Moving on.

I have talked to a few landscapers, and most of them deal with poison ivy infestations with the liberal use of chemicals.
Since my well is right in my front yard, I want to use as few hazardous chemicals as possible, so this isn't going to work.
I was in Home Depot last night, and may have found an answer though!

Sure, I'll cook, but at least I won't itch.

I've been trying to get away from disposable goods because filling landfills and oceans with our garbage is bad, but in this case, I'm making an exception.


Last night I wandered around upstairs and tried to force the sack of prednasone ferrets living in my brain to pay attention and make sense of the hardware and electricity situation.
A lot of doors were reconfigured on the front (oldest) part of the house. There's Norfolk latches on a few bedroom and closet doors that look identical to this example (taken from an Ebay auction out of Maine).

Eventually they will all be stripped of their generations of paint and look like this.

On those doors, there's lift off hinges that look a lot like these examples from Horton Brasses. At least, this is what I imagine they look like, under the paint. I haven't attempted to get any of these off to strip. On the doors with the lift off hinges, but no Norfolk latch, there's often a turnbuckle latch that looks an awful lot like this:

But in my case, covered in layers of paint.

In some cases, the turnbuckle has been replaces with a little Victorian spring assisted catch. Eventually, I'd like to get all the ones with evidence of a turnbuckle back to that - they are lower profile than the Victorian catches, and make more sense with the Norfolk latches and iron lift-off hinges.

I looked and looked at the wires, and have come to the conclusion that there's probably 2 electrical feeds to the second floor - a white cable that services the master bedroom, and a big thick black cable that services the rest of the rooms. I'm hesitant to start working on the rooms, because I'd really like the snake wires for switches, even if I leave the original pull chain fixtures where they are for now. I think that's going to take some more reading and noodling around in my head.
Probably best left to dealing with post-prednisone.

"A Simple Project"

More exciting holes!
I decided one thing I'm going to do this weekend is deal with the chimney clean out door. That's the little door at the bottom of your chimney that you open to clean out all the junk that gets swept down when it's cleaned. Mine is on the chimney that serves as the furnace exhaust, so it doesn't see heavy use, but still. It should be better. Usually these doors are cast iron, though now I see some on the market that are stainless steel.
This is how the door looked:

Yup. More tape. Electrical this time!

I was hoping to reuse the door that was there - just clean it up/reset it.
After prying it out of the hole (with only the force of my pointer finger) it became apparent that that was not going to work. A big part of the frame of the door is no longer there.

The back of the door (flopped over vertically).
Notice how the frame is gone at the top (would have been the bottom) and along the right (opening) side.

I'm going to need a new door. Not a big deal, they are between $30-$50. I  just need to know what size to get. I'll measure the hole. Terrific. Progress!

The hole! An 8" x 8" hole!

Ok! Now we're moving! I'll just get on the internet and figure out where to get one!
Oh. But they are all actually bigger than 8"x8". That's the door opening size.
They all have frames that extend about an inch beyond the hole.
Which would be fine, except this hole is right above that little cement platform.
Which would interfere with the frame.
Which is why someone cut the bottom of the frame off.
Because otherwise it won't fit.

SIGH.

Until then!

Gaff Tape fixes everything.
The spirit of Ms Mary adheres.

Salvage Places

I'm making a list of local architectural salvage places to check out. I've got a handle on local antiques places, but stuff like flooring and fixtures are a different beast.

Out in New York:

• I've been to Zaborski's a number of times. I've picked up a few things there. If you're looking for replacement glass light globes, or door hardware (among LOTS of other things) this is a great place. It's just a little far for me to pop around to.

• I'd love to get out to Historic Albany's Warehouse 45. I follow them on Facebook. They look like a good resource, just a bit far for me to get to.

Here in MA:

• There's Castle, out in Northampton. I could hit this on my way out to visit the folks at some point. They are open 10-6 on Saturdays. They look a little more "stuff" than "materials", but I won't know until I go.

• I hadn't heard of Old Wood Workshop until I googled it. Considering my recent discovery with the floor, I think I'm going to have to see what they are all about shortly. (Update - looked through the site. While they probably would have what I need, I don't think I could afford them.)

• Old House and Landscape might be worth a side trip. Limited info on their site. I've seen them solicit for stuff/selling stuff on Craig's List. (Or someone is stealing their pictures.)

• Down near Boston is Restoration Resources.

Working my way up the coast:

• Old House Salvage in New Hampshire looks promising, based on their website.

• Nor'East in South Hampton, NH.

• Old House Parts Co, in Kennebunk, ME. but one of my favorite areas to visit, so that's a win.

 • Portland Salvage gives me an excuse to keep going up the coast and eventually visit friends in Bangor! Likely pricey, (their website is a bit... slick...)

I'll post updates as I'm able to nose around these places.

Still messing with hardware

There's just a few bits of hardware left on the first floor that haven't been cleaned. One was on the office door in the front, and one was on the door between the kitchen and the living room.
I'm pretty sure the kitchen door is from the first iteration of the house, and I'll have a whole post on it later.
The door to the office is giving me fits. It's also one of the older doors, I think. It's not as ornate as the later door hardware. Many of the screws are frozen, and one even just fell out, taking a chunk of door with it. I've tried stripper and scraping. I've hit it with penetrant to break the screws free, but to no avail. Two of the lock escutcheons just will not budge.
I was able to get the door knob plates off though. Nothing fancy, just iron, I think. But they have these four little pins on the back of them. I think the idea was that the little pins would hold them to the wood better once they were screwed down.

Two screw holes. Four pins.

That's a great theory.
In practice, if those little plates even get a little loose, they turn into spinning saw blades. This is what it does to the door.

Looks like tiny beavers lived back there for the last hundred years.

This door does have a Corbin mortise lock, much newer than the other hardware on the door. I opened it up, cleaned and oiled everything and got the lock moving, but I don't have a key for this one either. I found it in a 1941 PF Corbin catalog:

"Good buildings deserve good hardware."

As Ian is fond of saying "Things were done, no one was spared." I think this door is a collection of all the left overs. It's the only door in the house where the lock escutcheons don't match, and the door knobs are brown, not black.

Swirly. Pretty in the light, but a little scuffed up.

I hit that door knob plate with some Gibb's so it would stop rusting. I guess I'll drill off the lock escutcheons tonight so I can clean them and finally call this one done. When I sand down the door this summer, this one is going to need wood filler in those chewed up areas. I might consider filing the teeth off the back of the knob plates too.

Two potential keys

After noodling my head around the PF Corbin catalog, I think I've narrowed down the keys to two contenders:

Key type 179 1/4 corresponds to lock type 1285B

OR!

Key type 360 corresponds to lock type 1065.

 They look damned near identical, but I'm positive that one will work and one will not, because that's how skeleton keys roll.
Or not, as the case may be.
Now, to get my hands on one of each. Time to go knock over Etsy and Ebay, and probably some local salvage/antiques dealers.

A little quick hardware research

Tucking these here so I don't loose them.
From "Hardware manufactured by P. & F. Corbin", a price list published in 1905, found on Google.

70240 "Ceylon"

702120 "Ceylon"

As a confirmed tea drinker, the name of this style delights me. It appears that I can find replacements pretty readily from salvage sites, so that's good.

Handsome Hardware

Anyone who's worked with me knows I'm a details girl. I love me some good stippling (the process of making art out of teensy tiny dots.) When I first moved in (after some epic cleaning) I started removing and cleaning hardware. I started in the bathroom, and spiraled my way out into the house.
I knew there were interesting things under the layers of paint that just needed a little love.

Cabinet catch in typical before condition.
There are many of this style around the house.

Medicine cabinet catch

Medicine cabinet butterfly hinge.

Lock escutcheon before (pantry closet)

Exposing the screw heads with Citrasolve.

Lock escutcheon after (pantry closet)
Solid brass.

Door knob plate before (basement door)

Door knob plate after (basement door)
Pretty significant finish damage. Plated, was mostly gone under the paint.

Door knob plate replaced (basement door)

 I've been using the Citrasolve sparingly, mostly relying on good old fashioned hot water, dish soap, long soaks, and elbow grease. It has revealed delightful Eastlake style hardware, from the era when I believe the kitchen/dining room addition was put on the house.
There will be more hardware pictures in the future, and probably research into where it came from. I've already traced the basement door knob plate to P&F Corbin company in New Britain, CT.

My intention is to remove the doors one room at a time come summer and give them a good sanding/repainting. I've put the hardware back on for now to stay functional, but it looks sad, nestled in the many layers of chipped paint built up around it.