More Treasures

We spent a good part of the day cleaning up so the woodwork can get sprayed this week.

While cleaning one of the radiators, She Who Must Be Obeyed found this thing stuck between the radiator and the wall.

It was jammed in there pretty tight, so it took me a while to find the right tool that would hook the fabric and allow me to pull it out.

It looks like one of those tubes of buckwheat that you can heat up and wrap around your sore neck. And it has a stylish plaid flannel cover. Who knows how it ended up there.

We'll add it to the other treasures we've found and the $1.68 we have in lint-covered change from the laundry room.

They'll make a fabulous prize pool for something. I'm not sure what...

New Carriage House Doors

The new carriage house doors arrived today. Installation is about half done, so they don't open quite yet.

I'm extremely happy with how they look. They are a dead ringer for the old ones.

We ought to be able to get cars in the garage this weekend!!!

Removing Wall Coverings

There were some places in the living room where the cracks in the plaster looked a bit wonky. We were concerned that the plaster was falling apart, but we got lucky.

As we poked around near the cracks, it turned out that the walls were covered in "wall paper". It really appeared to be more of a fabric than paper. And, of course, was covered in many layers of paint.

The plaster underneath is bare, so this may be original. Fortunately in most spots the adhesive had failed, so it came off quite easily. It shouldn't take much prep for painting. We probably can just wipe or sand off the adhesive residue and we're good to go.

The panel molding is in great shape, except for the paint that's on it. It's Peach, just like the walls. And the same sheen as the walls. And has an orange peel texture like they painted it with a roller. In addition, most of the crown is painted in dead-flat ceiling white.

To the right of the door in the picture, all the paper has been removed. Above and left of the door it's still there.

It should look a little better when we're done. ;-)

Priceless

2000 square feet of builder's paper - $40.

2000 yards of masking tape - $150.

Me not having to stand on this scaffolding - Priceless.

Bill is getting a bunch of rooms prepared for painting: the Dining Room, Living Room, Entry, Front Hall, Main Staircase, and upstairs Front Hall (pictured). I'm glad it's him on this scaffolding and not me.

It's not that I'm afraid of heights; I'm just afraid of falling...

Doing the prep for painting the woodwork is my least favorite thing, so I'm more than happy to have someone else do it.

Carriage House Door Headers

The opening and the ceiling are at the same height, so without modification a standard garage door won't work. Nor will the "quick-turn" short radius tracks.

So Johnny was here last week putting in headers that create the necessary clearance. They are all clear cedar, just like the doors and should last at least as long as I do...

The doors have been built and are being primed at the shop. The final coat of paint will go on in the spring. As will the paint on the headers.

The doors should be ready to install next week.

Carriage House Doors

From the time we moved in, only one of the carriage house doors has worked.  The others have various problems and don't open so we can't get all the cars in.  The one pictured opens, but it is in bad shape along the bottom edge.

The doors are traditional carriage house doors.  The rightmost panel swings open like a normal door while the two on the left open into the garage like bi-fold closet doors.

Being a lazy slug, I'd like to not have to open and close the doors manually.  So keeping the existing mechanism isn't going to work.

As we've been looking at different options, a company looking to get back into the midwest market approached us about using their product.  It's a single piece garage door that kicks outward at the bottom before rotating and sliding back at the top.  The reason why it works well in California is because they don't have to shovel the snow out of the way to get the door open.  Needless to say, that style of door isn't an option for us.

We did find a company who can reproduce  the look of these doors, but use a standard multi-panel rolling mechanism.

And the HPC has approved it.

So the project has begun.