Builders Share

Thanks

This is my last entry here on Builders Share.  Thanks for visiting.  I hope you enjoyed the articles.  I'll continue the journal of my renovation project here.  Stop by and visit.

handyman

Planning and Figuring, Figuring and Planning

The chores and churning of daily life have conspired against moving forward on several of the renovation projects of late.  Or so it seems.  I have found an hour here, a half hour there to start refinishing the interior doors that I sent out for stripping.

When a couple of weeks pass and I haven't made apparent headway on the project, my mind starts playing all kinds of tricks, and the little voices start whispering, "you never really were cut out for this project were you."  "Are you lazy, or is it just that you can't manage your time?"  "That guy down the road started and finished his renovation project in less than half the time you've been working on yours." And on and on.

It's true that my project is taking a long time, and perhaps I'm not the best time manager, but most of the discouraging thoughts are simply brain noise. 

Even when the physical aspects of the project aren't progressing, there is often planning taking place.  And when there's planning, there's decision making.  A luxury (and sometimes curse) of a do-it-yourself project is that you can deliberate endlessly on the planning and decisions.

Lately I've been trying to decide how the finish the door arrangement of the master bedroom.  Originally the three doors that serve the main entry, bidet closet, and walk-in closet were going to hang on hinges, but there was always a question about the closet door because there's not a lot of space between the bed and where the door swings open.  Like the one for the upstairs bath, the closet door could become an obstacle.

I got the idea that putting the closet door on a slider would solve the problem.  A pocket door would be nice but that wasn't part of the original planning and would require tearing apart a wall and doing some re-wiring which I'm not interested in doing considering the amount of work I have to do in other areas.  The only place I can reasonably place a slider is on the outside of the closet.

Then I got the idea that sliding doors across that entire wall might be a nice solution/design.  I like the antique barn door sliders that I see on some buildings and I think that hardware would look great along that wall.  Unfortunately, the space requirements for the flat track and hardware are greater than what I have and the cost is high to boot.

But since this idea set in, I've been stuck with it.  I like the idea of the main entry door not opening into the hallway (the only other option) because this allows for reflected light to flood into the stairwell in the afternoons.  (I've discovered that some of these little details make a big difference in daily life. I'm even willing to deal with a little inconvenience here and there to maintain some of the sublime pleasures.)

I'm still working on solving the bedroom doors problem (getting quotes, making sketches), which I can do in the small snatches of time between work and parenting.  So even if I'm not pounding nails and making sawdust, the work is still progressing.

handyman

Recycle, Renew, Refresh

Our little family of three (soon to be four) went to the big box store this weekend.  We were in search of baby goods.  Volume 2 of Graham-Merrick productions is due at the beginning of September so it was time to start preparing in ways most patriotic.  Shopping!

I don't venture out into the consumer world that often so it's always a bit of shock entering the big box.  OK, I do visit building suppliers often enough, including the big box building supplier, but even the big box building supply store creeps me out a bit and I have to get in and get out before Mr. Hyde takes over.

We were in search of a new rear-facing infant car seat.  I deferred to my wife's concern about buying one of these used.  Forget about the cushy fabric being impregnated with some other baby's bodily fluids, the safety factor of knowing exactly what you're getting fresh out of the package provides some peace of mind. (Of course we'll have to look up recall info. anyway but that's all part of the game.)

I'm also sensitive to the fact that I don't necessarily have to promote my obsession of buying used and/or "fixing-that-broken-thing-one-more-time-instead-of-getting-a-new-one" with my loved ones.  There's nothing like a Dad's obsession to create a lasting backlash in the off-spring.  If I can afford a new bike for the boy isn't it a bit sick to be pulling a rusty one out a dumpster that might have another year or two left in it?  Talk about destroying a dream!

But I digress.  I was talking about entering the big box.  (No wonder I digressed.)

The baby supplies at the big box are all the way in the back corner.  I guess its the same highly refined store design as the super duper super market that places the milk and eggs back in the same corner.  Parents of infants must wander through all the items that their baby will be able to enjoy as they get older.  Oh, and maybe you'll pick something up for yourself while you're visiting. Some folks probably celebrate this opportunity. Yours truly finds it strangely oppressive.

What most amazes me about the big box is the sheer quantities.  There were hundreds, I mean hundreds, of the same style clothing for kids 6-12 months.  And there were tens of different styles.  There were literally thousands of options for outfitting a child that can't even express itself beyond the need to eat, sleep, and poop.  Is it possible that our freedom of choice has reached a perverse level?  Don't even get me started on the gender specificity angle.  We've decided to be surprised on the birthday.  I suppose the vendors just expect we'll by twice as many outfits and then throw away the ones only appropriate for the opposite gender.

OK I'll stop.

...but not before I get back into my comfort zone of fixing up a good old thing.

This Lakewood window fan has served us well for many years.  It works so well as an exhaust fan that I put it to use during construction of the interior.  Well, now I want to put it back into 'civilian' use.  The problem was that it was coated with all kinds of nasty construction debris dust.  The answer?  Just a few screws to remove the fan from the housing and give it all a good cleaning. I gave it a day to dry out before plugging it back in and now it's cooly humming along.

handyman

Such a Cutup

I said to a friend the other day that progress on the renovation was going so slow that sometimes I feel like I'm going backwards.  Such is the plight of the weekend warrior.  I've mentioned before how during the times I had at least a few hours every day to devote to the project, things moved quickly, but for a while now the daily work and responsibilities that come with home ownership have pushed the big improvement project to the sidelines.

Most recently I found myself cleaning up a large tree that blew down in one of the dramatic June thunderstorms that passed through.  The tree in question was a large Box Elder (acer negundo) that had grown awkwardly out over the yard in search of the sun.  I was lucky that it fell somewhat gradually as I had a chance to move the truck and the motorcycle that would otherwise have been crushed.  The day after I first noticed it leaning low, it crashed to the ground but remained hung up, hinged on its trunk about 10 feet off the ground.

The big problem with cutting up a leaning tree is that it's under tension and the direction of its fall can be  hard to predict.  Either side of the cut can spring up or roll at you.

I read through the Chain Saw Operator Safety Manual a couple of times just to get my head in the right place and then went to work.   Probably the rule I most wanted to break for convenience was lifting the saw to cut limbs above my shoulders.  But it seems that this is an easy way to end up cutting your own limbs off your shoulders so I resisted the urge.  I did cut a little working from a ladder but made sure I was in a stable position and wasn't reaching.  Even so it was clearly risky so I put the chainsaw down and used the hand bucksaw to finish cutting the limb from where it broke off the trunk 10 feet up.

The bulk of the work is in cleaning up the limbs, cutting up the trunk, and removing it all from the yard. Unfortunately Box Elders are not good firewood but since I had to do the work of cutting it up, I'll probably throw it in stove to take the chill out of the mornings next spring.

And speaking of firewood, there's another chore that cuts into the work of renovating...

My Life as a Lawnmower

Ever since I was taller than a blade of grass, I've been mowing lawns.  As a boy I used to supplement my paper route income with lawn mowing jobs in the neighborhood.  To me, the smell of freshly mowed grass is the smell of victory.

My first lawn mowing gigs were performed using a Black & Decker electric mower that was attached to a mile-long extension cord.  This machine placed the energy cost squarely in the lap of the homeowner whose lawn I was mowing but included the risk of running over the cord.  Although rare, this vocational hazard did present itself in real and shocking ways.  The memory of having to wrench my hands from the metal push handle that was carrying 120V after chopping the cord in half is deep seated.  The extension cord displayed its wounds in the form of black electrical tape bandages along its entire length.

I happily moved on to gas-powered mowers as time went on, and even more happily moved on to other forms of employment as more time went on.  But then after experiencing the vagaries of the corporate cubicle I ventured back out into the garden and worked trimming the lawns of the flora-starved inhabitants of New York City.

As I pushed a mower along the narrow strip of lawn that graced the edge of one of the myriad apartment complexes on the upper west side, I could sense the longing of the men in suits and ties as they passed clutching their briefcases.  The intoxicating smell of cut grass mixed with small engine exhaust has a powerful allure.   Who would be the next to fall for the romance of the rotary mower?

But making a living as a gardener is a tough row to hoe and it wasn't long before I was back in the saddle of the rolling desk chair with the multiple adjustment knobs that stick out of it like so many pins on a voodoo doll.  The grass was growing high around me as I was stuffing greenbacks in my pockets.

I couldn't resist the call of the wild, however, and eventually packed up my tools and left the city.  There was a lawn waiting for me somewhere and I was destined to mow it.

When we made the move to Chez Melendy (the endearing name we've given our humble abode/unending renovation project), I welcomed the new opportunity at lawn mowing.  I went out in search of a machine and gladly found a $20 special from Bob's Lawn Mower Repair shop.  It was, no doubt, a repair job that someone neglected to retrieve and Bob was looking to recover his costs.  All I cared was that the "Eager-1" started on the third pull.

Over the next two years I ran the Eager-1 hard.  (I hope the swifty who came up with the name 'Eager-1' got a hardy pat on the back and an upgrade in his/her roll around desk chair.)  Having only paid $20 for the mower, I barely winced when the blade ground against a protruding rock or stump.  I happily ventured into the edge of woods to clear the encroaching weeds without a care.

Oh, I knew the peril of errant mowing.  A lawn mower could be destroyed in an instant by a misplaced pass over a protruding piece of New Hampshire granite.  (As a boy I rendered one lawn mower useless when I hit a large piece of steel hidden in the grass of Mr. Cushing's yard.  The drive shaft was bent to the point where the motor would not even turn.)

And then I pushed the Eager-1 too far. Carelessly venturing into the high weeds last week I sent the machine over a stump that stopped the old blade dead.  I restarted the machine with trepidation.  It ran but now the whole mower vibrated terribly.  Either the blade or the drive shaft was bent and now the rotation included a viscious oscillation.

I forged ahead and finished mowing the yard, my arms shaking in response to the wild vibrations. When I wheeled the Eager-1 into the barn I knew I had a hard decision to make:  should I try replacing the blade or should I shop anew...

 

The Stripper

This week I've been all over the map with getting-ready-for-summer projects like fixing the motorcycle, mowing the grass, hauling the A/C upstairs, mowing the grass, digging the fans out of the barn, mowing the grass.  You get the picture.  Little time for true house renovation projects.

However, the big project isn't quite on hold.  I've been tooling around in the old Dodge pickup buying lumber for the siding project and delivering doors to be stripped by the Stripper.

The interior doors of our house are/were covered with innumerable coats of paint.  The top coat was yellowed and stained and impregnated with the smell of tobacco smoke.  My plan from the beginning was to strip them and I went about this the way I do most things, thinking: "how can I do this myself in an environmentally friendly way?"

Most the builders I talked to weren't very optimistic about environmentally-friendly paint stripping.  It seems the products they'd tried or heard of were only moderately successful.  I was undaunted though as I had talked to a few who had success.

The product I tried is called Soy-Gel from Franmar Chemical.  This a soy-based paint stripper that you apply and let sit for a while and then scrape off.  It worked pretty well at getting several layers of latex and lead-based oil paint off of the two doors on which I tried it, but the very first layer of paint was stubborn.  This first layer of paint is milk paint and even after two applications of the Soy-Gel, much of it remained.

This was my first foray into wood stripping and I pretty quickly decided that it wasn't something I wanted to do a lot of.  It's messy and no matter how environmentally friendly you want to be, the by-product is a nasty lead-based sludge.  The stripper itself is expensive and the process is time consuming.

I have nine interior doors that need stripping along with door casings for four doorways.  The door casings I'll do myself, but I decided to ship off the doors a few at a time to Tillotson Trading where they dip them into a vat of stripping solution and they come out entirely clean of the old paint. (A small amount remained in some deep crevices but only enough to add character and prove the age of door.)

The cost having one door stripped professionally at Tillotson Trading is equal to the cost of one gallon of the Soy-Gel stripper.  I've already used half a gallon of the Soy-Gel and was only moderately successful at stripping one door.  And the folks a Tillotson pay top dollar for proper disposal of the hazardous waste by-product of their work, which is probably better for the environment than what I would end of doing with sludgy by-product.

I like the look of doors that are partially stripped, and there may be a place in our house for a couple of doors like that but, for now (with a baby on the way) I'm most interested in getting rid of all the old lead paint as soon as possible.

Going Both Ways

Wet weather has forced me inside from the exterior tasks but given me a chance to take care of a small inside job I've been wanting to do.

Since re-configuring the upstairs bathroom I've always been aware of a small problem with the design.  I really wanted an interior window that would bring light from the sunny bathroom into an otherwise dark hall and stairwell, but in order to place the large window where it would provide the most light to the interior space, I had to move the door to where one of its top corners would be cut at an angle to accommodate the roof line.

The top angled door is a familiar fixture in old Cape-style houses.  Moving the bathroom door actually added to the symmetry of the upstairs hall as that door would now face the top angled bedroom door on the other end of the hall.  The problem with top angled doors is that their hinges can only be placed along the tall edge of the door which limits the options for which direction they can open.

Generally speaking, doors should open into the room in which they provide entry.  This had to be the case with the upstairs bath, otherwise the door would inhibit movement through the space at the top of the stairs.  The problem with having the bathroom door open inwards was that it became an obstacle in the small space of the bathroom.

The problem wasn't big.  Someone unfamiliar with the space might find it a bit awkward but we got used to  it quickly and chalked it up to an old house idiosyncrasy.

But being the perfectionist/tinkerer I am, I felt I could improve the situation.  I decided a door that swung both ways, like you see going in and out of a diner kitchen, would make passage in and out of the bathroom a little easier while adding a little novelty at the same time.

Finding the right hinge was the first task.  The local hardware stores all carried double-acting hinges but only for very light doors (think saloon style).  The bathroom door is one I picked up at a salvage center.  It has a solid ash frame, a wood panel on the lower half with a translucent glass panel above. It's not a lightweight.

There were two hinge types I found that would accommodate a heavy door.  One is a pivot type that was used in the kitchen doors of well-appointed homes of the 19th century.  If you live in an urban brownstone or pre-war apartment building you might see the vestiges of one of these pivot hinges on the floor by the kitchen door casing or in the header casing.  The pivot hinge requires a plate screwed into the floor and another in the header casing.

The other hinge I found is the double-acting barrel hinge.  This is the one seen often in the swinging kitchen doors of restaurants.  I went with this hinge because it required less modification to the door and casing then the old-style pivot hinge.

With the new hinge I had to make a mortise that is longer and deeper than the one for the standard hinge.  Once the mortise was chiseled-out I installed the hinge on the door and then had to carefully hang the door in the center of the jamb so that it swings true.

So far we're pleased with the new door.  It's easier going in and out of the bathroom and seven year old Ramon said, "Ah that's cool!" when he first tried it out.  It changes the feel of the upstairs hallway though because now the bathroom door is always closed instead of open partway when the room is unoccupied.  A small difference but noticeable.

As usual when posting pictures I'm struck by the unfinished look of everything.  Clearly there's a lot of work to be done, but we've gotten used to living in this unfinished house and it's proved comfortable even without the finery.

How Far Do You Go

Renovating an old house is often an exercise in figuring out when to stop.  Before starting a renovation you need to have some idea of the results you want but you also have to accept that the best laid plans of renovators often go awry.  Nothing has gone truly awry lately but every small project in this renovation seems to offer a case in point.

In setting out to re-side the south wall of the ell, I didn't expect to get into foundation work but once I had all the old siding off and was considering my next step, I realized that the time to take care of another back-burner task was now.  The rule of not starting one task without completing another doesn't really help if by starting one task you've provided an opportunity to take care of another.  They're all just one big task after all.

The foundation under the ell is made of two courses of 2x8 pressure-treated timbers that rest on top of loosely piled field stones.  The pressure treated timbers replaced 3x8 hemlock timbers that had rotted over the 100 or so years since the ell was built.  Back when I replaced the foundation timbers, I would have liked to replace the field stones with something more modern but time and money prevented it.  I was confident that the field stones had served their purpose for a long time and would probably continue to do so. 

To help reduce air infiltration through the field stones and into the crawl space under the ell I placed a vapor-barrier on the ground and had foam insulation sprayed along the foundation wall.  The foam created a seal between the vapor barrier and the interior floor.

On the exterior, the pressure-treated timbers and the field stones are exposed.  This was fine except that the grade of the soil was only an inch or less below the wood.  If I wanted those timbers to last a long time, it was important to keep soil and moisture away from them, and before I started residing the wall, I knew I should address the issue.

I put my carpenter's belt aside and grabbed a shovel.  I dug a trench about a foot and half wide and four inches deep.  Then I filled it with small stones from the pile I discovered a week or so ago.  This was a quick and dirty method for keeping moisture away from the foundation timbers.

Now I could have gone even further to improve the foundation by mixing up some mortar to fill in between the field stones but that would take me further afield from my original task of re-siding the wall.  I would have to turn back to carpentry and off the side road of excavation and stonework.

Outside Looking In

One of the lessons that renovators often speak to is not starting a new task without finishing the one you're working on.  I've found this to be good advice but have trouble following it.

In a perfect world I could finish working on the bidet project and then move on to the bedroom trim as planned.  But in that perfect world the doors I sent away to be stripped would have come back,and the trim job would be finished before the weekend that my wife and son planned to go out of town arrived so that they were absent while I took care of some nasty demolition work.  For that matter, in a perfect world there wouldn't be any nasty demolition work to take care of and I would be enjoying spring afternoons sipping margaritas on the side porch.

The south side exterior of the house has been an eyesore for a while.  Since installing a large double window over two years ago, the wall remained in disrepair as I concentrated on making the interior space livable.  Of course the wall kept out the elements, but was a constant reminder of an unfinished project.

This past week I took my first stride towards beautifying the main entrance to our humble abode.  The first task was removing the remaining cement-asbestos shingles/tiles that grace(?) the sides.

The ell section of the house was originally sided with cedar shakes and those shakes lay under the asbestos shingles.  My plan is to leave the asbestos shingles on the main part of the house for the foreseeable future but remove them from the ell and re-shingle that part with cedar.

Cement-asbestos siding, although fallen out of favor aesthetically, is nonetheless a decent siding material.  It's strong, fireproof, and has good insulating characteristics.  It's safe if left alone but if you start breaking up the tiles, you can release the harmful asbestos particles into the air and risk breathing them in.  The most dangerous aspect of cement-asbestos shingles were in their manufacture.  The workers who fabricated these tiles were exposed to harmful levels of asbestos.  In fact the company, Johns-Manville, that manufactured the shingles that are on my house was forced to file chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1982 as a result of class-action suits brought on by the health affects of their manufacturing process.

I thought it best to take on the job of removing the tiles when my wife and son were away.  For my own safety I donned a tyvek suit and respirator while handling the stuff.

Once the asbestos was off and safely wrapped up in 6mil plastic packages for later disposal, I got to tearing off the old cedar shingles.

On home renovation shows, the demolition stage of a project is often portrayed as fun.  "Here's a sledgehammer George, have a ball."  For me, aside from the hard work involved, I find it depressing.  After all, I'm tearing apart something that someone else spent time, energy, and money on building.  I like old good things and having to destroy them brings me no pleasure.  I'm also keenly aware of the time, energy, and money it's going to take to rebuild.

I suspect that as we learn more about the finite aspect of the earth's resources we'll look back on some of those gleeful demolition party scenes with a bit of shame.  I would like to have been able to recycle the old cedar shakes by burning them come wintertime but they were covered with vestiges of paint (probably lead-based).  Into the landfill they go.

Out In the Yard

Spring here in New Hampshire comes at the last minute but it comes on strong. The weather turns nice and before you have time to get the wood stacked and the yard cleaned up, the grass is 6 inches high and needs mowing, not to mention trying to get a jump on the weeds.

But back to wood.

When I gutted the inside of the house at the beginning of this project, I made a point of separating out all the unpainted wood debris with the intention of using it later for fuel.  In a 19th century house, the amount of unpainted wood in the walls is impressive.  Of course most of it remains in the house, making up the timber frame and the exterior sheathing, but the lathe that held the plaster was all removed along with the framing that made up a few interior walls which were demolished as part of reconfiguring the floor plan.

All this scrap wood went into a big pile out behind the barn, and over the past 3 years I've slowly chipped away at the pile, cutting up the longer pieces as needed and using the lathe for kindling.  But the pile was enormous.  It loomed in the backyard as unfinished business.  This week I finally made some inroads at taming the beast.

I started cutting it and stacking it on a pallet and then decided that I had enough scraps to build a little shed to keep it dry.  This of course prolonged the task of getting rid of the ugly pile but come next winter I'll be happy for having dry kindling.

Now this is one shabby little woodshed but remember it was hacked together in a few hours with nothing but recycled scrap wood and leftover roofing materials.  I've spent so much money over the past few years on building supplies; I thoroughly enjoyed this little recycling project.

...and what about the tulips?

Remember back in November when I did a shotgun bulb planting post?  Well, the results are in and I'm in the pink.