What's This?

We've found some interesting things when doing various projects. No big piles of money, but we're up to about $1.68 in change. Most of that was found in semi-animate blobs of lint and other unidentifiable stuff in the laundry room...

I've also learned to be very careful when doing demolition near or below a bathroom. I can't count the number of razor blades I've found in the wall. Apparently the slot in the old medicine cabinets was often used as a place to dispose of old razor blades - they just fall into the wall cavity. It's a good reminder to wear sturdy gloves when you're digging around in the debris too.

This thing has me stumped. I have no idea what it is. It's about 1/8-inch thick, though it tapers to a point at the sharp end. At it's widest point it's 5/8-inch wide.

I'm offering a reward of a lint-covered pile of change to anyone who can tell me what it really is. :-)

New Closet

We finished most of the closet framing last weekend when my Dad was over. It's tough to get stuff done during the week - life gets in the way. So I finished up the framing this morning. Once again, we're salvaging stuff we removed earlier - this time some doors. We roughed the openings perfectly; the door frames slipped in like a glove and will hardly need any shims.

This afternoon I went out "skating" on the glaze iced roads to get the remaining materials. I should have listened to the weather forecast last night...

And after nearly killing myself on the icy steps, I hung the rock and got the first coat of compound on.

Glued and Screwed

When She Who Must Be Obeyed says, "We can do that...", you know who "we" is...

Our old dining room table was nice, but it wasn't the right style. It was also too small for the size of this dining room - it looked like you were transported back to kindergarten where everything is undersized.

We found a better/larger table & chairs at H and B, but the chairs needed some work. The back legs on most of them were loose. Because I only have one set of bar clamps, I've been fixing one chair a day for the last several weekends. The dining room has become a makeshift workshop while I take the take the seat off, gently separate the sides and front legs from the back, re-glue the joints, screw them back together, clamp them up, and let the glue dry overnight. The next morning the clamps are removed, the seat is re-installed, and I do it all again on the next one. After having fixed ten of them, I can get one done before everyone else is up for breakfast...

Poly the Floor

Got up early this morning and finished sanding the floor. It sanded out nicely and I put the first coat of polyurethane on tonight. So far it looks really good and it will need a couple more coats.

In between, I did a whole bunch of other stuff. The base shoe is missing, incorrect, or in bad shape in a number of rooms and we're replacing it with new that we had milled at Scherer Brothers. My Dad came over this afternoon and he removed the old base shoe in a couple of rooms while I salvaged some baseboard and cap from a back bedroom. Later in the weekend we'll be using what I salvaged to patch where I removed some doors and a closet a while back. Then we can install the new base shoe everywhere.

I also tried valiantly to insulate the gap between the baseboard and floor boards on the curved wall in the master bedroom. The cold air has been rushing in because there has been no base shoe since we moved in. Unfortunately, the gap is big and there's little to adhere to so the foam keeps falling down the wall cavity. At least the dining room walls are getting insulated... :-)

Demo the Corner Closet - part 3

Finished the demolition tonight. Finally.

Once the old studs were removed, you could see that all the base moldings are still intact. This closet is definitely not original. Also notice the old striped wallpaper just above the base molding. There is also a paper border here and there with a floral motif.

I also started sanding the floor so that it matches where we had the floors refinished. Once again, I ran out of time and supplies - making a run to Menards for sandpaper just before they closed. At least I have everything to get an early start tomorrow.

My Dad is coming over in the afternoon so we can tackle a bunch of things this weekend...

Demo the Corner Closet - part 2

Life is what happens while you're making other plans.

Demolition of the closet continues at a slower than expected pace.

But the more I demolish, the more history we come across.

Today I removed all the plaster from the exterior walls of the closet. Now we can really tell that the closet isn't original construction. The cornice at the top of the window and the ledge at the sill were perfectly preserved behind the plaster for the closet wall. There were some hooks screwed to 1x3s about midway up the wall inside the closet. After I removed the hooks, I removed the 1x3s and found that the old wallpaper was still there. You can also see the original room color on the lower half of the wall and base molding inside the closet. And the base molding looks more and more like it is unmolested behind the closet walls.

Demo the Corner Closet

One of the bedrooms has an interesting little closet in the corner. It's cool, but not very functional. There are also a couple of things about it that just don't seem right. Regardless, we decided to remove it and build a more functional closet.

Last night I began the demolition by carefully removing shelves inside the closet and the base moldings on the outside. And what did I find?

The base molding on the main wall continues right through the closet wall. This closet is not original! Looking closely at the backside of the plaster work on the inside of the closet, it's obviously old because of the wooden lath, but it is definitely not original construction.

Now I don't feel so bad about ripping this out and replacing it.

Kitchen Chandelier

The last project of 2009 is also the first project of 2010...

The old light fixture above the kitchen table was a ceiling fan with a four-can spot-light kit. Another bulb had burned out recently (each one in the fixture was a different type - not a different manufacturer, a different type: spot light, normal incandescent bulb, flame tip incandescent, and compact fluorescent) and I couldn't get it out to change it. The bulb was stuck in the socket and the socket turned along with the bulb.

I didn't like the ceiling fan anyway and it apparently hadn't been cleaned since the house was built, so I decided to replace it with the chandelier we removed from the study. Because the kitchen had been remodeled in the 1980s, I naively assumed that this would be an easy task.

Of course, when I removed the fan and the ceiling medallion, I discovered why this is the only ceiling medallion in the house... It's covering up the extra hole from where the fixture used to be. I also needed an electrical hickey to adapt the old chandelier to the new fixture box. So I had to rush off to the store before they close on New Years Eve to get the hickey. Of course, there wasn't enough time to install it before we headed out to our gatherings, thus making this job span two years. ;-)

I finished the installation this morning after deciding not to fix the other hole - the medallion covers it nicely and we're going to gut the kitchen; hopefully soon!

You'll note the missing door on the cool old cabinets in the background. That's because some of the hinges were installed upside down and the hinge pins fall out on occasion... Fortunately none of the doors have fallen off and injured anyone. As a preventative measure I've removed the door where all the hinges were installed incorrectly.