Surprise! Hole in the wall!

 Working on the living room, and decided to see how far the insect damage went. Rather than strip the trim, I'd resolved to just replace it. It's true 1" x 6.5" base board boards - nothing fancy - no molding, just a slight bevel at the top that isn't noticeable unless you're me. So I got out the tools and gave it a go.

The damage. This had been full of caulk until I hit it with heat and it turned to bubble gum on my scraper. It's been a while since I addressed this. Most of the wood in this section was hollow flakes between the chewed out cells.

I blew through the hollow section, yanked part of the board, and found what I'd suspected - The trim is original, and there had been plaster above (bits of plaster keys remained in the wall.) They replaced the plaster with drywall at some point, but didn't pull the trim and run the drywall behind it - they just stacked the drywall on top of the base board. And it seems like super thin drywall.

 

This base board is held on with square spikes - very rusty spikes. This stuff does not want to come off. It's not going to be as simple as "pull of old, insert new". It's going to be a challenge on how to fix the walls. Do I extend the drywall down? That would certainly make the room warmer, but it's going to add time I didn't factor in.

In other news, Bathroom Guy called - I'm #2 on his list, and he should be by to measure the living room windows at some point this week. (So exciting!)

Weekend trials

It started out with a vacation day, that then turned into only 80% of a vacation day, when a meeting got scheduled that I couldn't miss. Then it rolled into an order I placed online for materials to insulate my bee hives, only to show up to find out they let me order something they didn't have in stock. Then lots of driving, and getting really nothing accomplished with my vacation day, a day so precious to me because I don't get to dictate how my time is spend 5 days a week. The paycheck dictates how that time is spent.

But I got home to the  folk's, and after cooling off and eating dinner, Mom helped me construct some bee cosies. Or Bee-glos, if you will. Using nothing but 2" insulation board and a roll of Zip flashing tape, we came up with 4 snuggies for the bees for the winter.

A mock hive I built in the basement to test fit everything, and some of the board used for insulation.
The stuff is great (R13!) but is embedded with fiberglass, which made it a pain to work with.

Our stack of completed bee cosies, waiting to go on the hives. The fronts swing open so I can slip them over the backs and then duct tape it shut.
It was too wet for me to do this past weekend. Fingers crossed for this week.

Sunday dawned bight and cheerful. Which was nice, but unexpected. I thought it was going to rain all day like Saturday, and had so planned to work on one of Ian's windows in the basement. If the sun was going to be out, there was no way I was spending all day in the basement. After cleaning and tidying, the cat barfing on the carpet for the 43rd billion time, and finding a mummified snake behind the couch in a moth glue trap*, I thought, you know what? It's time for this living room carpet to go. I need to know what is going on in here and how things are getting in.

*Yup, you read that right. Loud words were said. A lot. For a while. Snakes can live in the basement in the winter, they can live in the yard all year round, but they Can Not live in my living space. A very distinct line has been crossed and interlopers will not be tolerated. I have to refinish this room to get rid of any access points.

I get it. Carpets are warmer. They deaden sound.
But I just can't get around having covered up this.

I have to cut it out in strips - Move some stuff, then cut out more strips. Everything could come out but the couch. Not sure how I'd ever manage getting the floor refinished, though I'd really like to. Hrm.

They aren't in the worst, or best shape. The carpet padding was disintegrating, and particles in it had started to melt and adhere to the floor. This had happened to a lesser extent in the office. Some of it
scrubbed off.

This image is very kind, and where I stopped for the night. I had to cut out a notch for the floor register (10x14") so it would sit down properly.

Here's a shot of the odd wear/fading and finish/carpet padding buildup.

They do clean up pretty nicely. I almost wonder if I sanded them lightly with the orbital and hit it with some oil if it would work. It feels like hard maple.

Nice bonus is that I get back almost an inch of vertical space! You don't think an inch is much, but it does feel like it makes a difference.

One of two access points. This is the gap between the floor and wall trim. It was behind that hard to see trim in the foreground.. and much of it had been stuffed with rope caulk.

The more likely access point. Ancient insect damage that comes right up from the sill into the trim. Once upon a time it had been filled with caulk until I started stripping it. Now it's just all going to get removed and replaced.

I'm about 2/3 done removing the carpet. And I know that I'm doing this backwards - I should have fixed and painted the walls and ceiling first while the carpet that I didn't care about was down. But I needed to do something that was immediate, apparent, and felt like a victory. Revealing this floor ticked those boxes, and allowed me to do something that wasn't in the dark basement.

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.

The Chimney - A conclusion, of sorts. And doors.

 Last I wrote, I was knee-deep in in parging the chimney.
I had Friday off, so I swung over to the masonry supply place, grabbed two more buckets, and got it done. This time however, I:
1) Dumped the mix into my trusty kitty-litter pan to mix rather than try to mix it in the bucket, and
2) Added more water. Instead of 3ish cups, I went for a solid 4.5. I probably could have gotten away with 4.25, but it worked.

I had juuuuust enough to finish the 2 exposed sides of the chimney.

Where I left off. The raking light from the lamp on didn't help matters.

One side done - under natural light, it doesn't look half bad.

The second side done. It's not very smooth, but it's encased.

I'm curious to see how well this holds up. It seems very secure now that it's complete and curing. After talking with Ian, once it's good and cured in a month or two I'm going to top dress it with drywall compound. (The surface is certainly rough enough for it to stick now, where it wouldn't have stuck to the smooth painted/plastered finish that was still hanging around on the old surface.) I'll be able to sand the drywall compound down for a smoother finish that will mimic more closely what was there. Then I can paint it to match the room.
I still need to get out my fine sandpaper and scrapers out try to get the paint off the trim that was left over from when previous owners had boxed in this area. A little oil and a coat of shellac should blend it ok. It's behind the door, so it's not super noticeable, but I'm a completest.

After the chimney on Friday, I pulled one of the doors off in the office and started stripping it. Back when I flipped the office in the depths of the pandemic, I did the room, but didn't have time to get to the doors. Now that it's not stinking hot out, I can strip stuff outside instead of having to have a freind come help me get it down to the basement.

The set up. I figured out how to make my sawhorses taller (!) and reused the plastic from solarizing my worms as a drop cloth so I didn't get paint chips everywhere. It worked out really well.

6.5 hours and some really sore muscles later, I have one entirely heat stripped door. Having it higher did help. Next step, sanding.

This is the door that is closest to the front door in my office. Like every other door in the house, I'm fairly certain it started life somewhere else and was repurposed.

Two strips have been added to the top of the door to make it taller. (Not just one!)

The are under the knob plate is a hot mess. They are little circular iron rounds, with 3 pricks, ostensibly for stability - they would stab the wood, and with the help of 2 tiny screws hold it down. Can't have longer screws because the metal housing of the mortise lock is right behind it, only 3/16" away. Decades of use and repositioning turned those pricks into saw teeth. The other side of the door is worse. *Edit - I talked about this 2 years ago!

The other side of the door (which you can't see well) and the mortise lock pocket. You can see on the bottom of the close edge corner where the wood started to blow out a long time ago. I'm certain there's a complicated right way to fix this. I think it's going to involve glue and filler in my case, and maybe different style plates to cover up the knob mess - even if I hit the area with wood filler, those little teeth are just going to keep grinding away.

That's where I got on Saturday. Sunday I trimmed back some brush that had grown up along my driveway and killed another 400+ worms. I'm hoping I have time this week and the weather holds out so I can drag the door back out side to sand it.

Attempt at the chimney; I'm not a mason.

One things that's been bugging me is the back chimney upstairs. It's one of the last things that really needs to be done on the second floor, and I just wanted to get it done. I had done a bunch of research and talked to Ian about how to deal with a plastered chimney. Heck, I even emailed  "This Old House" about it. I never heard back. I guess my head shot didn't do it for them (Yes, you need to submit a head shot when you submit your project.)

I went around the corner to the local masonry supply place. I won't disparage them online, but once this project is done I will never patronize them again. I walked in (masked, it's still a pandemic despite everyone's hopeful wishes), and got an exasperated and annoyed look from the older man behind the counter. There was a younger man and a younger woman also behind the counter, but they were busy with other customers. I wound up with the Unmasked Grumpy Old Man Who Didn't Have Time for a Home Owning Dilettante Middle Aged Woman.

I politely introduced myself and explained what I was looking for. "I'm looking to fix my chimney, and I'm told I should use a product called Structolite". I said. "We don't carry that," he replied, in the annoyed "you're wasting my time, girly" tone every woman knows.
I should have politely left at this point, but I wanted to just deal with the damned chimney, and this guy was between me and that goal.
I switched tactics and decided to beat him up with my brain, which is not a thing I like doing, but I dislike condescending Old Men more.

"Ok, look. I'm looking to repair a parged chimney, installed in the house when it was renovated sometime around 1860, capped off last year. It was always a coal-fired fuel source, and leaches residual scents. It's exposed on 4 sides in a 2nd floor bedroom. At some point suffered water damage, probably from a leaking roof. As a result the brown coat and the fine coat have deteriorated and have let go in some sections, leading to a patchy look and possible lead exposure that I would like to encapsulate."
He had the good grace to loose a little of the attitude. Certainly not all, but some.
"Oh. Well. I guess we have this stuff over here you can use." And he took me over to a shelf that held little 1 gallon buckets of something called "InsulStick". I looked mildly doubious. "Is it trowelable? Can it be smoothed? Is it paintable?"
"Yes, yes, it's similar to the other stuff you wanted." he muttered.

It was at this moment I hit the point that other women also know. The "Let's Throw Money At This Situation So I Can Get the Eff Out of Here and Away From This Jackass" point. It's a weird place where you're tired of trying to remain steadfast in your needs, are trying to salvage your time and still move the project forward. This very point of frustration is also how I wound up with a fridge and washer/dryer that I wasn't in love with.

I bought the dubious bucket of stuff, got the heck out, and set it aside where it mocked me.
I now had $30 invested in this fiasco. The situation stung, but here I was.

This past weekend I got the bucket out and read it carefully.
Bush existing Masonry well. Check.
Moisten the existing masonry surface. Check.
Mix 3-4 cups of water with product for handpacking. Ok.... Well, this is a vertical surface, so I wanted it stiffer and not liquidy. I started with 3. I quickly added another 1/2 cup. Mixing in the bucket provided was difficult, and in the end it didn't wind up mixing consistently.
I had my trowel and a float - I find the hawk is too big and my wrist strength is pitiful, so I use a float as a hawk. I loaded up my little float-hawk and start smooshing it on. I mean, really, I'm smooshing mud on a surface, this shouldn't be all that difficult.
Except it was. This mud was full of largish particulates. It did not want to work. It was super rough and could not be smoothed. I persevered, and toward the end added more water to what was left. That made it a little better, but I'm left with a finish that looks exactly like what the jackass at the masonry store would expect out of middle-aged-white-woman me, and that chaps my... butt.

Also, the tiny bucket only did about a 1/4 of the job. So now I have to go back to a place I never want to go back to and get more.

Where the plaster has been falling off. The top is where I've already moistened it.

Halfway through moistening one side. I only intend to do the two sides facing out into the room, though technically it's exposed on all four. I can't get my arm in that 4th side.

I started applying it from the top down, when maybe I should have applied from the bottom up.
This is as flat as I could get the finish. It resisted feathering.

Here we are the next morning - you can see where I had to stop because I ran out. It's drying very dark, which leads me to think there's a TON of portland cement in it.

So there's where I'm at. I won't be surprised at all if this whole thing falls right off the chimney in one big cementy slab. There's no bonding agent as far as I can tell, so the old brown coat behind it is likely to just let go at some point. 

It looks... better? Sort of? If you like unintentionally rustic?

My next step is to get a couple more buckets of the stuff, mix it thinner in my kitty-litter pan, not the bucket, and give it another go. Maybe a thin coat will smooth it out some.