Builders Share

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.