Pergola and kitchen floor work continues.

We have had a pretty busy summer schedule but are managing to make continual progress in our projects. The kitchen floor is slowly being pulled up. The process is painstaking because we have to be very careful not to split the wood. The pergola is coming along too. That project expanded in scope because we decided to fully strip the deck and also add porch-style spindles. Celia has now painted all of the spindles and I have fabricated the bottom rail. Next is to do some joinery on the handrail sections I purchased.
It's kind of funny that even though I am sooooo overwhelmed with work, I still find myself planning my next projects.  I can't wait to start restoring my new back doors and stained glass window. I have also started to try to convince Celia to let me buy a scaffolding tower :-)

Christmas in May - The new back doors arrived

Well, the freight truck with my doors and window arrived today.  It was a bit of a fiasco to unload the 500lb double-length pallet from the truck.  I am so excited.  I think these 104" doors are going to be a great addition to the house.  As with everything, its going to be another project.  The doors have a few? rough spots...

a. Fill deadbolt hole
b. Fill surface lock hole
c. Fix minor rail/stile separation
d. Fill holes/nicks and prime/paint.
e. Replace 1 pane of glass
f. Repair stile damage around lockset area

Below are the pictures of the uncrating.

EXTRA, EXTRA, Read All About It - 1938 Newspaper Found Under the Floor

Celia and I spent the weekend pulling up floorboards in the kitchen. It seems like every project in the house turns out to be a monumental task, but with each task, we make cool discoveries that make it just so much fun (Celia disagrees with me on this)!
This time, in an area of floor that was obviously cut and patched when some work was done, we found several pages of the Chicago Daily News from Saturday April 30 1938. The newspaper was being used a a shim to level the floor.

Headlines include:

• Roosevelt Hits Holding Firms
• Britain Wont Fight To Save Czechoslovakia
• Federal Agents Hold Two As Counterfeiters
• Swing a Good-Looking Purse if You Would Be Really Well-Dressed

It is so strange to see articles about Nazi's/Hitler, President Roosevelt, etc.

We also found a piece of cardboard (also acting a shim) that had a shipping label the Peoria Casket Co to the Sedgwick Funeral Home.  Really cool stuff!  We have long known that our house operated as a funeral home for about 40 years.  1938 would have been the very early years of the business.

New Old Stuff

I just placed an order for a "new old" set of double entry doors and a stained glass window.  Both will be going in our new kitchen. Celia and I combed the local salvage shops and the Internet and finally found the perfect pieces.  My bank account is a lot lighter, but I think it will be worth it!  They are being shipped from the east coast and should be here sometime next week. Cant wait!
We also just found matching reclaimed oak floor which will allow us to finish our kitchen floor.  I sure hope the work to save the original flooring and combine it with the reclaimed flooring works out like I plan.

More to follow...

Replicating Moldings

My goal is to make this kitchen feel like it flows with the rest of the house.  One of my [b][i]major[/i][/b] projects will be replicating all of this old woodwork.  I am not a master craftsmen by any means, but it gives me an excuse to buy all sorts of new tools  :D
My question is what type of wood stock I should start with?  From what i can tell, most of the trim in the house is 120 year old pine.  Everything is painted right now, but we plan to strip it all eventually (even if it was originally meant to be painted, I think that the pine will look fine stained by today's standards).  The two staircases in the house are walnut...
With all this in mind, should I be trying to find antique reclaimed lumber to mill my trim from or should I just do the kitchen in new white oak, etc?

Picture of the door/window trim:

My New Toy - The Floor Sander

Hi All! Progress on the kitchen is still happening.  My father-in-law is starting work on the cabinets soon so Celia and I are trying to get some of the other stuff done.  We have now removed all of the ceramic tile and the 1/2 plywood subfloor.  Under that is more subfloor in the addition portion of the room and sheet vinyl over the original wood floors on the original portion.  I removed all of the sheet vinyl last week, so all that is remaining is the stubborn glue layer.  We have a gray colored glue/mastic (as opposed to the black mastic that many old house have).  We have yet to find a good way to remove it.  What we have tried so far:
Manual scraping, heat gun+scraping, wallpaper steamer, Goo-Gone type remover,  paint stripper, and Clean-Strip Adhesive/Mastic Remover.
Next up is the drum sander.   Yep, that's right!  I bought a drum sander today. I figure that I will be sanding floors for years to come so buying the equipment will be cheaper in the long run.

Slave to the Pond

Celia and I did some more work on the pond today. Well, Celia mostly.

Here is a picture of her straining the muck by hand with a colander!