An October Surprise

Have you ever looked at a recipe and thought to yourself, "That sounds delicious, but it uses 68 different ingredients; I only have 35 of them, and would have to drive to a specialty store to find at least a dozen others, so... never mind."

That is how I felt about the latest project. I knew I was going to have to use ALL of the tools, which meant humping them up from the basement. I knew there was no way I was getting the back door down (and then up) from the basement, what with the bathroom door still in the way down there.

I'd gotten used to being able to leave the back door open this past summer though, and as a result, I got used to the light in the laundry/fridge room. I had an idea in my head to fix this, but dragged my feet, because like I mentioned, it was going to take ALL of the tools.

This past weekend all the stars lined up. My latest window was on it's way to NY so Ian could make sure it fit. (It did!)

The leaded side is fixed. The other side swings in as far as I know.
There's two windows with this setup, so I have to make 1 more fixed at this size and then 2 slightly smaller for the swinging side.

I'd removed trim from a 2nd window in the living room, but I wasn't in any hurry to spend what might be the last beautiful day of the fall in the basement. I decided it was time to tackle the back door.
There's projects that you do, and you get 95% of the way there, and then for whatever reason it stalls. I'm sort of there right now with the chimney upstairs - I'm going to put a skim coat of joint compound on it, but I need to wait for the InsulStick to really, truly cure. I was there on the stair way for a long time, unable to get the railing up (it's up now!). That is the deal with this door - I redid the back porch/mudroom a long while ago now, and it looks great. but I left the door, because at the time it was so cold out I didn't want to take it off to refinish it.

Saturday was a the day.

Before (from the inside). The whole room used to be painted this dirty light blue color.
It didn't clash too badly with the new paint color, so I let it go. But it had to be updated.

Like I said - all the tools. Drill with hole saw, jigsaw, orbital sander. Manual sanders. What a circus.

Just a note - I hate the hole saw. It's great at what it does, but sometimes if you force it ever so slightly, the blade stops dead and rips the drill out of your hands.

Luckily, there were only two holes to be made.

Very Carefully cut two parallel diagonal cuts to the corners, being Very Careful not to hit the molded edge.
At this point, I still didn't know if this was a floating panel door. If it was glued together, I was going to be... in for a very long project.

The clouds parted, and the panels fell out - It wasn't glued!

At this point I had an idea. If I could very carefully score the molding and cut it away from the door, I could reuse it when I put the glass in. Time for a fresh box cutter blade.

SUCCESS! Then remember to label all the little fiddly bits.
The funniest ones are labeled "Inside Left Left" and Inside Right Right"
(As seen from the inside, left panel, left side)

At this point, I sanded the crap out of the door. No pictures, but you can imagine the dust flying. It's why I wanted to make sure I did it outside if I could. It didn't need to be stripped (it's not that old); only maybe 2 other coats of paint on it. Thank goodness. I have 3.5 more full sized doors to strip, and it's just not a good time. At this point I dragged the door into the dining room.

I measured and cut the glass out of some old heavy-weight glass someone had given me that came out of an old curio cabinet. I can't use this significantly thicker stuff for the leaded windows, but for this it was perfect.

Photographing clear glass stinks. But trust me, when I dry-fit the glass in there, it fit.

 

After cutting the glass, I primed and panted both sides of the door. In this case I used PGG Gripper primer and Benjamin Moore "Advanced" Super White High Gloss (to match the rest of the painted doors and trim.) Gripper works fine for inside projects, and Advanced is great but for 2 things -
1) it has a Very Short Workability Window. It works like oil paint (which it is intended to replace) So you lay it down and move on. There's no touching it up or you're gong to lift the paint and it will look overworked. It is self-leveling on a horizontal surface, which is nice, and when left alone to cure out completely, it's a great finish. However, that cure time?
2) 6 hours to dry-to-the-touch, but can be days before it's fully cured, during which time you can easily leave dings, imprints, smudges, and palm prints. I know this, and I STILL mass up the surface because I get impatient, and it feels dry.
Anyway, at this point I'm done priming and painting.

All of my Sarco window glazing putty is dried out and full of goobers, so I made do with the black stained glass cement. It's not that this needs to be weatherproof, I just didn't want the glass to eventually rattle the door. It's sort of the same thing - an oil base with calcium powder, and in this case, colorant. Smooshed in a super-thin bed of putty and placed the glass.

I used push points for this one. Normally I use old-fashioned triangle points, but the weight of the glass + this being the primary door made me think that these more robust points were the way to go.

I placed the painted trim bits back in, and drilled pilot holes. There was no way I was going to get to this point and screw it up by not drilling pilot holes and splitting the tiny pieces of wood. Cardboard to make me feel better about being that close to glass with a drill and then a hammer.

Tapped in the tiny little finish nails with my tiny little carpet tack hammer. This was so nerve wracking. Thought about going and getting the nail set and really burying them, but then I got to thinking- they aren't obtrusive, and if (God Forbid) I ever have to get back under there, I'm going to need something for the needle nose pliers to grab onto. I'm going to leave them just a little proud of the surface.

This is the finish issue I mentioned earlier. It's hard to see in the photo (and in real life if the light isn't right) but you can see where I flipped the door over too soon to work on the other side. Even though I had cardboard and wax paper down to pad it, it still left a mark in the polish. I don't know if it's enough to warrant me going back and trying to brush another coat over this area.

As you can tell from the above picture, there was door hanging. But not before there was hinge shinnanigans. I wanted roil rubbed (or black) hinges to match the rest of the door hardware. and $10 wasn't a huge deal to replace the painted over bright brass ones. Off to Koopman's I went, got the 3.5" black hinges with the correct radius corners, can home and opened the package only to discover that they were all fixed. Meaning, I couldn't take the pin out. Meaning, as a person working alone there's no way on this green marble I was going to be able to mount the door myself. So I went to Lowe's. All of their hinges were fixed too. So I wound up at Home Depot, where thankfully they still stocked black, 3.5, "loose" hinges.

I got the fancy no-squeek ones.

And the door went up! With only a little fussing!

Inside facing out.

Open!

I really could not, in my wildest dreams, expect this project to go so well. To the point where I didn't want to talk about it, lest I jink it. The only thing that wasn't 100% was that stupid finish issue, and I'll probably be the only one who ever notices it. The panels came out like they wanted to. The glass mounted in like it was it's mission in life. The hardware all went back on with no fight. It cleaned up beautifully.

Before, from the original listing photos

After - lived in (obviously not staged), but I think nicer.

Tiny Progress

I always make a list headed into weekends, and I never actually complete the list of to-dos; what's left over simply rolls to the next weekend's list.

This was a fairly productive one though:
• cleaned out 90% of the perennial flower beds,
• caulked the 2nd floor windows,
• discovered that my ladder is not tall enough and I am not brave enough to get all the way up to the peak of the roof to wrestle the vent covers off and put mouse bait in, but I tried,
• repotted 3 house plants,
• killed a bunch of worms,
• cleaned up and relocated a bunch of worm castings that have been washing down a slope to back up on top of the slope,
• trimmed the privet, (I don't care if it's the wrong time of year, they were out of control),
• cut back the brush that grows up every summer,
• took the screens off,
• cleaned out 90% of the annual strip beds. The only thing left are the marigolds and zinnias, which are colorful and make me happy. (And are easy enough to pull up in the spring if we suddenly get 6" of snow.)

I dragged the door I'm working on out to the driveway just in time for it to start sprinkling, so I rushed it back into the house. Maybe I can finish that tonight. Crossing my fingers that that the weather clears up.

I didn't take many pictures because this is all so very... boring, really... but I did also start one of Ian's tall windows. This is the biggest one I've done so far, and I've learned a few things along the way - mainly that I don't have enough bench space to both lay out the window and cut the glass at the same time if I don't plan very carefully.

Typically, 4x6" panels are traditional for this era/location of window. There are 24 full 4x6's in this, and then it will be padded out with a narrow strip up the middle and across the top. You'll never be able to tell (and it might be difficult even in person,) but I've mixed in some vintage Victorian era glass in with the modern glass for character. There might not be much "wave" or movement in the glass, but it should present as a slightly different color in daylight. I *mangled* one sheet of Victorian glass cutting it down to 4x6's, but salvaged a number of pieces out of it.

I do wonder now if I should be using a beefier edge came for a window this size. I probably should have stepped it up to 1/2" for these. It will definitely need horizontal support bars.
Hrm.

Small putterings

It's time!

The Fall Shed Square

The foliage is not cooperating for a nice picture, but I put the new Shed Square up on the first day of Autumn. Now I have to start contemplating the Winter one. I think there will be a winter specific big square, with little holiday specific side panels. We'll see how much free time I have.

I'm still waiting on Bathroom Guy to be able to start. Living with a half-demo'd bathroom is starting to get old. A large spider had to be evicted earlier in the week before I could shower. I'm also starting to get a little worried because part of this requires the roof to come off over the bathroom.

One night a few weeks ago I started to feel restless, so I ripped the trim off from around one of the windows in the living room to see what I was dealing with. It's SO mush easier to take the trim down to strip it, rather than trying to strip it up on the wall.

Before.
(Actually the window right next to it, I forgot to take a real "Before" picture.)

After.

Someone was cutting corners.

You might have noticed in "After" that there's big weird patches of brown paper now exposed. That's because someone decided to caulk down Every. Stinking. Edge. of the trim. Not to original walls - this has been replaced with drywall. (see in the cutting corners picture.) At some point, someone gutted this room. Sort of. And then put the trim back up, without stripping it, but not before painting it with incompatible paint and basically gluing it to the wall. Which I've now ripped off.
I'm grateful they kept the trim.

Ian helped me out big time by cutting me a new window sill to match the existing one, since the old one was sort of beyond saving. I might wind up having him cut new ones for the other 4 windows in this room, depending on how much they fight me and what sort of shape they wind up being.

This weekend - Big plans!:
• Going to try to finish sanding that first Office door, so I can bring it in the house to prime/paint it.
• I've stripped the trim, now I have to sand the trim from this window, get it in the house to be primed and painted.
• Pull trim from Window #2 and strip it.

As well as:
• Pull the majority of the screens off the house and store them.
• Kill more worms (377 yesterday!)
• Repot a few plants that are coming back inside for the winter and get them upstairs, beyond the reach of the cat.
• Clean out the flower beds (may wait a few weeks for things to really go to seed)
• Start Tall Window #1 for Ian's shop

This girl knows how to have a Good Time.