulation and a vapor barrier.

7) Since the steps were out, I decided to remove the oak flooring back about two feet or so. When the wall dividing upstairs from down was added, they patched in flooring around it. With the wall gone, there was a long, rectangular bare spot in the oak flooring. When I patched the oak back in, I was able to close up that gap. It looks okay, but not perfect.

I’m hoping that the trim will start going up sometime this week. Enough chat, on to the photos…