Fit And Trim

    Ed began putting the door knobs on the interior doors this week. With 18 doors, this was a two day job. We are using door knobs that match the exterior door lock sets from Emtek. They are the Old Town glass knobs, with the Arts and Crafts series rosette, in aged bronze.

   Once that was done, he began putting up trim around doors and windows. He started with the upstairs arched windows, but I've been unable to get a decent photo because of the backlight coming in through the window. I'll need to wait until it's dark outside. This time of year, that's around 10 p.m. and I'm sound asleep.

  The door trim looks amazing! The crown molding is going together very easily, thanks to the construction hot glue gun that Ed is using. And the fit is spot on.

 

The glue gun was recommended by several construction-savvy folks. Dan, our son-in-law and Michael, a friend in Sonora, both said it would take the stress out of putting up wood trim, and they were right. It's a HiPURformer hot glue gun http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/2004007/9041/HiPURformer-Glue-Gun-Kit.aspx . Ed has been using the ww30 glue, which has a 30 second set time. He glues the crown molding and mitered corner to the head casing while it's on the workbench, then nails it in place as one piece.
   My week was less productive. I spent two days in Astoria looking at granite and one day at the dentist. The granite is a big stressor. It's expensive and a permanent choice so I'd better not mess up. The wood in the cabinets is dark, the floors are lighter but not much. Do I choose a dark granite or something lighter...dramatic grain or understated...2 cm or 3?

   I also began plotting the tile around the fireplace. Tiling the fireplaces is my job and I want to do it without depending on Ed, but I also don't want to mess it up. I drew out the header and keystone pieces on graph paper, then will cut them out of slate 12x12 tiles. It's similar to the technique used for making a stained glass pattern.

   I am also making the head casing for the upstairs family room door. It will be similar to the one in the apartment. I found that carbon paper (Remember carbon paper?) wouldn't leave a mark on finished wood, so I had to get another piece of unfinished hemlock and trace the pattern. Then, using a small router, I cut out the words and figures. I painted the words and the white on the eagles, being very careful to not bleed paint up onto the higher surface of the board. Then I used a dark walnut stain for the birds' bodies, and let it dry. Once it was dry I stained the board to match the rest of the trim. Just before quitting time yesterday, I gave the whole thing a coat of spar varnish. If in five years we decide we don't like it, we can always pop it off and put up a plain piece.

Loggers, Bloggers, and Sloggers

    When we moved to the country, we anticipated the quiet, bucolic landscape. We looked forward to the wildlife, the sound of the wind in the trees, the peace. A year later, the state sold the timber on the land across the road from us, the logging began, and has been intermittent ever since. I know that logging is the life blood of this area, but semis at 0300, road graders and gravel haulers weren't quite what I had in mind. Fortunately they are usually done for the day by 3:00 p.m. and the evenings are less hectic. They  wrap up a project in the fall, just in time for hunting season and the logging road once again turns into a freeway. I wonder who I have to bribe to get a gate on that dirt road?

 
 I've finished my stint in The Dungeon. I've stained and varnished over a half mile of trim, and 18 door frames and doors. Well..half true. Ed sprayed the urethane on the doors. What a blessing!
  Ed took a few days last week and went to Montana to help a friend with a project. I thought I would be able to finish it all while he was gone. Wrong! There was just too much of it. But it's done now. Yea!

  Tuesday the kitchen and living room cabinets were delivered. I couldn't help myself. We kind of shoved them into place to get a feel for how it would look. We couldn't put the island pieces in the middle because the bottoms still have to be drilled for drains etc. These things are heavy! I admire women who can get through the tough jobs, and I'd like to think I could help Ed get these installed. It's not a realistic goal. Ed will get someone a lot stronger than I am to help.

   The living room cabinets were also delivered. That consists of a bookcase on either side of the fireplace with Craftsman style glass doors, and similar cabinets for the foyer. We took the glass doors off to move the cabinets around, but oh, this is going to look so nice!

Ed has been hanging doors for the last two days. There are 16 regular doors and two sets of bi-fold doors. These are the pantry doors.

We've been keeping an eye on a blog that is chronicling a similar home project, http://hoodlumhouse.blogspot.com/   They may just make it into their house before we do, and that's ok. Ed is a one man band and has been slogging through various stages of this project. First he had to build a barn, so he'd have a place for tools, tractors and furniture storage. Then he had to rip off the roof to the garage and build an apartment so we'd have a place to live during the house project. In the meantime he commuted 800 miles each way to work each week and worked like a madman on the project when he was at home. He's been working on the house for 18 months and is at the point where he just wants it to be done. He wants it to be done right, but we both feel like moving day is a dream. Sometimes I think we need to stop and look at the road that got us here to appreciate the path ahead. So here's to loggers, bloggers, and sloggers. We'll cut it down, build it up, and write it out.

Good News, Bad News

     All the tile is now grouted, with the exception of the powder room. In fact, it doesn't even have tile yet. It seems I made a serious error in calculations, and need two more boxes of the mosaic basketweave tile. Home Depot says the bad news is, they're out of stock. The good news is they expect to have it mid-July..or September, depending on who you talk to. Now the question is...do I wait and trust them to come through or go find a replacement product and move on?
    The foyer was almost the last of the travertine. Because of the size of the tiles and the layout, Ed decided to put a hardwood border around the foyer, then lay the tiles.

  Once the foyer was done, Ed took the last pieces of travertine, definitely not the stellar pieces, and finished the closet in the downstairs guest room. The bad news was,  he was one tile short. The good news was, the porcelain tile for the craft room is in the style of the  travertine, and the same size. I doubt anyone will even be able to pick that piece out.... unless they read this first.

   John from Entek Heating came out this week to put the finishing touches on the heating and air conditioning system. He charged the heat pump, installed the thermostat keypads, set the zones, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I don't get.  Ed was as happy as a pig in mud. He asked a million questions and generally hung out and watched, which is good. None of it made any sense to me and he'll be the one to tinker with it anyway.

 

     I stalled out on putting finish on all the trim. I was a little overwhelmed with the number of doors that needed a coat of urethane, sanding, and a second coat of urethane. Ed wanted to spray them but the weather hasn't been cooperative. Finally, I found a method posted on the internet which described using metal L brackets to hook the doors together for spraying.  
    Ed says "I don't have L brackets, but that gives me a great idea."
 

   And it was. He put heavy plastic down on the floor of the basement shop. Then he used wood blocks to put the doors up like a folding screen. Then he got out the airless sprayer and sprayed the doors in short order. The only problem he encountered was that the Helmsman spar urethane was so thick that the compressor had to work overtime to pump it through and began to overheat.  The next day we sanded them with 220 grit sandpaper. After making a few adjustments to the sprayer, Ed gave them a second coat of urethane. What a relief to have them done!

     Ed is going to take a few days for a  well-deserved visit to some friends, while I will be home with cat/dog/chicken duty.  I will be working on getting one coat of urethane on the rest of the wood trim.  When he gets home we'll start hanging doors, trimming out windows and installing baseboards. 
   The good news is, yesterday was glorious weather, blue sky and 84*. It was perfect weather for the Dollars For Scholars Rod And Reel, a car show and sturgeon derby. The bad news is, today we're back to cloudy skies. Will summer ever come?

Sister Brigit Comes Inside

   Yes, I know it hasn't been a week since I've made an entry, but so much has happened in the last few days I just couldn't wait.
   The first cabinet delivery came on Monday. We were blessed with good weather in the morning...just enough time to get everything inside.  The craft room island was a tight fit, but they muscled it in without damage.

   I know it's a little self-occupied but I couldn't help but to admire the craft room island. There are large and small racks for my stained glass pieces, and project drawers on the left. There will be cabinet doors over the glass rack to protect any little inquisitive fingers from a nasty cut. On top on the right side, Ed will probably put in a light table. I'm so excited!

  Today's delivery was for the craft room and the bath room vanities. I love how the toekicks came out on the vanities. They look great with the shaker style cabinet doors.
   Ed finished tiling the upstairs bathrooms. The tile is setting and we're waiting to grout.
   While the weather is holding, Ed decided  it would be a good time to do one of the jobs we have been dreading: move the antique stove into the house.  This is a 1920s Magic Chef 1000 with two ovens and 6 burners. For 10 years I've dreamed about having this in my kitchen.

    Because it weighs between 500-600 lbs, Ed wanted to get it in before he put down the travertine in the foyer. The plan is to forklift it up onto the porch and roll it on a dolly through the foyer, down the hall and into the kitchen.
   I started by clearing a path in the garage where the stove has lived for the last five years. That alone was no small chore. The garage has become the storage place for stuff for the house...furniture, bath fixtures.

   We got it through the garage without any huge problems, and Ed brought the tractor around to pick it up. Here's where I start to twitch, because I have visions of this thing toppling over and smashing into a gazillion pieces. It's built so solidly we could probably just pick it up, brush it off and it would be fine. But with his usual finesse, Ed moved it to the porch without a hitch. He set it down right on the dolly. We put plywood on the floor inside the house, and began rolling it into place.
   We had a similar stove at a previous home, and I loved it. We were looking for parts for that stove (not easy to find) when we found out that a convent
nearby was closing and they wanted to sell their stove. I called them right away.
   "Sr. Mary Margaret, how much do you want for that stove?" I asked.
   "Oh, I don't know.....$200?" she said.
    I gasped! "Lock the doors, don't let anybody in but us."
   We'll probably burn in Hell for ripping off the nuns.
   In atonement, and with affection, I've named the stove Sr. Brigit. My hope is to cook many memorable meals with her help.  
   Ed is beginning the tile in the foyer this morning, and I will be in The Dungeon applying varnish to wood.

Fingers To The Bone II

 
 With all the tile down in the laundry/craft room, it was time to break out the grout and begin one of many "favorite" jobs. Ed started with the dog wash because he wanted to get the worst part over first. Me...I usually save the worst for last when I'm tired and crabby anyway.

   Ed smeared the grout in, while my job was to trail behind by about 20 minutes to wipe it down. It didn't take as long as we expected. By the afternoon, we were able to wipe the haze off the tile. Mittens came in to check it out. It's been several weeks since she broke her little foot, and she still holds it up. I say little foot...as you can see, she's polydactal (6 toed) and they are pretty sizable. She limps especially hard if anyone goes near the treat bag. Little beggar..
   In retrospect I probably should have picked a grout that was a little darker I chose "A;mond".  I'll seal it  and hope for the best.

 I began the grout-wiping with nice new latex gloves, a nice new sponge, and a clean bucket of water. By the time we were done with the room, the gloves were full of water and in the trash, the bucket of water had been changed about a hundred times, and I had managed to sand the ends off my fingertips. Just a little note: Never, never peel fresh garlic if you have just sanded off the ends of your fingers. It hurts like the dickens.

   I also managed to finish staining the doors this week. We bought stain grade douglas fir Simpson doors. I didn't anticipate such a variance in grain. I used Minwax pretreat first, then Minwax stain. Still, the doors have a much more rustic look than I had expected. But, we're building a home for friends and family, we're not building a mansion, so maybe rustic is what we want. If we were building a mansion, we'd be paying someone else to do all the work!



 
I've been looking (mostly on-line)  for a few area rugs, and stumbled on a great consignment shop in Astoria. Home Interior Consignments, owned by Kelly Sause, has a great selection of almost-antique furniture and area rugs. The prices are very reasonable so I brought home three.
   For the living room, I found a tribal rug with a very good color match.

  The rug for the family room was made in Nepal. The wool pile is divine, and the center pattern reminds me of southwest Native American pottery designs.

 The rug for the library area is 6' square, give or take a little, and is also a tribal rug.
    The first thing Midnight had to do was inspect the new rugs. This made me a little nervous. Since they weren't new rugs, I was afraid he would smell another cat's scent and decide to assert himself. He walked around them all, sniffed for a few minutes, then settled right in and made himself at home. All's well!
   Ed laughed because he's still in construction mode and I've jumped ahead to moving in. Ok, ok, I'll fold up the rugs and try to be patient.

 

   While I was shopping for rugs, Ed was doing the real work. He tiled the floor of the upstairs guest room. We'll have to wait a few days to grout...probably just about the time my fingers heal.

   Tomorrow, the first of the cabinets will be delivered. Things are really starting to happen in a hurry.

Working His Fingers To The Bone

    Just for the record, it's still raining, although we did get two days with actual sun this week. It was glorious.
 
 Woodfloor Masters showed up Tuesday to start putting down the floor. In no time at all they had paper down and flooring spread all over the place. I've not seen professionals put down a floor before, so I didn't know how it's done. They lay it out, very closely together, and then start knocking it in place and nailing it down.

   By Wednesday evening they had the downstairs done. The acacia flooring is just amazing. The nature of the wood is such that none of the pieces are very long. The longest ones are about 48", but the grain is so active that your eye doesn't really focus on the shorter pieces. The crew was good about putting the shortest pieces in a pile and using them where the cabinets and island will go, or in the closets.






   Friday night, both the upstairs and downstairs were finished. The crew wiped down the floor, picked up their trash, gave us a big wave and took off.  Ed and I walked the floor looking at all the different swirls and colors in the grain.
   Saturday morning, I gave the floors a wipe with the swiffer and put down protective paper in the most traveled areas. I tried putting booties on the dog, but if you've ever tried to get mittens on a 3 year old on Christmas Morning, you'll have a good idea of how that went.

   I'm still working in the basement, or as I've re-named it...The Dungeon. By the time I finish daily household chores and get down there to work, I'm good for anywhere between three to four doors a day. I stained three on Thursday, had a road trip for supplies on Friday, and did two yesterday afternoon. Only 13 more to go.

   We need to get the laundry/craft room and bathrooms tiled so we can bring in the first set of cabinets. Ed is the tile setter.  He put 1/4" wonderboard down first. All of the wonderboard and tile is a reminder of why we decided to pay someone else to do the hardwood floor. Everything is tough on either the back or knees.
   After the wonderboard is down, Ed very carefully figured out where his control line was. The first row has to go down perfectly to keep everything else in check, otherwise the tile takes on a life of it's own and winds up all over the place.

      As he was hauling out the first bag of thinset, Ed says "Hey Theresa, where is your Kitchen Aid mixer? I can't find it."
    Now I'm starting to get a lump in my throat because I really like my mixer, but I love Ed. What to do!!??
   "Nah...." he says, "Just kidding."
   That rat!

   Friday morning, the first tile, one of many, went down, and he began his task in earnest.  Friday afternoon he placed the last piece in the laundry room.









  At the end of the day as he was cleaning up he says "Man, the end of my finger is really sore, but I don't remember cutting it."
   As I thought about how he did each tile I realized he buttered the back of the tile, wiped the edges clean of thinset and then placed the tile. Since the thinset is essentially sanded cement, he had literally sanded the skin off the end of his finger. Ouch!
  Saturday he did the floor in the adjacent bathroom, with a bandaid on his finger and a piece of cardboard for cleaning up the edges.

 Monday he'll start on the other bathroom floors. We're hoping to get the grouting done later this next week so we can have the first cabinets delivered the week after.

   In the meantime, I'll be working in The Dungeon.

NOAA's Ark or More Showers

        NOAA says we're completing year two of La Nina, and that the weather should return to normal by the first of June. I'm not putting my boat away any time soon. It's Mother's Day and the forecast calls for rain and thunder all day.
   This week, with 32 hours on the books, I finished staining 3,110 linear feet of wood trim. Not varnished, just stained. We were hoping for a couple of clear windless days to take all the boards outside and spray on the finish. But I just don't see that happening any time soon. My guess is that I'll be applying it by hand. Did I mention the interior door jambs and doors need to be done too?

 
 Ed has finished the travertine showers. He's going to wait until the floors are down to grout everything at once. Just a caveat for those cutting travertine for the first time: If you have a piece that needs to be cut-and-fit, be sure to check for natural fracture lines before deciding which edge of the tile to cut. Once in a while, that stuff will break like a saltine cracker.

   He's done the walk-in shower downstairs and the guest bathroom upstairs in walnut travertine. Then he moved on to my favorite, the silver travertine, which is in our bathroom. It's delicious. It also doesn't seem to be quite as loose as walnut. By that I mean it seems to be less fractious. I can hardly wait to see it all done with the floor and grout!

  The wood floor installers will be here next week so Ed is trying to get everything up on the ceiling that needs to be there. He installed the speakers for the sound system, smoke detectors, heat detector, spider detector...just kidding on that one.  I was able to get two ceiling fans at Lowe's, and am waiting for two more.

   We have used CFL bulbs where we can. We noticed something odd in the bathrooms. Those bathrooms that were painted Sensational Sand, previously tan/brown, now looked purple. not a bad purple, but definitely not the color we started with.  We had installed "soft white" CFL bulbs, and will be changing them out to "natural sun" to regain the original color.

 
 Saturday I went to town for groceries and Ed began installing the Steel Partners fixtures for the entryway, kitchen island and dining room. If you buy these lights, consider the size carefully. We ordered the small lights, and they are very substantial. They are beautiful strong statement pieces that will anchor the style of the house. You can see the island light to the left and the dining room light to the right, both still in the process of being installed.

   
 While out and about yesterday I stopped at a rummage sale, and bought four block prints from the 60's. The artist is noted only as "Ken". The style is pure Craftsman. At $1.00 each I could hardly leave them on the table. I'll  mat and frame them. They'll be perfect.