Wood Innovations

They innovate wood.  

Actually, what they do is almost the opposite of innovation.  They specialize in re-creation.  Specifically the re-creation of historic woodwork.  

I've been here enough that they know me by name. They've milled almost every stick of woodwork we've put in this house so far. And now they're making some panels for me. The dining room windows that the previous contractor finished out just aren't good. The wood he used is knotty and the joints are a mess. 

I've said from the beginning of this that I'm not putting anything in this house that is essentially passing the buck onto future owners. Sure, we could have puttied the crap out of his work before painting it making it look good, but if any owner ever came along and wanted to strip the paint and stain the woodwork, they either wouldn't be able to or would have to replace the shoddy panels. I don't want to be the guy that someone 50 years from now curses at for doing shitty work. Granted, it may happen anyway. Especially if anyone tries to tear into the walls I've plastered. They'll break a sweat and probably a few tools trying to get my work to come down.

drum light

See. I'm not always historically accurate.

New Ikea hallway light upstairs. I added brown ribbon trim to it to make this $30 light look like a $300 light I'd seen online.

This is the same hallway I was fixing the contractor's work so while I was at it I decided to move the light from it's original location about a foot away and more centered. When I took down the light that was there, the old gas pipe and (cut) knob and tube wiring was still there (the house originally had all gas/electric combination light fixtures). So I broke my own rules of maintaining originality by moving it. I OK with it mostly because I can't figure out why they hung the original light so off-center and so far down to one end of the hallway.

topographic ceiling

The amount of shoddy work our last contractor, Neil, left us with is killing me. This is the ceiling patch as he left it and after I fixed it.

Thin and cracked

Well, look at that. 

Our ceilings were wallpapered.  

Correction: are wallpapered. But covered with a thin coat of plaster that doesn't like to be messed with.

Begin mantra: 
I will resist the temptation to redo the entire ceiling.  

I will resist the temptation to redo the entire ceiling.  

I will resist the temptation to redo the entire ceiling.  

I will resist the temptation to redo the entire ceiling.  

Post post

What do you do when you need a drill press but don't have one? 

Simple! Build one! 

We've got a metal bedframe that I want to raise up. I cut and stained some 4x4 wood that will act as leg extensions. The metal frame legs will go into the tops of these. Only problem is that I need to drill perfectly straight holes that are all the exact same depth in all the leg extensions. 

That would be easy if I had a drill press. Instead I built a jig that the leg fits snuggly inside and attached a drill guide to the top. Voila.

I'm finally coming out of the closet

I've been holding out on you guys. There's been an ongoing project that I haven't posted about mostly because I'm slightly embarrassed by it. In hindsight, what was there was fine. But my OCD got the best of me. 

I moved the door to our closet exactly 3" to the right.  That's right.  Three Inches

Best pic i have of closet door
 before on the right.
The trim goes right into the corner.   

Closet door after it's been
moved 3 inches to the right. 

I knew I wanted to replace the trim on the interior of the closet. It was trimmed in simple 1x2 pieces of wood and since doing the window in there, I wanted the door to match. But the wall the door is in has been covered in drywall on top of the plaster. And when they added the drywall, they just cut around the trim which meant the trim was actually flush with the wall.

So to install new trim, I'd have to take out the door, build a jamb extension to make it fit the actual wall depth (it's about 1.5" thicker than it was when the door was installed) and then reinstall the whole thing. So I took the 1x3 plain casing that was inside the closet, trimmed it down, added it to the jamb and, voila, jamb extension.

 

 Since I didn't want to mess with saving old plaster like I did last time, I went ahead and ripped out every bit of plaster that wasn't covered in drywall and then some. Then I thought, "hey, it's always bugged me that the door is right in the corner so why not move it over a little." So I did. Then reinstall jamb, add new lathe and wire mesh, plaster, install new casing, wood putty, caulk and paint. 

 

 The surprising thing about this project is that there were no surprises. At least none that added work to the project. The only real surprise was figuring out that this door had always been there and always been a closet door. When I took off the plaster inside the closet you could tell there was a small closet there. Except if you would have opened the door in 1899, you would have been greeted with a closet that was the exact width of the door and maybe 20" deep. That's why the trim on the closet side of the door was so plain: no one would ever see it. And at some point, someone felt the need to make it feel even smaller and painted that little closet a very dark forest green.

Oh, and the closet, that I started on in November, is finally done. Well, the baseboards need replaced, but I'm at the screw-it stage.

 

 

 

Hair Plaster

Yes. They really did used to use hair as a binder in plaster. Though I'm torn as to whether this is human or horse. If it's human, red hair dye must have been the rage in 1899 St. Louis. I've found some blonde and brown hair in the plaster that's come down but the majority of it is this reddish stuff.

I'm trying to cope

I've brought the green beast, my Hitachi 12" sliding compound mitre saw,  into the house to help facilitate a hastening to the end of this dining room project.  

Last night I attempted my first cope cut in 9 years. (That's the professional way carpenter's cut crown molding corners so they fit together like puzzle pieces) And with this crown moulding I won't be doing it again. The top of the curve is almost level with the ceiling which means for the corner this piece to fit perfectly against another piece of crown, I had to back cut the this piece until the top of the curve was paper thin. And it still isn't completely snug. The rest of the room will be miter cuts.

Coped Corner

Mitered Corner

Rack o' wood

When you buy wood trim like you buy toilet paper at Costco, a wood rack comes in awfully handy.  

We'd made a dent in the stockpile of the reproduction stuff but then we bought enough giant cove moulding to finish the first floor. Most of it won't be going up for some time. Crown moulding wasn't in the original house nor was it in our plans for the first floor because there just wasn't enough space between the top of the window casing and the ceiling. 

Then we discovered that the ceilings were about 4" lower than the original. Now with all the ceiling layers removed in the dining room, there's plenty of space for crown molding. But the living room ceiling and kitchen ceiling (which is a full 12" lower) are staying put for now.

To give you an idea how big this cove moulding is that's going in the dining room, here's my size 13 foot and the crown moulding we put in the master bedroom.