Builders Share

Mistakes Were Made

Sometimes it feels like I'm involved in two renovation projects simultaneously: one where everything is done incorrectly, and the other where I've learned from my mistakes.  The times where I've built something only to have to dismantle it and rebuild it are too numerous to catalogue here, but there are a couple of errors I've made recently that are worth sharing for an important lesson they provide.

While working on the door jambs, there were a few instances where the door and jamb were much smaller than the rough opening.  The reason for this was that at the time the rough opening was built, I wasn't certain what size door was going to end up there.  I had a variety of old doors that had come out of the house and others I'd picked up at salvage dealers.

In my zest to get the door jambs installed, more than once I began mounting them on the hinge side before bringing the rough opening more in line with the size of the jamb.  This meant I had to add lumber to fill the gap on the lock side or on the top while working around the newly mounted jamb.  It meant driving nails into studs at angles while avoiding the finish material of the jamb.  It can be especially difficult to hold a piece of lumber that's wedged loosely behind another while at the same time swinging a hammer with a fair degree of accuracy.  It would have been much easier to size up the new jamb in the opening and decide if and where I might need to add lumber to fill a gap, before I started mounting the jamb.

Another mistake I made recently was building the jamb for an interior window.  This window is designed to allow more light into an otherwise windowless hallway.  When I built the jamb, I built it three-sided in the same way I was building the door jambs.  It was more difficult later to create a snug opening for the window by adding the sill after the side and top jambs were already mounted than if I had entirely encased the window before mounting the jamb.

Both these situations presented a problem that you're not going to encounter often.  Most interior doors are of a standard size, and the rough opening is built to that spec.  You probably won't come across that many interior windows, and when you do, they're more often than not going to include their jambs and sill as part of the whole package.  So there's not much of a lesson in saying "next time I mount a custom jamb in a rough opening that's too large..."  Luckily I was able to work through these mistakes without wasting materials or a lot of time.  What I did lose, briefly however, was my patience, and that's where the lesson lies.

There is no more valuable thing, when embarking on a project like this, than having patience with yourself when you screw up.  That may seem like a no-brainer to some, but not all of us respond well to failure whether big or small.  The wrong response to a mistake can quickly compound the error.  Be willing to walk away from a problem, if only for 10 minutes.  To keep pounding away at that misbehaving 2x4 may seem cathartic but it's more likely to end up causing expensive damage or worse an injury.

Discouragement can also be debilitating.  I've been working at this project for over two years, and sometimes I just want it to be over.  The excitement of acquiring an antique house and the honeymoon of Great Possibility is long past but there's still much work to be done.  When things aren't going right, the self-doubt creeps in and the urge to give up rises.  I could, after all, just pick up the phone and find a contractor.  That might free me from the trouble of trial and error in rebuilding my home, but it would also rob me of a keen satisfaction that comes from problem solving, perseverance, and hard work.

handyman

Get on the Good Foot

I'm still plugging away at those door jambs, so until I get started on the next new task, I'll share some more stories from the past.

The first major task that I had to undertake once the demolition was complete, was repairing the foundation of the ell.  Typical of old New England houses, Chez Melendy is a timber frame structure built on a foundation of granite slabs and fieldstones.  Fieldstone foundations have proven quite worthy over a couple of hundred years, they move a little bit over time but usually not so much to put the house in danger of collapse; and their porous nature allows them to exist in harmony with the earth around them, albeit a little drafty in the winter.

A common affliction of this style of building, though, is that the sill beams (the timbers that rest immediately on top of the stones) are subject to rot.  There are a variety of things that can cause this but two major ones are moisture that develops between the inside and outside walls and then settles on the sill.  The other is when the foundation settles and the sills are close enough to come into constant contact with moisture from the earth.

The latter case is what afflicted the ell of Chez Melendy.  The ell is old-house terminology for an addition off the main house.  Old houses in New England tended to grow off their backsides until they connected with the barn -- a phenomenon discussed thoroughly in a wonderful book called Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn by Thomas C. Hubka.

Chez Melendy's ell was added sometime in the early 20th century and became the house's kitchen.  It too was built on a foundation of fieldstones with hemlock sill beams used to support an early form of platform framing.  Over the years, a combination of foundation settling and poor maintenance of the landscaping near the foundation caused the sills to rot.  Before I could consider making improvements to the interior, the foundation had to be stablized by replacing these rotted sills. 

It was the dead of winter when this part of the project presented itself so the easiest way to get at the sills was by removing the original floor system.  Looking back, I'm not sure that this was the only worthwhile way of approaching the task but in the end, by replacing the entire floor system, I was able to create a level kitchen and also create more space by taking down an old chimney that had long ago been taken out of service and sealed-up.  I was also able to dig out the crawl space beneath the ell so that it could be accessed from the main house basement.

Once the floor system was removed, we jacked up the walls just enough to remove the rotted beams and replace them with two courses of pressure-treated 2x8 dimension lumber.  This job of jacking up the house and replacing the sills was more than I was prepared to handle on my own so I hired a local carpenter "Bud" with some experience in this to help out.  We used heavy duty bottle jacks to lift temporary joists that were nailed to the wall studs.  The jacking process was done a fraction of an inch at a time with a long pause between each move to give the house a chance to react to the change.  In all, the walls didn't have to be jacked up but about an inch to make the change but the work is potentially disasterous.  The house could easily protest and a wall or a jack could give way.  I guess you could compare it to trying to get an old man out of bed.  Something's likely to either lash out or collapse.  But neither happened, and the sills got replaced.  We were even able to bring the ell a little closer to level in the process.

Having demolished the interior walls and completely removed the ell floor system, the house was as gutted as it was going to be.  Now we had only 4 months before we were to move in.  The enormity of the task was really starting to hit me at this point.  I had taken on some worthy help with "Bud," though, and I was ready to keep him on the payroll.  The march towards rebuilding had begun...

handyman

Demolition

The first project I got into with Chez Melendy was the complete demolition of the interior walls.  This was a pretty drastic measure considering it meant I was going to throw away a good part of the house that I just spent a quarter of a million dollars on, but there were several reasons I felt it best.

The house had never been renovated since its construction, aside from modernizing improvements such as indoor plumbing and electrical service.  It was good that nobody had gone in and destroyed original details that might be worth saving but it was bad that there was no insulation; the electrical was a patched together system that included remnants of every kind service since its invention (knob and tube, cloth insulated 2-conductor, metal conduit, and romex); and there were a variety of toxic materials covering the walls and floor such as lead paint and asbestos.  It was also bad that the couple who lived there prior were heavy smokers.  The plaster walls were virtually imbedded with stale tobacco smoke. Why did I buy this house you ask?

I imagine that few people embark on a gut renovation project with any real knowledge of what they're getting into.  On paper it makes perfect sense, get rid of everything you don't want then rebuild and restore the house to your liking.  Demolition can be fun, right?  Get out your frustrations on tearing apart some walls, and all that.  Strap on a dust mask grab a crow bar, and go to it.  Unfortunately the fun of destroying walls fades pretty fast, and the work of gutting a small house takes an enormous amount of physical energy and much longer than you might expect, not to mention the bleak task of dismantling something that someone else put together through hard work and sweat 100 years prior.

The first thing to consider in any demolition project is disposing the waste.  Getting rid of construction and demolition debris (C & D as it's know in the waste disposal business) is not cheap.  The best option is to rent a Dumpster.  Disposal and recycling companies provide Dumpsters in sizes from 1.5 cubic yards to 40 cubic yards on up, and charge handsomely using a variety of fee schedules.  If you've got a big project, try to find a company that doesn't charge a time-based rental fee.  Despite your best hopes of completing demolition in a given amount of time, like every aspect of a renovation project, it's going to take longer.

Because my town has a transfer station that provides a C & D Dumpster, I opted to haul the debris myself.  It was a substantial savings but meant handling what turned out to be tons of material a few more times than if I was throwing it into a Dumpster parked in the driveway.  Looking back, it's difficult to say whether this was right way to go.  I could have saved myself a lot of heavy lifting by spending more on a disposal service, but it's also true that the money I saved meant more available for making improvements to the house down the road.

The tools of destruction are basic.  A flat pry bar was the handiest of all.  It worked great for pulling old plaster away from its wooden lathing, poked holes in wallboard with one swing, and yanked nails will little effort.  I also wielded a small sledge hammer for loosening up the more stubborn plaster and boards, used a shovel to clear the floors, and carried it all away in contractor bags. 

A reciprocating saw was indispensable and has remained so throughout every stage of my renovation project.  Don't skimp on selecting one of these.  There seems to be no end to uses for this fine invention.  Get a good one and it'll serve you well for years.  A word of caution though when wielding a sawzall: be sure of what lurks behind the wall.  It's easy to overlook the possibility of electrical service or plumbing runs when you're hell-bent on destruction, and the ease and speed at which these saws work can get you into trouble quickly.  Another word of caution is: be aware of what kind of wall you're destroying.  Is it simply a partition, or is it providing structure to the floor above?

But even before picking up the tools of destruction, you'll need to dawn the equipment of health and safety.  Don't get started on demolishing an old house wearing a bandana wrapped over your mouth and nose.  And don't think a dust mask held in place with a rubber band is going to offer you sufficient protection.  Old houses contain all kinds of materials that can become serious health hazards when released into the air as particulate.  The microscopic size of many of these particles pass easily through your 10 cent dust mask. 

Invest in a professional respirator that provides HEPA certified protection from fine particulate, and read the instructions closely.  An improperly worn respirator is as good as wearing none at all.  Wearing a respirator takes a little getting used to but consider it as another tool of the trade, complete with a learning curve.  Your lungs will thank you.

I donned a Tyvek suit for all the demo work as well.  It made it easy to leave the dust at the worksite and not bring it home in my hair and work clothes.  I also left my shoes at work.  Anything that might carry harmful particles home to where the family might inhale them I did my best to leave amongst the debris.

After all this you might wonder why not pay some unskilled labor to gut your old house project. There's certainly an argument for that.  But there were also many decisions I made while busting things apart, especially what NOT to destroy.  The charm of an old house is the sum of many little things that can easily get swept away in a demolition.  A piece of old door hardware, a fragment of wallpaper, an odd-shaped lintel.  These things may seem like junk to some, but to the old house restorer, they can be irreplaceable. And you also never know what treasures you might find hidden in the walls....

handyman

Opening Doors - Part 2

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry has become my mantra for this project, and any nascent old house renovator should be so forewarned.

It's been interesting to see how a door, so nicely fitted into its custom-made jamb on the bench, can suddenly expand its girth when one tries to stand it up and ask it to settle-in between two rooms.  And just as frustrating is the opposite--when the door somehow pulls itself in and refuses to fill up the nice and cozy space you've made for it.  If the door is too big for the jamb, carefully trimming a little fat off the hinge side of the door with a circular saw or bench plane will usually be enough to get it back in shape. (Trim the hinge side because resetting the hinges is easier than resetting a lock if it comes to that.)  Closing extra space between the door and the jamb is a little trickier.

But before we get to how the door swings, we need to install the new jamb in the rough opening.  The first step is to line the jamb up in the space so that the hinge side is plumb both on its face and its edge, and the top jamb is level.  The lock side jamb is secured last in order to fit it to the door.

To be safe, I cut my side jambs a little long when making them and I had to trim their length to fit them into the rough opening.  In one case, though, I missed the fact that the floor of the old house was not level and cut one side too short, falling prey to the "measure once, screw up" school of carpentry.  You'd think that after two years of.... Ah, forget it.

Make sure that the jamb is centered between the walls, and if the hinge side jamb is not plumb by simply resting on the stud, you'll need to shim it.  (I thought that rough opening was plumb when I made it, hmmm...) 

To hide the nails that hold the jamb, it's best to place them in the center where they'll be covered by the doorstop.  However, to hold the jamb more solidly, especially when using shims, I found it necessary to put two nails side by side near the bottom and top of the jamb.  I set the nails so that I can fill and paint over them later. Use spacers when securing the top jamb, and again, shims to make it level.

Now, hang the door on its hinges and close it in the jamb.  If all goes well, use a few shims to get the lock side jamb in line with the door, nail it in place, and you're all set.  Of course, if all does not go well, then you're likely living in the real world and not the T.V., renovations of the rich and famous world.

For one of my door jambs, although it didn't seem so on the bench, I somehow managed to make the top jamb piece about 1/8" too long, thus making the opening a bit too large.  Of course the jamb was already nailed in on two sides, so the thought of taking it out and unscrewing it just to shave an eighth of an inch off didn't seem reasonable.  I shimmed it as much as possible to bring the jamb over to meet the door but this meant a barely perceptible bend in the jamb near the top (call that old-house character) and a lot of trial and error getting the right number and placement of the shims.

As you can see, not all jambs are created equal.  And since I installed these doors, the temperature has fluctuated causing things to move enough to require some readjustment.

Not every task is a wrestling match, and somethings do actually stay in place once you've set them, but I suspect I'll be readjusting things around Chez Melendy for awhile....

Handyman

Opening Doors - Part 1

Why pass up the opportunity to recycle a metaphor?  In this case, though, opening door refers to the noun.  That is, a door that opens instead of gets stuck.  The picture on the left should give some insight as to what it takes to get an old door to fit into a new space, and that's what I've been up to.

In most renovation projects, adding a door means a trip to the building supply center to pick out a pre-hung door that's trucked home and carefully installed into a rough opening.  For Chez Melendy, though, I'm intent on preserving as much of the original house as I can, and even though I knocked down all the walls on the second floor in order to change the layout, I want to put the original doors back in place wherever possible.  This means having to build 6 new custom door jambs.

So for me, the trip to the building supplier was to pick up some 6" wide finish stock, and since I'm planning on painting the upstairs trim, I bought pre-primed stock to save a step later, with minimal price difference to the unprimed stuff. 

Once home, I had to rip the boards down to the thickness of the new walls plus 1/8" to accomodate 1/16" of skim-coat plaster on each wall surface.  For any given door, I then have to cut the side pieces to fit the rough opening, and then cut a 3/16" rabbit into the side pieces about a 1/4" from the top--just enough to give that joint some strength for "door slammin' time."

The top piece of the jamb is cut to allow about 1/16" inch on either side of the door, and then it's screwed into place.  A couple of scraps are then screwed onto the jamb to hold it in place for sizing-up where the hinges will be placed.

The door then gets layed on a couple of saw horses so that the jamb can be placed around it, and a couple of roofing nails are put in place as spacers.  (Wood screw were what I had within reach, but they're more likely to leave marks in the new jamb.)

Once the door is snug in the jamb along with the spacers at the top, I mark where the hinges need to fall on the jamb.  I make marks for the top and bottom hinges, and then lift the jamb away from the door and clamp it up on its side in order to chisel away the spaces where the hinges will set.

To mark the borders of where I'm going to chisel, I lay one half of the hinge down on the jamb between the marks I've already made for its placement, and draw around the hinge using a utility knife.  Then I remove the hinge and, still using the utility knife, carve out the boarders of where I'm going to chisel.  This helps prevent over-shooting the mark later when I'm chiseling.

Once I have the hinges so they're flush with the jamb, I mark where to drill some pilot holes for the screws, and mount the hinges on both the door and the jamb, paying attention to keeping the hinges square.

Now I'm ready for a test fitting.  I place the jamb back over the door and insert the pins into the hinges.  With the door fitting well in the jamb, I'm ready to install it to the rough opening.

In Part 2 of Opening Doors we'll install the door and see how things change between "door on a bench" to "door in a wall," and learn a little lesson about tolerances.

--Thanks to artist and cabinet maker Matt Brown for showing me the way in making these door jambs.

Handyman

Welcome!

Hi, and Welcome to Builders Share, a forum for Home Improvement stories, instructional guides, tips, and tricks from our user community.  I'm Handyman James Graham and I'll be sharing my experiences with you regarding my own house renovation project. Call it a "handyman special" or "this old house for the common man," it's a gut rehab of an 1850's farm house.   I've had some great successes, made plenty of mistakes, and learned a whole lot along the way.  I'll be sharing all that with you and I'll also be looking for your suggestions and encouragement as I continue with this seemingly endless project.

In November of 2004, my wife and I bought this 1800's cape-style cottage from an elderly lady whose health didn't allow her to live alone as she had for many years.  She was of strong New England stock and drove a hard bargain, so I can't say we got one of those legendary deals where I seemed like such a nice boy that she practically gave it to me.  Don't get me wrong, I'm a nice boy, but property values in this small New Hampshire town, like so many places of late, have gone through the roof.  Speaking of -- the roof was one thing that didn't need replacing.  But I digress.

Mrs. Melendy did alright for herself, and we got ourselves a charming little house and barn that quickly morphed into a monster of a project.  Like all real estate, though, location, location, location, and that's one thing we knew was solid.  We're loving it here.

In small town New Hampshire, if your house isn't brand new, it’s referred to by the name of the prior owner -- in our case “the Melendy Place,” or as the French might say, “Chez Melendy.”  And since the latter has a more international, shall we say, cosmopolitan ring to it, that’s what this transplanted New York family prefers to call our little home.

In the beginning, we were renting a little house, right across the street, that used to be a market.  So for the initial six months, before moving in, I was able to dash back and forth across Market Street for meals, sleep, and quality time with the family.  And probably most important, I could work late into the night and not have to worry about a long journey between tool belt and bed.

Knowing that I was about to embark on probably the biggest project of my life, I tried to bone up on old house renovations and, in the process, came across this great book by George Nash, Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes. It was just the reading I needed for getting my eyes opened, and for providing encouragement and solice for my recent affliction. Some of the other books I picked up, and which have become either well-worn and dog-eared, or are just great reading when you’re immersed in building, are:

 

• Selecting and Renovating an Old House: A Complete Guide
• Building Traditional Kitchen Cabinets: Completely Revised and Updated
• Complete Wiring (Stanley Complete Projects Made Easy)
• New Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual
• Home Improvement 1-2-3 from Home Depot
• This Old House Guide to Building and Remodeling Materials
• Plumbing 1-2-3 from Home Depot 

Having reference material handy is essential for the Do-It-Yourselfer. The web is terrific of course, but when you’re in the middle of a project, and need a quick answer without getting distracted from the task at hand, good print materials are indispensable.

A lot happened in the initial stages of my renovation project, and as this blog continues, I'll be revisiting that period with clear hindsight. At the same time I'll be describing projects I'm currently involved in, starting with making and installing door jambs in the next installment.

So again, welcome to Builders Share. I hope my experiences can help you with your projects and I look forward to hearing about your own. 

Handyman