Bits and Pieces, Dribs and Drabs

I was right, and I wish I weren't.  Working two jobs on weekdays plus a little freelancing whenever I can get it is definitely not leaving me much time to work on the house.

Nevertheless, I manage to sneak in a little DIY on weekends, or every so often between the end of school and the time I need to clock in at the Big Blue Box Store, or after I get home from selling other people the supplies they need for their projects . . .

Let me see.

Wednesday, 24 April:  Worked on getting the last of the black oil-based paint heat-stripped off the tall teak bookcase.

Sunday, 28 April:  Shellacked quarter round for the 1st floor hallway, several coats. 

 And finished heat-stripping the bookcase.

The black spot is a scorch mark.  Oops.

 Monday, 29 April:  Totally fed up with only being able to do one quarter round cope per evening before the battery power in my Dremel would run out, I gave in to temptation and bought a corded Dremel 3000 kit once I got off work this evening.  With the markdown and my employee discount, the price wasn't too bad.  See, I'd found out that I'd cut the quarter round pieces for the south wall of 1st floor hall too short (well, they were fine until I overdid the copes!) and figured my time is worth something.

So I ran home and recut them out of new stock (I'll resize the shellacked pieces and use them in the dining room or maybe the 2nd floor hall) and with my new toy-- I mean, tool-- got both of them coped (both ends) and ready to shellack the next day.

Tuesday, 30 April:  Got two or three coats of shellac on the replacement pieces of quarter round, and applied the finishing coat to some of the other pieces. 

Drilled the 1st floor hall newel post to receive the pegs that are now going to hold it and its cap together.

(rotation fail to be corrected asap)

 Wednesday, 1 May:  In the morning (I taught only a half day that day), slapped more shellack onto the new 1st floor hall quarter round.

And got out into the back yard and ground up some more of last fall's leaves with the rake/vac.

Late in the evening, using a rubbing on tracing paper, I transferred the position of the peg holes in the newel post to the underside of the cap, and drilled the holes. 

Yes, the pegs fit, but no, they weren't straight, and no, the cap doesn't fit on the newel post.  It's what I get for not using a jig of some sort to keep my drill bit perpendicular.  I couldn't get the pegs out, either, even with no glue.  Never fails.

Thursday, 2 May:  After school, pretty well finished sucking up and mulching the leaves in the west back yard border.  Discovered that someplace along the line I'd lost the plastic nut that holds the impeller to the unit, but it made no difference since the impeller was stuck to the bolt shaft anyway.

Friday, 3 May:  Didn't have to report to work till 10:00 AM or so, so I was able to nail in some of the 1st floor hall quarter round and a piece of the new chair rail.

 This little piece tickles me because it ties into the bottom of the spacer between the stair stringer and the wall on the upper part of the stairs.  It's what determines the height of the new rail trim all around the space and on up the stairs.

 The curved quarter round is a resin product.  No way was I going to kill myself cutting kerfs in the oak material, once I learned this stuff exists.  Not looking forward to figuring out how to cope the piece that'll run into it.  Probably just a matter of simple geometry, but my head's not into it yet.

Purchased two more pegs for the newel post.  I figure I might have to cut at least that many flush and redrill.

The next day, Saturday the 4th, I'd intended to get a ton of work done on the house.  But my nephew whom I hadn't seen for over five years unexpectedly was in town, and I had to visit a farm to see about a new source for the raw milk I've become accustomed to, and then on the way home I came across fresh strawberries for 75c a pint.  So what could I do in the evening but make jam?

Which took a lot longer than I'd expected.  And I see this post is getting to be a lot longer than I'd expected, too.  And I will be in in a jam if I don't get to bed ASAP.  Later on,  I'll go on pretending I've actually gotten anything significant done.

Outside Work

When I made my post a week ago I said the work on the living room quarter round was the first I'd done on the house for awhile.

Well, I forgot.  I've also been taking advantage of the days when fine weather and my time off overlap to get something done in the yard.

Allowing for pulling the henbit out of the (unplanted) vegetable plots, mostly it's been grinding up last fall's maple leaves with the Toro leaf-vac.  I can only do at a time as much as is permitted by 1) the time and daylight available; 2) my stamina; and 3) the dryness of the leaves.  Dry or dryish leaves equals great progress.  Damp or sopping leaves means constant clogs in the grinder wheel and repeated disassembly to clean it out. 

Several bags filled two Sunday afternoons ago as I cleared out the borders on the east side of the backyard.  Those leaves were pretty much all dry.  Got a few more bags filled this past Sunday as I tackled the border on the east side.  This part of the yard gets less sun, the pile was deeper, and I could only do the top layer.  Worked on it again this past Monday for forty minutes or so between paying jobs.

Still a good (or bad, depending on your perspective) amount to do.  But I have other work I have to complete first, and technically I'm only on the Internet to look up a fact for the sermon I'm writing for tomorrow.  Maybe if it will refrain from raining I can get more of this cleanup done tomorrow.

The ground up leaves will all go for mulch for the vegetable beds.  Assuming I get them planted, that is.

What Can I Say?

So here it is Saturday, I don't have to work anywhere, tax day and its chaos is past (don't ask me how that came out if you don't like naughty words), and I was going to get something done on the house for the first time in maybe three weeks.

The plan was to nail in the quarter round to the base on the fireplace wall and around each adjacent corner, tint some natural-shade Minwax wood filler with dye to match the shellac finish, and fill the countersink holes.  Maybe then I could even think about putting my bookcases back where they belong.

So I start with the 16-gauge Porter Cable nailer because behind the base on that wall I have the solid masonry exterior structure

                                               
, and I figure I need more power.  First piece of trim goes in all right, but on the second one-- Oh-oh.  Split one of my carefully-coped pieces of quarter round.  It's in the corner where it's dark; I'll fill it and let it alone.

But maybe the bigger nailer with the 2" nails is overkill.  I switch to the 18-guage Chicago Pneumatic brad nailer.  Firing 1½" brads from it, mostly because I couldn't find the 1¼" length at the Big DIY Store Where I Now Work.  Should have been fine anyway, but they weren't.

At least, they aren't with this nailer.  They're all sticking up 1/32" to 1/16", and I can't get them to countersink, no matter which nail set I use or how hard I hit it.

I conclude that even though the woodwork doesn't really back up to the masonry, but to the plaster over it, the Harbor Freight brad nailer (which I picked up cheap and used at the local recycled tool place) doesn't have the force to drive a skinny 1½" brad that far.  At least, not when the top layer is rounded.  I've found the manual online and it doesn't seem to have a countersink adjustment.

So I may have to try to find some 1¼" brads after all, pull off the quarter round (except for the split piece), remove the longer brads, and try again.  That, or resign myself to my house's future owners fulminating against me when they see those shiny nail heads poking out of the nice shellacked wood trim.

Hmm.  I wonder if I still get the employee discount if I order a non-stock item?

A Notice, with a Touch of Irony

These past few days I've been making increment progress towards completing the work in my 1st floor hall.  Small but necessary stuff:  Filling screw holes and touching up the faux finish on the upper wall because I've accepted that no, I can't have my wall-hung coat rack hanging over the new chair rail.  Measuring for, cutting, sanding, and coping quarter round.  Ordering flexible resin quarter round for the foot of the curved bottom step.  Cutting (and sometimes recutting) the chair rail pieces I previously coped, now that the jamb trim is up and I know how long the rail pieces need to be.  That sort of stuff.

Nothing exciting, nothing demanding daily posts, just stuff that's got to get done.

But from now on, I don't know how much is going to get done.  Because I've taken an additional job, working half time, every weekday evening, at the Big Blue & Gray Box Store.  I've been in for paid orientation and training already, but tonight I begin my regular shift.  In about 25 minutes, to be exact.

Ironic, isn't it?  There I'll be surrounded by all sorts of products I can use working on the house, but I'll have no time to do it!

Eeyore Nails Up Trim

Where we came from (2003)

    After I got home from church early this afternoon, I stood in the hallway looking at the new casing for the doorway to the kitchen.  It looked-- off.    In fact, the right end of the head seemed to be sloping downwards.  But how could it?  The jamb pieces are exactly the same length.  The head piece is nailed into them square.   A check with the level-- several checks with the level.  Oops, it was true:  The right end of the head was a quarter inch lower than the left.

    Huh.  The new casing may be straight and level in itself, but that doesn't mean the floor is.  I guess this would explain why the righthand jamb trim seemed to extend 1/4" too high with the original notch.

    Knew I had to get that right side raised up or it would look hideous once the lintel was reinstalled.  Problem: the foot of the casing was wedged against the plywood over-floor.  Hard to pry it off without destroying the joint with the head piece and maybe tearing up some wood.  Possibility: I'd put only two nails in that jamb casing, and they were towards the top.  And flexible.  So I got the little pry bar in under the piece and jacked the assembly up (a flashlight revealed that the nails were bending).  Once it was high enough, I cut some pieces of paint stir stick and shoved two layers thereof under the bottom.  And one piece to go under the plinth to bring it up a bit.  Funny, that's all it took.  And interesting, too, that the enlarged notch in the face trim still seemed to be needed.

    So I got the casing secured in its new position and nailed the face trim up.  But for some reason, I simply could not get the wall trim at the end of the bench to snug up to it.  Still has the same damn gap.  Was it cut at an angle such that the back side is broader than the front?  I can't figure it out.  And I wasn't in the frame of mind to do any more sawing.

     Why?  Because Thursday something possessed me to decide that the lefthand face trim to the kitchen was about an eighth of an inch too tall.  And I cut it down.  And from the floor it looked fine, like it matched the portal trim perpendicular to it.  But when I got up on the stepstool to check where the top of the righthand face trim was hitting, I discovered that now the trim on the left was, yes, an eighth of an inch too short. 

    Good reason to keep the light levels down in that hall . . .

    On to the next bit.  Cut the shims to go under the long baseboard.   (No, wait, I did that before.  N'importe!)  Three quarters of an inch high to bring it up to meet the baseboard on the south wall.  Not for the first time am I giving thanks that the quarter round is a nice substantial 3/4" high.  And oh, boy, you can see how that floor slopes as you follow the pattern of the wallpaper along with baseboard.  (It's straight at the top.  Really it is..)

    So the baseboard is nailed up.

    And then I got ambitious.  Not excited or energetic or thrilled, just ambitious.  Decided to see if I could put the lintels back up by myself.  Turns out I could.  Portal lintel up first, for the kitchen doorway lintel butts into it.  But oh, boy, when I cut down that lefthand face trim I sure added to the already-full list of things to caulk.  The lintel can't sit on it; since the lintel's height and level are determined by how the cornices come together.  Clear caulk (touched up with shellac) is my only hope.

    And you know how they say "Measure twice, cut once?"  I did on the new chair rail that'll go to the right of the doorway to the front room.  Made sure I had the cut on the correct side of the line, too.  But for me, it should be, "Measure twice, cut once-- a sixteenth of an inch bigger than you think it needs to be."  Because that's what I was lacking, that or a fuzz more, when I tried the cut piece in place.

    Bugger.  Right there at eye level.  And sliding it away from the corner didn't look too good either.  In this case I cut a sliver off the waste piece and glued it on.  I'll touch it up and hopefully it won't be too obvious.  If it's made the piece too long, I'll sand it down, no more saws for this.  But the glue bottle says don't stress it for 24 hours, so I won't.

    Should be really thrilled the major hallway trim is back up.  It's looked like hell for years.  The neighbors must have thought I was a real bum every time they glanced through my hallway window-- how pleased they will now be.  I hope for a time when I will be very pleased, myself.

Creeping Along

I really expected to be a lot more excited about this.

Reinstalling the trim in my 1st floor hall, I mean.

After all, it's been down and the space has been looking scabby since September of 2008.  On summer evenings these past four years, every time I've hung out with the neighbors on their front porch, I've looked through my hall window and been faced with the busted plaster that should be concealed behind the trim.  And I've thought, "Damn!  I can hardly wait till I can get that woodwork shellacked and back up. It sure looks like hell from here."

But like Martha in the Gospels I've been worried and distracted lately by many things and tired out by the flu and now that the time has come for me to remount the hallway trim, I'm not that enthusiastic about it.  But my intellect tells me it needs done and urges that I may feel better about things if the house is neat and assembled and orderly.  So here I go.

All this is to explains that each day I do what I'm up to doing, and when I get tired or feel like I'm about to scream, I stop.  Which may be all that can be expected, when I've already spent the bulk of the day substitute teaching.  Which cannot be stopped when one gets tired or feels ready to scream.

So, the thrilling and breakneck progress since Tuesday:

Wednesday, the big deal was to redo the switch to the outside light over the front door that's cut into the jamb trim on the lefthand side of the doorway to the front room.  I'd been subjecting to the direst obloquy the previous owner-- whoever it was-- who'd failed to install the switch in an electrical box and didn't use a wire nut to secure the two neutral wires, the style of switch not having screws to fasten those into.  Instead, everything was wrapped with electrical tape.  How foolish and dangerous!

No box, no wire nut-- tsk, tsk

But as I was shoving the new box into the front of the trim and pulling the existing Romex through the knockouts, I had to notice that oh, look, the cutout in the trim is exactly the size and shape of a standard electrical box.  And it crept in on me that four and a half years ago when I took that trim down, I was afraid of messing with that switch myself (it had to be dewired to get the woodwork off the wall).  So oh, yeah, I got the professional electrician I was using at the time to come and pull it out for me, didn't I?  Along with the two in the long living room baseboard.  I now recalled him asking me if I wanted him to take the switch out for the time being, me saying No, I needed the light, and him, yes, taping everything up as a temporary fix, because what was the use of him putting it back in the box when it would just have to be taken apart again when I remounted the trim?

Back together and boxed

So who's the danger-mongering fool?  Nobody, I guess, since a pro did it for me.

Don't know what became of the original box.  I utilized one I bought for another location and didn't use.  Used the original switch, since it's more solid than the flimsy modern one I thought to replace it with.  It's all back together, the outdoor light lights, the jamb trim and the lintel are nailed back up, it's all fine.  Previous owners, my apologies.

Then came a step that I really should get excited about. Wasn't excited Wednesday night, but I guess I'm getting there now. It's when I nailed together the replacement casing for the doorway to the kitchen and got it nailed into the ragged, nasty opening that's been taunting me for months and years on end.

New casing ready to rise

This casing is the thickness of the wall, unlike its predecessor

Fun, fun, the new white pine had a little warpage and on neither side did the jamb pieces automatically snug up to the edge of the cutouts in the plywood over-floor.  And they had to, or the plinth blocks would be sticking out into the opening.

Warped at the bottom

Blocked and shimmed into submission

Didn't feel like messing with it then.  I saved the fun for Thursday night.  Got them persuaded out as well as I could, but I think some caulk will be in order on the left side.

Other than that, Thursday and today, the jollification has been with the face trim in the northwest corner, between the portal to the living room and the doorway to the kitchen.  It was a bit of a Chinese puzzle, how it was all supposed to go back together, and I was glad I took pictures back in 2008 when I took it down.   There ensued a saga of blocking and shimming which I won't bore you with (though I have to say it amused me to be putting the original blocking back in, especially the pieces I used to test shellac colors)..  Some of it had to be done twice in the same place, when I realized (in time, thank God) that what the woodwork needed for proper reassembly was not notching and cutting and trimming, but a bit more blocking and shims behind a piece I'd already nailed up.

(Gimme that pry bar, will you?)

2nd attempt. This butt joint was really off before.

Finally together

So finally the vertical pieces are back up in the northwest corner, left of the kitchen doorway.

Not so the jamb trim on its righthand side.  It's overlapped by the nosing of the hall bench, and a notch was put in in days of yore so the trim could slide in between the bench nosing and the wall.  But when I test-fitted it, the trim sat a quarter of an inch too high.  In relation to its plinth, in relation to the head casing, in relation to the jamb trim to the left side of the doorway.  Weird.  Had no compunction about taking the Dremel and bringing the notch the required distance higher.  This piece of trim is presently down on the basement sawhorses in the process of receiving a few coats of shellac on the enlarged notch.

Enlarged bench notch in progress.  Dremel battery needed to recharge

But in addition to this, I couldn't get it to sit snug to the horizontal trim at the end of the bench.  Kept rocking, with the bench seat as its fulcrum. On Thursday I thought it had a bump I'd have to take out to get it to work.  But bother that.  The level says it's straight.  Silly to start butchering the woodwork.  Just pry the horizontal trim off and reinstall it flush left to the jamb trim once it's up.  Still have no idea why the gap is there, but since it is, it can go in the dark corner and get a bead of clear caulk.  Easier and less destructive that way.

A little retrograde motion

Well, easier and less destructive until I cracked the board down the middle prying it off.  I'll do my best to hold the pieces together and put it back up as is.  If I have to glue or fasten them, I'll ruin the shellac job.

That's all for tonight.  Once I get that jamb trim up, it really would be nice to get the lintels up.  The lack of them is what has been so glaring from the neighbors' porch.  But the way the cornices are mitred together, it may take an extra pair of hands.   Or two.

It's not like I don't still have plenty to do in there without tackling that . . .

Something, at Least

Starting this past weekend I, for the first time since mid-February, have gotten some work done on the house.

Wax on, drying

Saturday I only got a coat of floor wax onto the main stairs (which I gave a fresh coat of shellac in January) and the painted hallway floor.  Exhausting, and it took an absurd amount out of me.  Not sure if it did much good.  Actually, now it picks up footprints where it didn't before.

Buffed out, more or less

Never mind.  It's reversible.  I'll deal with it later.


















Then the past three days I've been putting trim back up in the hallway.  Yes, really.  Bit by bit, and my brain is still so fried from coughing that I have to stop whenever things get too complicated, but it's getting there.

 Sunday, two pieces of baseboard nailgunned on.  This is to the left side of the doorway to the front room.

Lined up with stair stringer

Gap between floor and wall filled with old paint stirrers!

Baseboards nailed up

Yesterday, blocking added to the head of the doorway to the kitchen, and shims cut for the baseboard to the right of the door to the front room.

Blocking to nail the head trim to

Gap shimmed on the righthand side

Tonight, nailed up the plinths for this doorway, the righthand baseboard, and the righthand jamb trim.  Also took a rag and some walnut-tinted shellac and touched up the places where I'd damaged the shellac job while redoing the floor.  Of course I managed to knock the cup of shellac over and spill it on the floor, but I had a rag handy and wiped it up.  Any residue I can take some alcohol to later.  I mean, I don't think alcohol will damage an acrylic finish . . .

A lot more shimming is needed before I go any further.  The doorway to the kitchen is a Chinese puzzle, the way the trim fits together.  And I haven't got the concentration or the stamina to work it out tonight.

But this is something.