Rebuilding the fence gates.

Almost exactly a year ago I built the double gates to the backyard. We park our cars out back so we have to drive through these gates everyday.


At the time I thought they were wide enough but I quickly learned that they weren't. My truck was especially tight.

Well now I'm buying a dually. I know that it will never fit through the gate. So yesterday I tore down the old gate and the small piece of fencing next to the house. This will give us over 2' of extra clearance.

The framing for the gates is relatively simple. I did however want to beef the gates up a little more this time so I installed 2 cross braces instead of one.



The small piece of 2x4 in the upper corner is for the upper hinge. Here are the new gates installed. The center boards are missing because I still need to tweak that area to get a perfect fit.

These gates are much more sturdy and solid than the last ones. The extra 2'+ should make driving through them much easier now.

Final closing!

This is a little late in coming but on December 14th we finally closed on our permanent mortgage for the house. No more construction loan! It's been a long year and a half.

We're still far from finished on the house but it's nice to be able to work on what I want now instead of what I feel HAS to be done to get the mortgage. Most of the things I have been working on are small jobs but it's the detail work that usually makes the most difference and makes the place look more like a real home and not a construction zone.

I've finished up a few things in the kitchen. First I finally hung the second pendant light and got both of them wired up.

In the above picture you can also see that I finished the doors for the final cabinet. I still need to add the crown for this cabinet and one other and then the crown for the ceiling.

The breakfast nook is slowly progressing, I have everything roughed in now. I also finally put the window trim and shutters back up, I still have to paint them though. the ceiling in the nook still needs to be installed also.

Next I stained the kitchen island and added the little magnetic door poppers to the insides of the doors. I still need to build the shelf inside though.


In the study I finally tackled the door to the closet/passage to the living room. The door was a 5 paneled door that did not match anything else in the house. You can see the door below in this picture from a few months ago.


On the first floor every other door is 4 paneled. A while back I had taken the door between the back hall and breakfast room down, we didnt like how it closed off the space. I measured this door and found that it fit perfectly. You can see the door in the picture below.

I completely stripped all the paint off the door and door frame then hung the door. Next I installed the beadboard on the wall next to the door.

I stained the doorway and beadboard with dark walnut. For the door I only put on 2 coats of amber shellac.

I still need to add the trim around the doorway. I also stained the beadboard on another section of wall.


I only have one more small section of beadboard to install then 3 more sections to stain. I still need to install the picture rail also.

While I was in the Study I decided to open up the fireplace to see what I would find.

The above picture was after cleaning all the sand, leaves and soot out. One thing I found interesting was the bricks that line the fireplace, many are stamped with the word "STEVENS" but the letter N is backwards. I'm pretty sure this is the name of the company that made them but I havent been able to find out anything about them. If anyone knows anything about them I'd love to hear about it. Here is a picture of one of the bricks.

Of the many spare doors I have some are french doors, I found that one of these was an almost perfect match for the doorway between the back hall and breakfast room. We took the 4 panel door down from here because we felt like it closed off the space but a french door wont. It also gives the breakfast room a sunroom kind of feel.

I cut the door down to size, sanded it and test fit it into place. I had to rework the door frame a little for it to fit properly.





As you can see the door is only primed for now. Also the door hardware is only test fitted into place. I still need to restore the lock and rosette. I also need to install a "new" pane of glass in the opening on the bottom.

Build a clawfoot tub shower ring for under $20

We've been forced to take baths for almost a year and a half now. I finally got fed up with that and decided to put together a shower. the shower kits online at these restoration places are expensive as hell so I decided to see if I could put together the parts myself. At this point we just need to get things working, later on when we have more time and money we can go back and put in the nicer, more expensive plumbing parts.

My original intention was to get the tub in the master bath working. I bought a shower riser for around $40, a set of supply lines for $20, two cut-off valves for around $8, and a PVC drain assembly for $14. I painted the PVC drain with the same bronze paint that I painted the clawfeet.


I already had an old tub faucet that was already in the tub.


I put everything together but had a problem with the faucet. The internals were rotted away so I couldnt shut the water all the way off. I looked online for another tub faucet that has a shower flange. I found one for $30 but it was hideous.

The tub in the downstairs bathroom is the only currently running tub. I took the gooseneck faucet off and found that the shower riser would fit with an adapter.


The only thing I needed now is a shower ring. Looking online I found them to be fairly expensive, $150 to well over $400.

A few weeks before we were looking through an old house for sale that had a shower ring in one of their bathrooms. Looking at it closely I discovered that they are constructed out of common parts that you can find at any home improvement store.

I went to Lowes and began searching for the right combination of parts. 1/2 electrical conduit was perfect, light, easily bendable, paintable, and cheap. I knew I would need some type of "T" to connect the ends to the wall and ceiling. I found a 1/2 cast iron "T" in plumbing that was perfect. I could have had the ends of the conduit threaded to fit the "T" but that didnt occur to me until after I had built it, and in the end I like it better the way it turned out anyways. Instead I found a 1/2 coupling that was threaded on one end and a compression fitting on the other. the last part I found was a 1/2 galvanized floor flange, I would use this to connect the ring to the wall and ceiling.

Parts list:

• 2 - 10' lengths of 1/2" electrical conduit - $1.98 ea
  
• 2 - 1/2" cast iron "T" connectors - $.98 ea
  
• 6 - 1/2" compression connectors - $.54 ea
  
• 2 - 1/2" Floor flanges - $2.97 ea
  

From the left; 1/2" "T" - 1/2" Compression/threaded connector - 1/2" Floor flange

First I cut the both pieces of conduit down to 81"


then I put each end in the pipe bender leaving 5 5/8" overhanging the edge.



This gave me an overall length of 61" once both ends were bent to 90 degrees.


Then I screwed the compression connectors onto either side of the "T" connector.


Then I slid the ends of the conduit into the connectors and tightened them down. The front connector I pointed forward towards the wall, the back connector I pointed up to the ceiling.

I measured the shower curtain so I could find how long the bar that attaches to the ceiling needed to be, in my case 28". For this piece I went ahead and used a 28" piece of galvanized pipe threaded at both ends. One end threads into the "T" connector, the other end into the floor flange. On the front end I used the compression connectors and a very short piece of conduit.

Back connector

Front connector

The above pictures were taken as I was test fitting everything into place. Once I knew everything fit I took it all down to paint the ring. I used the same bronze paint since this ring will eventually go in the upstairs master bathroom. I'm not going to have a shower in the main bathroom, only in the master and guest baths.



You may have noticed that this ring is a bit big for the tub. This is a 5' tub, both tubs upstairs are 5 1/2' so it should fit perfectly. Once I get a tub faucet for upstairs I will move the ring and shower riser upstairs. For now it's nice to have a shower again.

Christmas Tree

Here is our Christmas tree in the Parlor, it's a ten footer. We decorated it with silver, gold and white ornaments, though it's hard to see that in the picture.


Some of the previous owners relatives are coming by again this weekend, so I'll be doing a bit more work in preparation for that.

A few odd jobs

We've managed to get a few things done over the weekend. I started stripping the paint off the Dining room mantle. Here is what it looked like when I started:

And here it is after over 2 hours with a heat gun and a scraper:


Once I'm finished scraping I'll remove all the old shellac the put 2 coats of amber shellac on it then a coat of poly to seal it.

We also started on the stairs. They were too dark completely stained so we decided to paint the risers and baulisters white. First I sanded the risers to give the paint a good surface to adhere to, then I painted the risers.

Here it is with half the risers done, you can really see what a difference it makes:

And here it is with the risers finished:

Next we'll paint the baulisters.

We also went outside and started decorating the house:


You can see the Christmas tree in our Parlor window. I was going to post pics of it but I forgot to upload them to my server so it will have to wait for the next post.

There are a few other things I have in the works for the house, one is what to do with the floors that need refinishing. Another will drastically change the exterior appearance of the house if I decide to do it. I'll be posting more about these things later.

Lots of painting

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. We've been really busy Working on the house. We decided to bite the bullet and go ahead with converting to a standard mortgage. All the work we've been doing was in preparation for the appraisal.

We did not finish the main guest bedroom or the guest bathroom but were told not to worry about it as the house should appraise for well over what we have in it even without finishing those rooms.

We've already been approved for the loan and the appraisal was yesterday. They are wanting to close by the end of the week. We haven't heard back about the appraisal yet though.

Here are some pictures of the work we've been doing on the house, it's mostly painting but it has really helped to give the house that "finished" look. A large part of the painting was going around and painting all the trim on the first floor. I had not painted the trim before now because my original intention was to strip it all and stain it dark. Then we painted the walls above the picture rail in the Parlor and the Formal Dining room. We also painted the kitchen cabinets, that made a huge difference in the kitchen.

Back hall taken from the Foyer looking back to the Breakfast room

Back hall taken from the Breakfast room looking forward to the Foyer

Back hall from the stairs

Back hall Dining room door

Parlor

Parlor

Parlor

Formal Dining room

Formal Dining room

Kitchen

Kitchen

Kitchen

Kitchen

Kitchen

There's still quite a bit left to do on the house but I will be doing it at a slower pace now. It will be nice to finally take a little time off.

One of the reasons for getting our standard mortgage now is that we might possibly be taking on a new project soon. Nothing's definite yet but if it works out I'll write a post about it soon.