Wall Register Project Complete

When I started this project, I thought it would take me a day or two. Buy some salvaged registers, strip them, repaint them, and swap out the cheap ones. As usual, it didn't turn out to be nearly that simple.

The big problem was the position of the mounting screws. Wall registers for old forced air systems were inserts in larger metal housings, and the mounting screws were designed to fit this housing, versus being screwed directly into the wall.

Once I had cut 4, 10X8 inch holes in the walls, I realized that I really didn't have a feasible way of installing the registers. This meant about 5 trips to Ace Hardware to try a variety of creative solutions.

I actually started going to multiple Ace stores, because I figured I was going to the same one too often and it was becoming embarrassing. After a few failures, the folks at Diamond Lake Ace helped me come up with a plan. The key was to use a J-hook to grab against the lath, plus a coupling to screw into. I used gel epoxy to secure the J-hook and coupling to the top and bottom of each wall opening. You can see how the J-hook wraps around the opening and grabs the lath in the picture below. In the end, I am really pleased with how these turned out. They look infinitely better than the ones the contractors used when the installed the AC. They just look right with the house and they actually work.

Winter Projects Update

When winter rolls around, it becomes obvious that I am not a native Minnesotan. I have absolutely no outdoor winter hobbies, unless you count angry shoveling. No skiing, no ice skating, no snowshoeing, no hockey, no broomball (which is a strange sport played by Minnesotans, and I suspect Canadians). The closest things I have to hobbies right now are coffee drinking and going insane, which usually happens by mid-February.

In an effort to delay insanity, I am still working on slowly peeling the paint off the downstairs doors. It is coming along slowly, but surely.I have also decided to upgrade the wall returns for our air conditioning system. About a year ago, my desire for air conditioning trumped my old-house puristness and we invested in a Unico system. While we like the system, the Menard's style air returns really leave something to be desired. The system required 4 of these and we tried to hide them as best we could.

I have decided to replace them with salvaged cast iron wall register inserts. Originally, a register like this would have fit inside a larger metal housing and would have been positioned through the baseboard, closer to the floor. So, even though it isn't really accurate, it will still look a heck of a lot better than the current one.

Fumeless Indoor Paint Removal

The interior doors of our house are birch and were originally finished in a dark color to look like mahogany. At some point, they were all painted white. I had planned on stripping and restoring all of them this winter, but it struggled to figure out how to do so without creating fumes or using chemicals.

I started by taking one of the closet doors to the garage and attacking it with a heat gun, followed by soy gel in stubborn spots. I noticed that the paint would flake offs next to where the heat was directly applied.

I realized that the paint would peel away if I passed the heat gun over it at low temperature, leaving the original finish completely intact. The process also creates no fumes and the paint itself comes off in large strips. I use Gorilla Tape to pull off any stubborn spots that the peeling process leaves behind.

My disclaimer is that this process works because the surface was originally finished and no prep work was done before the doors were painted. If the doors had been scuff sanded, this probably would not work. That said, he are the results so far.
The rings you see in the dark area are reflections in the finish that each strip leaves behind. Once I add a top coat of shellac, these will disappear.

Looking for Lamps

Whenever I see period style bungalow interiors in books or magazines, it seems like there are always a bunch of perfectly placed antique lamps in every scene.

Given our lack of furniture/decor, I decided to start looking for some antique lamps for our place like the ones in the pictures. I soon realized that all the antique lamps I liked were ridiculously out of my price range. I really had no idea that authentic antique lamps sell for thousands of dollars in many cases. I just can't justify spending that much of a lamp, no matter how cool it is.

So, I realized I would have to get creative. Sadly, craigslist is pretty much the extent of my creativity. Luckily, I was able to find a posting from a great local antique store that was looking to clear out some extra inventory. Among this inventory were two lamp bases I liked. One was a student lamp from the 30's or so, and the other was a reproduction cast bronze arts and crafts base. The two bases cost me just under $100.

I then learned that finding shades is trickier than finding bases. The student lamp has a 2.25" shade fitter, so that was the easy one. For that, I started watching art glass shades on eBay. After about a week of watching, I found an antique Quezal shade I liked for a fair price ($120). This was considerably lower than similar antique art glass shades at local salvage stores. The finished product is shown below. I think it looks pretty cool and fits nicely on my wife's desk.

I thought I had done pretty well to keep it under $200, but then I saw this on craigslist. Dang.
http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ram/atq/2057536340.html

The picture below shows the second base I bought. It isn't antique, but I really like the look of it. Finding a shade for it is proving to be painful though. I wanted to get a tiffany style stained glass shade, but I am finding those are very pricey. I have been looking at mica shades as well, but am not entirely sold on those either. If anyone has any ideas on where I could find an authentic looking arts and crafts lampshade for a reasonable price, please let me know.

Living Room: Before and After

The living room is finally "done". I use the quotes because I still have to refinish the door, clean the windows, and remove the horrible 80's door-thingee from the front of the fireplace.

I also realized that I started this project in fall of 2009, which is ridiculous. I used the same process as the dining room: 2 coats of dye stain, 2 coats of shellac (50:50 mix of amber shellac and alcohol), glaze with Old Masters Dark Walnut Gel stain, 1 more coat of shellac, and finally a layer of dark brown Briwax.

Here are a couple things I learned during this project

• If you decide to use an alcohol based dye stain, you have to be very careful with the first coat of shellac to avoid pulling up the dye and causing streaks. The best advice I can give is to start with an extremely light coat of shellac so the alcohol flashes off quickly to avoid pulling up the dye.
• Taping windows for refinishing is a waste of time.
  

BeforeAfter

BeforeAfter
Before (note the popcorn ceiling)After

Exterior Update

I actually tore the aluminum off the 'ol bungalow at the start of the summer, but realized I never posted anything. As you can see by the precarious position of my ladder in the second picture, this work had to be done while my wife was not at home. As she just pointed out, I didn't actually tear it all off. I had some handymen help me with the high stuff.Since the aluminum was added in 1971, there were at least 4 pigeon nests, 3 hornet's nests and half a dozen dead sparrows in the soffits. Maintenance free my a%&.Check out this triumphant heap of aluminum.

The painters will be coming out soon. Hopefully that will prevent the neighbors from calling the city on us.

Impulse Porch Furniture

My wife and I went out to buy a chair we found on Craigslist yesterday and somehow wound up buying an antique 3 piece wicker set (loveseat, rocker, and chair) for our front porch. We got them from a great antique shop that is not far from our house. Here is their website - http://oddsnendsonline.com/. It is a fantastic store with great furniture, rugs, and very reasonable prices.

While each piece will need to be reupholstered and painted, they are all really solid structurally. I also think they have really great lines despite their current nursing home look.
Here is the rocker
Given the sad state of the upholstery, I started removing it from the chair and rocker after we got them home. This resulted in a number of cool finds. In the picture below, you can see that the chair was originally a blue color and also where the original cushion was as the blue outline on the back of the chair shows.
The underside of the seat cushion was also very interesting. It was clear that both chairs had been reupholstered numerous times and the previous upholstery was actually just covered up or reused in some way. The final layer was the embroidered piece you see on the seat. By the looks of it, I would say this dates from pre 1930 and may have been the original seat cushion or back piece.
The coolest find was in the padding on the back of the arm chair. There was a piece of cardboard with the words "Glen Lake Sanatorium" written on it.
From some internet research, I found that the Glen Lake Sanatorium was a tuberculosis sanatorium that opened in 1916. My bet is that this is where the chairs came from and that the note was put there by whomever reupholstered the chair. It was a huge complex and the top story of the building had a huge open air porch because fresh air was believed the help tuberculosis. It was converted to a nursing home in 1961 (which explains the nursing home look of the furniture) and was eventually torn down. I think a lot of people would be creeped out by this, but I think its great. I also think it is great the tuberculosis cannot survive in a chair after 50+ years.

Overanalyzing Paint Options

Now that a significant amount of the aluminum soffits and fascia are down, we have started to try to figure out how we are going to paint the exterior.

I also now have a pretty good idea of how the exterior was originally painted. The aluminum was put on the soffits in 1971, and underneath there were about 3 layers of slightly varying shades of cream. The green trim the house has now is a recent addition. The stucco was painted white some time ago and it is tough to tell what color it originally was. I am thinking it has probably always been a lighter color and there was never a ton of contrast between the trim and the stucco. The windows and storms appear to have been painted a bright, kelly green based on what is under the current white on the windows and the few remaining storms I have. We have waffled between about 100 color options at this point and the people at Sherwin Williams are starting to make fun of us for all the samples we have purchased. We also have one window in the back of the house with about 20 color samples on it. We have gone back and forth a ridiculous number of times between light trim, dark trim, light storms, dark storms, etc. The current frontrunner is a light green/olive color for the stucco, a light cream color for the trim, and a dark brown/olive for the storms and accents. One thing that is a bit tricky is that we need to make sure that we factor the color of the bricks and roof into our decision. In reality, this is probably a good thing because it helps narrow down our options somewhat. I also like this look because it is kind of a combination of how the house was originally painted and our own taste.
I think the possibility above looks pretty decent. We are trying to be very careful with the green so that our house doesn't end up looking like a giant tic tac.

Also, if anyone knows a reliable handyman in the Twin Cities to help me remove the remaining aluminum (specifically the high parts), please let me know. So far my handyman search is going very poorly. Thanks.

Behind Door #2

I decided it was finally time to deal with the aluminum soffits on the house. From building permits, I know the soffits were added in 1971, so I am a little apprehensive to see what they are hiding.

I started with the small side entry of the house to get an idea of how much effort this will take. Here is the before picture.It took a whopping 15 minutes to get the aluminum and all the nails down. I was extremely pleased to find the molding and beadboard underneath to be completely intact and in remarkably good shape. The after picture is below.
The wood is solid, but most of the paint has peeled off. I actually think this is great because it is going to make it easier to prep for repainting. I can only hope the rest of the soffit work goes this well (unfortunately I know better).

Close up after
By the way, if anyone knows where I can take aluminum scrap in Minneapolis (and hopefully get money for it), please let me know. Thanks.

Let there be Light!

The living room ceiling light is up and functional. It wasn't even that bad to install. I think it is interesting that the old mounting hardware on the fixture fit the old electrical box perfectly. While I have no way of knowing what fixture was originally there, I believe this one has got to be pretty close. I wonder how long the electrical box was covered up or how long it has been since this fixture lit anything.
The ceiling itself is also now painted (except for the edges near the trim). For the ceiling, we went with a Sherwin Williams color called Jersey Cream. We are usually awful at picking colors, but this one actually turned out well.

The other nice thing about having an adequate light fixture in this room is I can now work on the trim refinishing in the evening. Hopefully that will accelerate the process from its current 200 year pace.

Installing a Vintage Medicine Cabinet

The bathroom in our house has been remodeled numerous times over the years. Probably the thing I liked least about it when we bought the house was the cheap, tiny medicine cabinet. It was also ridiculously off center with the sink for no apparent reason. I forgot to take a picture of the wall before I took it out, so here it is on the guest bed in all its glory.Luckily, we were able to find a 1920's birch medicine cabinet on craigslist for a great price. It needed a new mirror and the hardware didn't really work anymore, but it was otherwise in amazing shape. Once I got it ready to install, I took out the old one which was held in by about 3 screws. Here is the sad looking hole it left in the wall. Once I cleared out the spacing boards, the opening looked like it does in the picture below. I got really lucky that the studs in this wall were 24" apart. The new medicine cabinet is huge compared to the old one so I was really concerned it would take significant demolition to get it to fit.
Once the space was empty, I just needed to add a couple boards to one side and two shims to the bottom so the cabinet would be level. It turned out better than expected. The only problem is that it is making the other remodeled features of the bathroom look worse. The antique nickel t-bar latch is from Guilded Salvage in Minneapolis. I just have to cut a couple tiles and put them back in place to complete the project (it will probably take me way too long to do this).

Progress on the living room ceiling

We finally dealt with the popcorn ceiling in the living room last weekend. It was the messiest, most exhausting project to date. We started by covering all the walls in 3 mil poly and the floor in 4 mil. We then sprayed the entire ceiling with water using a hand pump garden sprayer. While we let it soak in for about 20 minutes, we put on tyvek suits, goggles, and respirators. We then started scraping. It took 7.5 hours, and many gallons of water. In the end, we wound up with a giant dropcloth full of popcorn ceiling debris that looked like a giant haggis and weighed about 200 lbs. For anyone thinking about attempting to remove a popcorn ceiling, here are a couple things that will help. 1. Have a small sample of the texture tested for asbestos. I have read online that some popcorn ceiling texture contains asbestos and some doesn't. We had ours tested and it did not. 2. Fill up garbage bags with the popcorn material as you go. The popcorn texture soaks up an insane amount of water and becomes extremely heavy.

Before - popcorn texture with no central fixture (beautiful 80's track lighting though)
With most of the popcorn texture gone, we noticed a suspicious looking patch in the center of the ceiling.
As hoped, it turned out to be the original electrical box for the central fixture. The whole thing was just filled with plaster, including the wires.
Once the plaster was gone, I had to figure out how to get power back to the fixture. My hope was that the mystery switch that did nothing near our front door was the answer. This is the inside of the mystery switch. I found that the disconnected black and white rubber/cloth wiring in the lower left of the picture below led to the ceiling box. Incidentally, I still have no idea what the red wire in this box does. I was able to reconnect the old wires and found that they did go to the ceiling box and that it had power! I still find it bizarre that someone would plaster over a central electrical box in their living room, but I guess I find the track lighting pretty strange too. I am looking forward to putting the fixture up. It is the one on the left in the picture below. We got really lucky and found it on craigslist. It exactly matches the original dining room fixture. If anyone is looking for similar polychrome fixtures, this website has a great selection, though they aren't cheap.

Small Projects over the Holiday Break

I am really tired of working on the living room woodwork, so I decided to work on a couple small projects instead. The first was to strip and restore the upstairs door hardware. The hardware is nickel and most of it was coated in multiple layers of paint.
I started by boiling the hardware in a solution of water and dishwashing liquid for about an hour or so. I have this technique is even more effective if you soak the hardware longer, but I am not that patient.

Next, I used a little bit of Zip strip to get any stubborn bits of paint, and cleaned the surfaces with furniture refinisher. Unfortunately, the hardware really didn't have a nice patina underneath the paint, It actually looked like someone had stripped the hardware previously and removed the tarnish in the recessed areas of the pattern.

To restore the hardware, I used Brass Darkening Solution (bought at Rockler for under $5). This stuff works on nickel and steel in addition to brass. Once the nickel was sufficiently darkened, I used Maas polish to even out the finish, leaving the recessed areas dark.

It actually turned out better than I expected and the nickel hardware really stands out on the white doors.
After that, I decided to try the brass darkening solution on one of the unlacquered brass switchplate covers in the dining room. While you can still tell it isn't original, I like the darkened look better, and it definitely beats the hole in the wall that was there before.

Help with Missing Weatherstripping

I am trying to find a piece of galvanized steel weatherstripping that is missing from one of the casement windows in the dining room. Not sure why it was removed, but you can see daylight through the bottom of the window where it is missing. The window itself has a strip of bronze weatherstripping which locks under a steel flange the comes up a little more than a quarter inch. The back of the weatherstripping is a vertical steel piece that extends up about 1/2 inch and fits against the front of the window. Any thoughts on where I could find a replacement for such a thing? I check all the easy options (Ace, Menard's, Home Depot, etc) with absolutely no luck.

With weatherstripping

Without

Taking on the living room

The living room is not a pretty sight. The contrast against the recently finished dining room makes it look even worse. I can't put off dealing with it any longer. Here are the before shots.

The woodwork was painted at one time. It looks like someone tried stripping it, but gave up. Given how sloppy it looks up close, I am amazed I didn't notice this before. Check out the sweet mid 80's track lighting. Honestly, these are the world's dimmest lights. Given that I don't have any art on the wall, the only thing they light is a 4 foot section of plaster with a nice big crack in it.
I really think this is going to look great when it is done. I would just like to skip the many steps it takes to get there. The dining room took me a ridiculous 8 months, so I have to do better than that this time.

Paint and Something for the Wall

We finished painting the dining room last week. I was a little nervous as the paint was going up, but I really liked the way it turned out. The color is Benjamin Moore Forest Moss.

We also added a vintage map of our neighborhood to the wall. Actually using the picture moulding as opposed to the 30 nail holes I patched in the wall worked out very nicely. The map is from Althea Maps and Prints which can be found in the Coe and Channell Antique shop at 2727 Hennepin Ave S. The frame was custom made by Dard Hunter Studios.

Finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The dining room woodwork is finally all refinished. I was determined that I wouldn't post anything until it was done. It took me 10 months and who knows how many hours (definitely in the hundreds), but I am extremely happy with the results. While incredibly tedious, the 5 step refinishing technique worked very well. Here are some before and after shots.

Column header before

Same header after - none of the wood grain was visible with the old finish.
Built-in before
Built-in after
Bank of windows

Close-up of the board shown in a previous post

Another close up

Unfortunately, there is a little bit of bad news. We still need to repaint the dining room and I have the entire living room left to refinish. It better take less than 10 months this time. I am going to work on some other projects before I get up the motivation to go after that one. Here is what the refinished woodwork looks like next to the living room woodwork.