Repair old storm door and installing reclaimed flooring

We have been very productive lately working on the old lady.   Two projects going on right now.

Installing reclaimed flooring
If you have been following this blog since the beginning, you might remember that I purchased a pickup truck full of reclaimed flooring almost 2 years ago.  In that time, we have been tripping over it and have moved around the piles several times to get it out of our way.
Well a couple weeks ago we finally started installing the flooring.  The process is much more tedious than installing new flooring for two reasons:

1. Each board must undergo an inspection process where it is de-nailed, scraped clean of all the gunk, and looked over closely for cracks, splits, stains, or gouges.  Celia prefers to do this instead of operating the pneumatic stapler.

2. The flooring is narrow strip oak.  It matches exactly to what was originally installed in the house. Unfortunately it is only 1.5 inches wide so it takes an eternity to install.  I work for hours installing row after row which results in just a few inches gain.

Repairing a broken storm door
While the house was on the market, a wind storm caught one of the front storm doors and snapped the stile.  This repair has been pretty low on our list but on Friday I got the urge to take down the door and start on it.
Once I got the door down to the basement, I discovered that this door has been repaired several previous times.  

Old repair.  The entire upper corner was replaced.

Old repair. Broken stile.

Since this door has suffered the same break multiple times, I suspect that the structure of this door is simply inadequate.  It is a giant door.  The stiles are only 1.25" x 4.25" pine.  I suspect a hardwood might have been a better choice for strength.  

Here is a picture of the door sitting in the shop.  As you can see, it barely fits on two folding tables.

See the stile is missing.  I have to fabricate this piece. 

Cosmetic damage.

Tenon in pretty good shape.  Feels strong.

These doors are not original to the house.  They exhibit no eastlake design characteristics.  I think they were added as part of a big remodel that happened sometime around 1935.  We know the original porch was replaced at that time and it appears that these doors would fit that timeframe.

Storm door hinges going in for a bath

Above is a picture of the hinges going into the crock pot.  I love this method of removing paint from hardware.  If you are not familiar, here is a video I did a while back:  

New project: Laundry Room

Living in the house for the last couple months has been pretty enjoyable. That's not to say that it has been entirely perfect. One difficulty is living without a laundry room. This has inspired Celia and I to start a new project (as if we don't have enough projects started!) The goal is to make this short and sweet.  In the end, we spread it over about 2 months.

• Tearing down the paneling and the false ceiling.
• Adding a few electrical outlets $$$
• Filling insulation gaps. $$
• Hanging drywall $$
• Lots of tape and mud
• Primer $$
• Finish coat of paint $$
• Strip/Reglaze/Paint windows $$
• New light fixture(s) $$$
• New washer and dryer $$$$

Still to do:

• Re-install window trim
• Baseboard
• Build folding counter between washer/dryer
• Buy/Build/Install utility cabinets.

Here is a sneak peak at the new light fixture.  It is handmade fixture from Etsy constructed from mason canning jars. We like how the mason jars give it a farmhouse, almost industrial feel and the cloth covered wiring is period appropriate.  The fixture hangs down about 36" from the 11' ceiling.

Today's Side project: Door stop

I get bored easily so my big projects tend to drag on forever.  To help keep me sane, I like to do small projects on the side.  Usually they are quick to complete which offera me a sense of satisfaction.  Today, I refinished a door stop.  It wasn't all that complicated... The doorstop had a zillion layers of old paint that needed to be stripped.

I then had to contend with the damaged wood.  I elected to use the belt sander to remove most of it.  This did change the shape of the door stop slightly, but I felt it was the best choice.  After a bit of sanding, I gave it a couple coats of amber shellac.  Here is the final product:

Turned out to be a pretty nice hardwood maple doorstop.  The damage is still visible on the tip, but considering it is probably 120 years old, I can live with it.
 

Odd and ends

This weekend consisted mainly of catching up on odds and ends. 

a) Started clearing the kitchen so that we can resume work in there.  We need to paint the ceiling so we need the floor space to navigate.

b) Swept up one of the basement rooms. This was actually an interesting little project.  Our basement was last remodeled in the 1930s when the funeral home used the space for embalming work. The ceiling and masonry walls have been plastered.  Unfortunately plaster and paint in such a humid space resulting in peeling paint. Feels like an abandoned building with the white paint literally falling off the walls in large pieces.  

Over the years this paint has crumbled and piled up with other dust/debris around the edges of the room. So anyway the whole basement is almost 2000 sqft so we decided to start with just a single room. We chose to sweep up the room that holds the new tankless water heater.  This room will be my winter workshop... To help prevent the mess from returning we first swept the walls to knock down the loose paint.   Then we swept the floors. It only took us about an hour and the room now feels a lot less spooky!

c)I also took out all my spare door hardware to see if I could piece together a set for the side door.  It has never had a lockset since we have owned they place! The only way to lock it was from the outside with a padlock. Lol.  This was how the bank secured the property when it was foreclosed...  I did buy an ornate set off eBay last year but it didn't quite fit so I had been dragging my feet installing it...  Well, here is the finished product...  

Old holes and stuff will be patched when we eventually get around to doing a full door restoration.  Also, I need to replace those steel/zinc screws with brass ones.

Hidden in the Walls!

Our master bedroom features a sitting room that is separated by a pair of pocket doors.  The doors have been taped shut since we bought the place.  Tonight I decided to remove the tape!!!  That might be a little dramatic, but it was a little suspenseful since we don't really know why they were taped up to begin with.  What secrets might they hold???  Some thoughts are:

Bees! We had a bee infestation and it is thought they might have found their way through the ceiling joints and into the room.

Energy - Perhaps these doors allow lots of cold air in from the unheated wall cavity.

Bats! - We get several bats in the house each year.  Maybe they find their way in from here...

Removing the grey duct tape turned out to be a pain.  It has dried out and will need manual scraping to remove.  I tried adhesive remover but it wouldn't reactivate the glue.  I guess I will add that to my project list.  Funny how everything with this house is complicated, lol.

Here are some pictures with captions.

Original hardware that matches the hardware downstairs.  Even a matching folding key.  Quite rare!

Whats that?  A newspaper!  It appears these doors were sealed on Saturday May 20th 2006

Very nice set of pocket doors!  Fancier molding on the master bedroom side and more plain on the other side.

Greenhouse Walls Reframed

I'm am making a concerted effort to finish up my outside projects before winter hits.  One of those projects is the 2nd story greenhouse.  It still leaks water into the kitchen below.  Over the past 30 years, water and insects have destroyed the 2x4 framing members and they all needed to be replaced.  I had done most of the demolition works earlier this year, but was dreading reframing it all.  Today I wrangled up a helper (Jimmy) and we made great progress.  Jimmy actually did most of the work.  We has lots of framing experience!

The wood is so rotten in just falls apart.

New 2x4 framing.  The siding will be replaced next year.

Jimmy framing up one of the walls.

Looking MUCH better!

Unexpected plumbing work

We had a little unexpected plumbing work pop up this weekend.  I went down into the basement to check on a wet spot I found a week earlier.  Turned out that it as a pipe that sprung a leak!  I made my parts list and made the trip to the big box store to get all the parts/pieces.  Wherever possible I have been converting the plumbing to pex tubing.  This leak provided me another chance to do some pex upgrades.  The leaking pipe was an old galvanized pipe that transitioned to copper.  I figure the copper work is about 30 years old so this galvanized is certainly a lot older than that.

The galvanized pipe just disintegrated when I touched it.  It was also more than 75% clogged.
The new runs are connected to small 4-port manifolds.  I love how new construction is using a single giant manifold centralized in the basement but that just isn't practical in a retrofit scenario.  Instead I have been using the small manifolds and have been locating them in the area that work is performed. When I did the plumbing for the master bath (work done from underneath in kitchen ceiling) I added them to handle all the bath fixtures.  Now this is my second pair that handle the kitchen sink, pot filler, half-bath, and guest bath/laundry.   They are nice because I always have leave an extra port for future upgrades, and I also can add cutoffs at the manifold like you see here:

I started to think about it after I finished this work and I do believe I have eliminated 98% of the old galvanized pipe.  The whole house is now either copper or pex. The only exception is a main line that runs from the meter across to the other side of the basement.  I have a feeling that if I can get that replaced, then I will in pretty good shape!