What to do, what to do?

 I woke up this morning and had no idea what to do with myself. The weather is crappy, and I just didin't have a game plan.

What better time to update the blog?

I haven't been doing much over the last month - between the weather and the winter slow-times, I'm just not feeling it. I do have a few things to report though.

The first is my Adventures in Plumbing. "But Sarah?" you ask, "You just had most of the plumbing dealt with in the crawl space under the bathroom?" Righty-o. I did. The one part I didn't have them replace (because it wasn't causing any problems), was the waste line for the toilet. Over the last month or so I'd noticed that the grout lines around the toilet were getting crusty and tuning a rusty color, (it's supposed to be light grey.) A quick consultation with Ian lead me to suspect that the wax ring was shot. One Saturday a few weekends ago, after talking to a coworker who's done this a number of times, I buckled down and replaced it.

First, I removed all the water.
It's a good thing I've gotten good at syphoning water out of the fish tank - that skill came in handy here.
There was a curious amount of debris in the bottom of the tank. I'll be interested to see how fast it builds up now that the whole house is on a filter due to the radon tank.

Oh dear.

This isn't good. But I had been told not to expect to reuse the bolts anyway. I had new ones on hand.
You can see the discolored grout here pretty well.

Yup, that's a problem. A smelly problem. Anyone who's ever had the pleasure of experiencing Girl Scout camp latrines knows the aroma.

Cleaned up as well as I could. That little putty knife was sacrificed in the process, as well as a wad of steel wool. If I had known the flange was in such shape as I found it, I would have had the plumbers do that at the same time as the rest of the plumbing. It works, but it's not ideal. A lot of it has rusted, and I"m not sure what the state of the subfloor is around the front there. But I just needed a functional toilet. If/when the bathroom gets redone, it will be a area highlighted as "special concern".

New clean wax ring! Shiny new bolts!

And the throne, back in it's rightful place.

 

I'm ever so glad that a while back Ian had helped me replace the supply line in - the old one would have certainly disintegrated during this project. Toilet installation, while heavy, and a little smelly, proved not to be rocket science. I think it's done the trick so far, but it's hard to tell because that grout discoloration appears permanent. I'll keep an eye on it.

After that, I decided to use up the rest of the lime mortar I had in the basement to repoint the basement walls. I had used what I needed to repoint the chimney down there, so this was left over. it was getting chunky since it had been in the basement for a while, and there was no time like the present. I figured to continue on the front wall where I had started with the repair of the coal chute. I went back to find a picture of where I left that, but couldn't find anything but in-progress pictures from the outside.

Mixing the mortar by hand. Not efficient, but was all I could do. Appropriate lime mortar sourced from LimeWorks. This is NOT portland cement. Portland is too strong for this - you want the mortar to fail before the rocks do. If you've ever seen where the bricks have crumbled out of a wall, leaving behind the mortar skeleton, that's where Portland was probably used inappropriately. It will do the same thing to certain rocks.

Smooshing the mortar and water together. Eventually you get a feel for what's too wet/too dry. It's a lot like making a pie crust. I erred on the side of a smidge too wet, but it all got on the wall.

Here it is, smooshed between the rocks. 2.5 bags of mortar got me this far. It's not a beautiful pointing job with fancy ribbon work. It's literally fancy mud, smooshed into the cracks by hand. I only used the trowel to mix it.
It's going to take a lot more to do the whole basement.

All this repointing became a lot more important because I had been in the process of cleaning the basement when I discovered I had a guest.

I had the shelves all pulled apart to clean and organize.
I had no idea just how many cans of paint I owned before I did thiis. It's a lot.

I went to hang a crowbar off a nail, when my cave(wo)man brain registered DANGER WILL ROBINSON PAY ATTENTION TO THAT THING RIGHT NOW.
The undignified noises and interpretive dance that occurred was, in a word, *magnificent*.

Here's the rub - I had crap *everywhere* but on the shelves.
And Sampson The Surprise Ceiling Snake, (seen right above the bend in the white radon pipe) had no intention of slithering off into his wall while I had the heat on.
A civil accord was reached.
He would stay Right Where He Was and promised not to jump out of the joists, and I would hurridly and carefully work around him.

Yes, most of the pictures are from the far side of the shelves. I got it done, told him he had to stay downstairs, and beat a retreat to the relative safety of upstairs.

I know that snakes have been in this basement before. I found the shed skins when I was doing the initial cleanup the spring after buying the place. But I thought that was because the basement had gone unused for so long. I didn't think they would want to hang around (har har) when there was coming and going. I was very mistaken. Now I know to look, and Sampson is chilling (rather, warming), on his electrical wire hammock pretty regularly.
I have no problem with Sampson being an outside friend. I would strongly prefer that be where he stays. This year, the sills and likely some water issues will be dealt with, then more mortar, and he'll have to find different accommodations for next winter.

The only other ting I've been up to is making leaded lights for Ian's shop. He put up a Dutch inspired building on his property in NY to house his shop. I offered to make the lights if he would buy the materials. It's been a few years since I did this, and getting started was rough. (There's always a fear of screwing it up). I eventually did the first prototype, relearned more than a few things along the way, and it's ready for him to try out. 

The first cut of anything is the hardest.
In this case it can cut you back, so preparation and safety are key.

Making progress.
(At this point I didn't know Sampson was likely hanging out just around the corner.)

Dry fit.

Soldered. Man, my soldering skills are *terrible*. I put the saddle wires on at this point before cementing. It is unclear from the diagrams and pictures that I can find if these should be wires or lead tabs, but wire is what's readily available to me. Working around the poky wires was a pain in the neck, but I think that the oils in the cement, (it's essentially glazing putty,) would make it impossible to solder them on afterwards.

Cemented and ready to go off to it's new Dutch casement home. I'm not starting on any more until I know this one absolutely fits. (He needs three more this same size and shape.)

That's what I've been up to. I still don't know what I can do with the rest of my day today. I'm going to go wander through my spreadsheet and see if anything jumps out at me. But not Sampson. He doesn't jump. He stays right in his corner of the basement.

I like to envision Sampson with a little party hat on.
They say any creature with a silly hat on is more approachable.
I don't know who "They" are, and I don't know if it's working for me, but here's Sampson in a party hat for us.

Final Countdown

 This past weekend, I reflected on race relations in this country and took a long walk in the woods. Also, finished the second to last project on the second floor, the last hallway closet door.

Let's jump in the way-back machine!

This is the original listing photo. Notice the use of light to gloss over the failing plaster, and the choice camera angles so you don't notice the badly rehung closet door to the right. Even here that door isn't closing though. Creative job, photographer.

 

This space saw pretty extensive plaster repair, water damage repair, all new paint, and all painted doors saw some form of attention. Hardware was stripped and added to where appropriate, with the right had closet door seeing the most extensive work.

Here we are now:

ta da. I don't have a wide-angle camera, so this is what we've got.

The grill has been added over the heat hole. The hardware is as match-y as I can reasonably afford. I left the pitched area white to reflect light instead of painting it blue like they had it. I'm much happier with the liftoff hinges replaced on the closet door, but sad that the modern replacement ones are so stinking deep. Because these panel doors are relatively thin, it means the hinge juts out into the space more than the originals you can see on the left. They are also substantially taller, but far less offensive than the surface mounted brass hinges that were here when I got here. I'm not thrilled with the weight or depth of screws that were supplied with these hinges, and I might replace them with something more robust in the future.

Door before:

Stanley surface hinges, Victorian catch, useless handset, all painted over

Door After:

Modern liftoff hinges, reversed handset (with cannibalize parts from elsewhere in the house)

I know it's no big thing, but it's a detail that feeds into the cohesive Whole Visual Story. Was what there worked? Sure. Sort of. But it wasn't consistent. It was a visual hodgepodge that didn't play well together. The more things I bring into alignment, the more details like this, if not addressed, stick out like a sore thumb.
It's now perfectly clear from the minute you go upstairs that one end of the hallway is Old, and the other end of the hallway is Not As Old. It's not a weird blend

The last major project of the upstairs is the chimney.

Here's looking at you, kid.
(Please ignore the extension cords, it's the only way to live in this room.)

What's next?

 The turning of the year resulted in some reflection, and now to some planning. What's next? What's left? Let's start upstairs (2nd floor):
• I need to do some research about what it's going to take to re-parge the chimney that runs up through the back bedroom. This was actually the last thing on my list to do over the holidays, but honestly, I ran out of steam. There's a masonry supply store around the corner that could have some clues, but that means being out with people. I could pick up the phone, but dealing with not a little bit of anxiety/depression sometimes makes placing that phone call impossible.

Still trying to figure out what to do about this without creating a tremendous mess.
Something tells me that will be impossible.

• I got in the hardware to rehang the last closet door upstairs, but it's not sized exactly. I have a good idea of how to modify the mortises to accommodate the new hinges, but I don't want to mess it up. I think I need to put the door into the space, shim it up so it doesn't drag (it dragged terribly before) and mark where the hinges should fall. They are bigger than the old missing ones, so hopefully I can avoid the old stripped screw holes. Then I get to put the reversed latch back on.

Downstairs! (1st floor):
Welp. I'm working myself into a corner, where the last of the rooms aren't going to be "easy" or cheep.
• Living room: Perhaps the easiest of the rooms left. I can't do much in there until I can open windows. While I'm toying with the idea of replacing the baseboard trim with new slab trim to match, the windows will need to be stripped to remove the blistering and alligatored paint, which means more hours with the heat gun, which means the type of ventilation that only open windows and fans can give me. I'll also investigate what the floor looks like under the carpet and either expose it, or eventually get it re-carpeted. The central light fixture should *probably* be replaced. It's been painted over, and 2 of the 3 pull chain lights don't function properly. (One only works if you screw and unscrew the bulb manually, one doesn't work at all.)
• Dining room: Would be easiest to refinish, but at the very least I'm planning on trying to carve a window between the kitchen and dining room to get a little more light in there (short of opening up that wall completely.) Needs a little trim stripping particularly around the bathroom, but other than that, wash/prime/paint.
• Kitchen: There's nothing easy about the kitchen, which by all rights should be gutted and reconfigured. It is highly likely I will not get to this room this year. The cabinets are in ok shape, and could be reused or painted, there's just precious few of them. Storage is a huge issue in the kitchen, and I'm not saying that in the way that everyone wants a 1k sqf kitchen these days, according to HGTV. I mean that in order to have canned goods and pots and pans storage I've taken an old tall bookshelf, slapped a curtain on it and called it a "pantry" in the dining room. I'm also considering dropping in a propane tank and converting the 80 year old range to a gas appliance from this century. I'm reluctant to do that before doing other work though, knowing how easy to fall into "good enough" and decades later you're still contesting with a kitchen that doesn't work for your needs.
Needs: new floor, little bit of trim stripped, prime/paint, new central light fixture.
Wants: Everything. The stove is in a terrible place. The space is used badly. I don't want to loose any windows because I watch the birds out the back and need light on that side of the house. It's a complicated space. I think I need a designer to really look at it to best determine how to most efficiently use the square footage. (Several thousand dollars.)
• Bathroom: I've had a few contractors come quote different levels of re-finishing the bathroom, and I can only laugh, and laugh, and laugh at the amount of money they want for what they claim they will do.
What should happen: it should be gutted.
What will likely happen: I'm going to strip everything, because every inch of paint is cracking and alligatoring. The walls that aren't tile are tongue and groove, and have been painted multiple colors. I don't mind keeping the green tile, actually - I think paired with a crisp white paint job, maybe with grey highlights to accent the vanity, it would look clean and calm. The ceiling is angled narrow tongue and groove. I go back and forth on just painting it, and framing in a flat drywall ceiling. This would serve to give space in order to put in a vent. Currently there is no ventilation in the bathroom, and the moisture it throws into the house every time I shower is an issue. I don't know if I'll get to this either, because it's bigger than me and I don't have the ability to throw money at this one, (which could be easily several thousand dollars.)
• Floors: I know the office, hallway, and dining room are narrow board hardwood. I suspect the living room is too, under the carpet. I don't know if I want to try refinishing them myself, as I think they will need color-correcting staining in areas to blend in shadows and fading. There's also an area in the dining room that needs replacement boards.
• Back door: The back door is fine, just needs a sand and paint. I'm thinking about attempting to replace two of the high interior panels with glass to get a little light into the room with the fridge and washer/dryer. I've seen it done, but that's a spring-time-outside-on-the-sawhorses project.

Those two little panels at the top? I want to make them glass.

 

Outside!
• I want to deal with the front step this year. It's a matter of throwing $ at it at this point to have someone haul a heavy flat rock to my house with a machine to put it in place. I'm sure it's worth every penny. I just need to save my pennies.
• I'm going to thin the woods near the front of the house. Most of the undergrowth is invasive crap anyway that will need to be squirted with a chemical to keep them from sending up more shrubby nonsense.
• I'm going to get in a load of topsoil and fill most of the front flowerbed which is full of poison ivy and largely shaded out.
• I need to keep thinning the hostas in the flowerbed near the backdoor. I might also reshape it a little to make mowing around it a little easier.
• I need to call Electric Guy Wayne and have him put in an outdoor electrical outlet.
• I'm going to see about replacing the exterior water faucet, or look into the packing. It's leaking unless it's shut off in the house.
• I'd like to reconstruct the little roof over the well into a trapdoor platform, and then put a little wishing well on top of it.
• Brush needs to be cleared from around the cesspool, and fill might need to be brought in to bolster that area up. I should really call the fire department and see if they can send someone out to tell me if there's anywhere on this property I can build a burn pile. Hauling stuff to the brush dump is no fun for anyone but me, and the hours are restrictive.
• I might rework my veggie beds into a different sort of garden near the backdoor. That's still in early thinking
• I need to keep clearing along the road, at least to the light pole. Sigh. Yay, poison ivy times!
• Someday, the "flower bed" in front of the house needs to be excavated and terraced. Right now it's  literal mat of poison ivy vines and flowers I can't tend because it's too steep. It's going to have to be done with some deftness because of how the house sits on top of the hill, where the well is, and where the cesspool is. I think that's going to need a landscaper or hardscaper to come in and give me a plan so I don't make more problems. (This will easily be several thousand dollars.)

Oh, and in the next few years, I need to put on a roof (several thousand dollars)

One bite at a time to eat the whale.

Wait - what did I do last year?

 Let's take a short gander down memory lane to 2020 - the year of eternal March.
There was (is) a pandemic, I didn't hardly drive at all (which is not like me), the times I was "social" where notable on my calendar, and there was an election no one can get away from, even now.

But what happened here?

• With Ian's help, the mudroom got tiled, studded and finished.
• The fridge and washer/dryer arrived
• I made the fancy coat racks and attached them to the walls with the power of annoyance and GRKs
• I ripped out weird shelves/chimney surrounds and patched and painted the back bedroom, (where I'm living for now.)
• I patched and painted the master bedroom, (where I hope to move soon.)
• I stripped, patched and painted the office.
• I got a bed for Windy's room, (not that she wanted one, but for other guests,) and actually set it up to look like a bedroom.
• I was sent home to work on March 13th for "A few weeks". (I don't know what "going back" looks like at this point.)
• Ian and Windy fixed the plaster in the upstairs hallway/stairwell. I painted it.
• I stripped out the old rug from the stairs and painted them
• I had the plumbing in the bathroom/mudroom redone.
• I put a new light fixture and new vanity in the bathroom.
• With the help of a lot of people, we discovered what the Mystery Pipe in the front yard was. (It was a bent up water shutoff valve.)
• Ian built me a beautiful clothesline that dries up to 4 loads at a time.
• My long suffering small engine guy dealt with the lawnmower for me.
• I had my friend Scott in to reconstruct the steps through the front wall.
• Ian put a beautiful new roof on the shed. I painted the windows.
• Because of the dumpster that was here for the roof, I cleaned up a badly overgrown area near the shed that had been used as a dump - Raked it out, grassed it over.
• I was able to put a few rocks back in the retaining wall near the shed. There's two big ones that still need to be put back though.
• I kept my job.
• I cut down and chipped up all the forcythia near the driveway.
• I planted some bulbs.
• I built some raised garden beds and grew a few veggies.
• I dug out, mulched over and back filled the big flower bed near the shed.

When I look at it this way.... I guess I did get a lot done.

Next post - What's on tap for this year? (Ohhh, exciting!)

A Happy New Year Hallway

Happy New Year!
I kept at the hallway, trying various stripping methods again. The chemical stripper had it drawbacks - namely that it was a lot of gooey, caustic work that didn't do all the paint layers at once. I'm all for gooey caustic work, but I only want to have to do it once. I found a piece of paper with the instructions on it at the end (naturally) and it even notes that it usually takes 2 applications, and that if you don't scrub all the stripper off perfectly, it will cause premature paint failure.
(She stares at the walls and thinks really positively.)
I reverted back to a heat gun.

*WARNING - DO NOT DO THIS - THIS IS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO.*
The ONLY reason I went back to a heat method, and a largely unregulated one at that, is because there are no children in this house and there is only a terribly tiny chance of me becoming pregnant.
I DO NOT ENDORSE ANYONE USE THIS METHOD.
You'd remember that way back I had borrowed Ian's SpeedHeater but ditched that for chemicals. The SpeedHeater I was using was the original style - built for stripping siding. It was bulky and heavy and not particularly maneuverable. I made a tremendous mess with it, but it did work, and it's beauty was that it used a technology that never let the paint heat up too much. I decided to go with the Dumond PeelAway1 chemical stripper to try to make the mess a little more... contained. But that had a lot of drawbacks as mentioned above. Eventually I ran out of stripper, got out my cheep little heat gun (lighter, more precise) and went after the trim again. For the most part I found this to be the sweet spot. The BIG ISSUE with a heat gun is that it very easy to overheat the paint you are stripping and aerosolize the lead. I kept the heat at a level that would juuuuust get the paint to move, thus hopefully keeping the lead under that temperature.
There is a product that SpeedHeater makes called the "Cobra"- a smaller handheld device more akin to a heat gun. I'm told it's awesome, and looking at all the trim and doors that are left I might just bite the bullet and get one.

Anyway, I persevered and got the hallway done!

This is where we were. Chemical stripper everywhere.

This is where we got to - patched ceiling.

Already looking better - smoother anyway!

Chemical stripper only took the first few layers off. Heat gun got me down to what I think was the original olive green layer, which I was content with sanding a bit and painting over.

A good shot of the olive green, looking into the living room.

I needed light in order to deal with sanding the ceiling, so I put my tiny light on a clamp my Dad got me for Christmas and clamped it to the door frame. Thanks Dad!

I skipped stripping the trim around the door to the office. (I did sand it a little). It was fairly tight and there were no obvious big paint blisters that I could see.

Sanding. That black box on the wall is a cold-air intake for the furnace. I have changed the filters after I was done sanding - they were filthy.

These two little round scars were down on the baseboard. No idea what they were - maybe door bumpers for the closet.

It's really hard to get a good picture of the beaded trim. This little groove runs up the verticals on all the doors at the front of the hallway, but not on the back (toward the dining room).
This makes a great deal of sense - you'd put the pretty stuff up front where visitors would see it.

If I were to cut a cross section of the trim, it would look something like this, but the outside bead on the corner would be a little rounder.

Primed!
Oh hey... what about the door?

We'll just paint it to match!

Not that you can tell from this picture, but I painted the door to match the walls at the last minute. Cleaned it up nicely. For some reason I had never considered what to do with it when dealing with the rest of the space.

A few things - I'm not in love with this color (Ben Moore "Classic Grey"). It's really warm, and is scanning as beige in this space. It's not bad, it's just not... I dunno. It's not doing it for me. I had gotten a gallon of this color for the office, and didn't need nearly a gallon. Because I had so much, I decided to use it in the hallway too rather than buy more paint. It is the "pearl" finish - and it is way more shiny than is ideal in this hallway of ... character-full... horsehair plaster walls.
But it's clean and it's done.

What else have I been up to?
Let's go to the pictures, because I can't remember! (And this is why I take pictures of lots of things.)

Got that little door in the middle sanded, painted and rehung with cleaned or new hardware.
Pulled off the far right door after this picture and dragged it down to the basement for refinishing.

I'm putting liftoff hinges back on this so it matches everything else at this end of the house, so I had to fix the holes where a set surface hinges had been slapped on. Toothpicks and wood glue to the rescue!

The best tool I found to take off the toothpicks - bullnose nippers.

Got the last closet door downstairs and broke off the bottom of the handle trying to remove it.
Super bummer. Luckily Blake #1's aren't terribly rare, so I can replace it if I absolutely can't make it work.

This calls for a beer (that will give you a hangover if you're not careful and hydrated going in.)

OHH!! My back ordered doorknob washers and set screws came in!
Now I can fix all my wobbly knobs! (Doorknob washers are particularly difficult to get your hands on I've found. I got these through "House of Antique Hardware".)

A new washer (on top) and an old steel washer (bottom). The new ones are significantly thicker.

And then you think "Hey, let's try these keys that are supposed to work on 90% of doors!" and you find out these doors are the 10% of doors. Then you have to take the whole assembly apart  to try to get the key out.

I figured since it was apart, let's take the lock assembly apart to clean it and see what's going on in here that wouldn't allow the key to turn. Well, it's the wrong key. The little knob at the tip of my thumb is what was keeping me from being able to get it out.

My Mom got me beautiful curtains and rods for the office for Christmas, which I put up.

My sister gifted me a set of pretty lace curtains that I've put up in my bedroom, and spurred me to actually order the cellular shades for this room that I've been thinking about for the last 6 months.

That last closet door was stripped (left side) and then sanded smooth (right side).
Having an attachment for the sander to hook up to the shopvac has cut down on some of the dust.

All sanded and getting primed.

One thing you might have noticed way back at the beginning is that there's a closet in the first floor hall - a 4-panel door that matches almost all of the rest of the 1st floor doors. Later in the pictures it's been replaced with a curtain. I had pulled it off thinking I'd give it a light sand and a coat of paint and be done with it.
No. No, no.
These 4-panel doors will not make it to the basement for refinishing without something getting damaged (probably me). I had hauled it out to the driveway and put it up on sawhorses when I discovered that sanding alone wasn't going to cut it, and at least the front panel of this door would need to be stripped.
5.
Hours.
Later.
I got 90% of just the front of it stripped. It was cold out. I had not intended to be out there that long. I hadn't intended it to become A Thing. My feet were cramping and my shoulders and right arm were screaming at me. I had lost the daylight and it had started to snow lightly.
(This is why I'm looking at the SpeedHeater Cobra, because like Ian said "it would be hard to strip anything much slower.")
The weather is supposed to be good tomorrow, so I'm going to drag it back out and finish it up. Just a few more sections of paint to come off (hopefully less than 2 hours worth), a buzz with the sander (and the inset panels with some hand blocks) and hopefully I can get it back in and primed to get it up tomorrow or Wednesday. 

Due to HR vacation shinnanigans at work, I wound up having to take a bunch of time off or loose it at the end of last year/beginning of this year. I haven't had this much time off since I was unemployed almost 15 years ago - I might as well put it to good use if I'm not going anywhere exciting!