Moving in / moving closer

Counter Tops

Dennis arrived this morning and it was time to do the countertops. I learned a lot about tile today. Most importantly: Spend 90% of your time on layout and level surfaces and the job will go easy. Dennis cut all of the tile ahead of time before placing any mortar so that the setting actually went quite quickly.

Cutting and laying out the tile.

My job :layout the pattern, set the cut pieces, drop in the olive pattern, and sponge the grout.

The Pattern

Sponge Boy

Tiled in!

Tomorrow the backsplash and the sink area.

Move in!

Yesterday we cleaned the walls and windows in the livingroom and dining room. Tonight we finally moved furniture back into the living room. My dad came and helped with the arranging. It was very nice to have somewhere to sit. We can't believe it has been 9 months since we started the stripping of this room. More to come...

Catching up.. Kitchen.. Hallway.. and more...

Hallway...Almost ...there... We had to finish the hallway painting in two long days. We were up very late painting to finish in time for the floor guys.

Painting the hall in the dark.. Ivoire and Antique white

Luckily my parents came to help move junk out of the back bedrooms and paint a bit.

The floors are done in the hall and bedrooms so here's a glary or two shot of the finished hallway.

We still need to finish four more hallway doors. We just ran out of time. So... weekend projects. We are happy with the color and I got to practice some caulking skills. The hallway was actually very time intensive to paint due to all of the cutting in and moulding.

Kitchen So the kitchen floors were refinished too, though I don't have any great shots of the finished product yet.

Sanding the kitchen floors...So much better.. Do you remember these?

After the floors in the back of the house were finished we spent several hellish days moving everything we own out of the front of the house. (Again with help from Kristin's parents, my dad, and my brother-in-law. We set the cabinets in to get a taste.

Fridge in place and running off an extension cord.

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Stove in place with our first pizza. Nice to be able to bake again

Dennis, our carpenter (garage builder) came to help me set the cabinets (He did most of it. We also assembled the second cabinet in place.

Here you see the sink cabinet set with the subtop of ply installed.

Today Dennis returned to set the mortar bed for the tile.

The finished mortar bed. Floating the deck out lets the tile sit eveny on the undermount sink. Next week we will set the tile.

Living room floors Meanwhile in the front of the house Alvaro has been working hard to lightly sand the white oak floors.

Sanding the floors opens up the room.. Plus no junk.

The floors are looking amazing which makes the room perfect.

We will finally get to put our stuff back in this weekend! By the way I lost the camera cord in the moving of stuff so I had to borrow one from my sister. That's why no posts recently.

Restoration History 6: Exterior Renovations

This is a repost of a prior entry from my woodworking blog at Lumberjocks. I am trying to centralize the info about my house project. The work in this entry took place in 2004

The paint was peeling, many shingles were missing, or severely damaged. The rafter tails were rotted. It was time to paint.

We quickly removed the a.c. unit from the front of the house and the rat highway (Palm tree).

We found a painter through a neighbor (Good fortune since he painted the house whose colors we liked).

Did I mention the missing shingles?

These are actually redwood barn shakes that come in 36” lengths. For my house’s design they are cut into 18” lengths. After 90 years they are britlle like glass and they get broken during removal.

Above I use my mitre saw to cut the shingles to length. You can also just score them with a utility knife and then snap them.. But the power saw let me cut several at once. Big chunks of the driveway side were damage or coverd with plywood.

I love my nail gun.

Shingle work does require a little planning ahead so that you don’t have to face nail too many. I learned a slick method where you set the shingle low. Angle nail up under the top shingle and then knock the shingle upward with a wood block so that the nails remain hidden. Though the nail gun really solves all of this.

I also learned to chamfer the corners together to create a tight seam.

Meanwhile the painters were busy scraping… and sanding… and scraping…

Color

After the painters were done… We decided we did not like the columns painted white. So we went out by ourselves and started painting them again.

The finished paint job with more planting in the front. I also made some wood screens.

It is swell. 5 colors in all.

It's coming together.

Basement Repaired!
Originally uploaded by gizmodyne

Basement

The basement stairwell came out great. New concrete surfaces with stain to match. The steps are all stripped as well and all of the wood is stained.

Painting the Kitchen

I just supervised this step but it is looking great.

Hallway

Staining the hallway has been slow due to having to sand and vacuum. We have learned to inspect everything. One coat is done. The wood was only sanded lightly so it has the patina still. Patina= it's kind of dirty looking.

Restoration History 5: Birdhouses for everyone

This is not exactly a restoration story. But it explains a bit about how we approach the madness of our house and our interest in woodworking.

Birdhouse (c. 2002)

I was always a little interested in woodworking. We had also started shopping for furniture and seen how expensive it was. Around the house I had built a fence and a small garden bench but nothing major.

At a garden store one day, we saw a cute little bird house for around $25.

“I bet I can make that,” I said. One fence board and some extra paint later….

2003

I set up a tiny shop in the basement, but I was about to quit woodworking after destroying a small bookend project by drilling agressively. That was when I decided to take a class. Best woodworking decision ever. The commute was hellish and the class was tiring: a two hour drive after work with rush hour traffic, and then four hours of woodworking till ten. Luckily Kris came too.

During this time I bought my first router and a table saw to work on projects at home. My father-in-law had given me a starter jigsaw and circular saw and I had a cheap plane or two. Kristin didn’t yell at me when I bought the table saw and even let me keep it in the living room for about six months.

I built the red blue chair too during this time.

Bigger Birdhouse

We were starting to have some serious storage issues. Did I mention we had no garage? Then I decided to build a shed one night.
I got a book,got a rafter square to measure our house's roof pitch, altered the drawings to match, and... here it is.

The foundation is built of pressure treated wood on cement blocks. The most time consuming part for me was cutting the rafters and the shingle work. I bought the window at a salvage yard and learned to reglaze it after breaking the glass while building a jam. The door is tongue and groove cedar with a z-brace to hold it together. 8'x"8 foot dimensions overall.

Over the weekend...

Painting the porch.
Originally uploaded by gizmodyne

Finally the porch was ready for paint.

We chose Sherwin Williams.: Antique White which is related to the two other major colors we are using...Blonde and Ivoire.



So much cleaner you can't believe it.





The attic access door came out great. It is amazing; when you put paint on the walls it makes all of the woodwork come crisply into focus.

Kitchen Cabinets

We stained the kitchen cabinets too. Lots of problems with the putty again. Lesson: Stain and then add colored putty. It is mostly worked out and now we have shellaced and poly-ed it too. One more coat of poly to go and it is ready for paint tomorrow.

Restoration History 4: Brick by Brick

Summer 03 Continued

The bath was under restoration. Meanwhile the monstrosity of a fireplace had sat uncovered for 6 months.

“Paint it white,” my dad said. “Put curtains around it,” (Like the elephant man?) We just smiled and said, “We’ll just wait.”

A lot of the houses with redone fireplaces end up with tile. We knew we wanted to try to remain true to the house but had little clue what was there. The brick pointed to brick, but the hearth to tile.

And what mantle to install. We spoke with contractors and carpenters and finally settled upon a brick mason named John Marsh.

The inside of the chimney was relined.

We picked out a pallate of recycled brick and John went to work, using scars on the wall as a guide.

Frisbee poses wiith new fireplace.

We hired a local woodworker to build a mantle and provided the doug fir.

I love the detail of the standing brick.

The plastered fireplace. We have since replaced the mantle. But you will have to read on to see the new one.

Restoration History 3: Summer 03

Summoer of '03

It was time to take care of the bathroom…

We called contractors for bids with a budget of 10 thousand. Most came, looked at the project, and never called back.

Finally one of the contractors, a high-end company, said, “Look, for the style you want there is no way to get it at this budget.” He wrote out the order of the construction and offered to give us a list of his subs.

It was time to roll up our sleeves.

We ordered a dumpster. I began sledgehammering the walls. It was freaking hot in there. Every hour or so I would go out into the backyard and Kristin would hose me off. The safety masks with toxin filters did not fit her tiny head, so I went solo when it came to the nasty stuff.

Out came the vanity.

Roughin’ It

We sent the medicine cabinet out for repair. Check out the wall paper and knob and tube wires.

The ceiling waiting for insulation. All framing was rough fir. Check out the roof… redwood planks!

Now before you freak out that we tore out the plaster and all the wood trim.
A: we had the entire room replastered by an old timer with actual plaster.. Though they use a blue board now.
B: We took the trim and door outside to strip it.

Fit and finish
All of the hardware went off to be replated in chrome (wish we had nickel now).
The tub was removed from the room and we hired Miracle Method to refinish it. They scrub it with acid and then epoxy finish it. The outside was painted white.

We ordered a new sink, toilet, lights and hardware from George's

All of the time came from Mission Tile west , a high end tile show room.

I designed the tile pattern to be used in the room.

We worked all summer. Luckily my parents were out of town, so we slept there at night, returned to the house early each day to meet the contractors, and used the facilities in the park (boooo).

Voila

View from the door: New sink, tile, sconces, repainted trim, everything is shiny.

Olde time hex. The wall tiles have a 6” base with cove and a running black liner tile. We found the cabinet at the flea market and repainted it to match our yellowish trim.

Clawfoot after refinishing with new chrome hardware. Sweet! Great for soaking! Kristin designed the flower pattern in the floor.

Close up on the sink and tile wainscot. The little squares are called chicklets.

We paid a local woodworker to rebuild the medicine cabinet for us, as I had not done any real woodworking at that point. He hade a new door to replace the previously replaced one.

You can see the wall of tile in the reflection

Review

Historic restoration:

Obsessive:
-We kept the original layout of the bathroom and the original tub.
-We removed all of the trim and stripped it and then returned it to its spot. Any replacement wood was vertical grain fir, in case someone strips it in the future. (We don’t want to be cursed).
-We saved the original medicine cabinet and window. I replaced the window sash cord on the window weights.
-Used actual plaster instead of drywall.
-Push button switches

Compromise(Most of it)
- Replaced the lathe and plaster with tile. The original plaster was scored to look like subway tile, but rotting.
- The design is more 20’s or 30’s than 1910. We debated this for a long time. Sometimes we wish we had gone for a more woody style.
- We encased the floor in leveling cement instead of repairing the fir floors.
-Added an electric ceiling vent
-Chrome was not used then, we would use nickel
-Everything is painted
-Tub was resurfaced
-Added dimmer
-New sink and toilet instead of vintage

Finally lacquer.

Stained and Laquered
Originally uploaded by gizmodyne

After about a week, the room is finally sprayed with finish. We need to finish the kitchen by next Monday so that the floors can be done.


Meanwhile we spent time replastering, preparing the wood and fixing small problems in the cabinets. Tomorrow: staining the kitchen.