Doors

Case Workers

/ Scott / 1 Comment

With the floor of the guest bedroom in place, Hans and I proceeded to case the doorway. The casing is mostly 1x4s cut to fit neatly around the door opening, hiding the drywall edge. One jamb is in the very corner of the room, leaving insufficient space for a 1×4, so I measured how much space we actually had and ripped a 1×4 to fit. I couldn’t even use the guide on the table saw… the guide only works for uniform rips, and the piece of casing varies from 1¼ inches to 1½ inches. So I snapped a chalk line and made a freehand rip, then used a sander to make the edge smooth. It fit OK in the end.

Guest bedroom doorway, all cased and ready for action.

Guest bedroom doorway, all cased and ready for action.

We cased the floor, too, in a manner of speaking. (Nobody actually calls it that, but it fits the theme of this post.) Mark installed baseboard around the perimeter of most rooms upstairs, hiding the inevitable gap between the floor and the drywall. They look awesome, painted white against the master bedroom’s blue walls. I find it fascinating how so many architectural details have become aesthetic ornaments when their true function is more substantial.

Master bedroom floor, surrounded by baseboard and ready for the baseboard heater hookup.

Master bedroom floor, surrounded by baseboard and ready for the baseboard heater hookup.

Having run out of Azec plastic-wood for the exterior, but wanting the most prominent façade to look nice until Bob gets a new supply, I put a temporary casing around the witch window. The casing consists of ordinary 1x6s (pine, not plastic); I painted them white and then Hans kerfed them and cut them to length. It took a few tries to get a snug fit, which I achieved using easily-removed deck screws. While I was up there, I also reinstalled clapboard siding up to the gable peak.

Like new, only not. Exterior casing for the witch window.

Like new, only not. Exterior casing for the witch window.

This job goes on hiatus through Memorial Day. For our final chore before leaving, we gave the place a thorough clean. I organized all our salvaged lumber in the barn and vacuumed the barn floor, where the sawdust was inches thick in some places.

Order.

Order.

Class Action

/ Scott / 1 Comment

Yestermorrow’s Renovation class is here all week. Instructor Mickel leads the students in replacing three very different walls on the first floor.

Julien works mostly by himself in the dining room. So far he’s ripped out the old sliding door to the back porch and a chunk of the wall around it, dug away some rotten wood under the sill, and framed it anew to hold a hinge door and a window. The huge opening briefly made moving materials a breeze… too bad we couldn’t take the door out months ago! A tarp under the roof overhang keeps the rain out, and a couple pieces of plywood over the opening give the place a semblance of shelter at night.

Julien opens up the dining room wall. A green tarp protects this opening from the elements.

Julien opens up the dining room wall. A green tarp protects this opening from the elements.

Meanwhile, Rebecca and Kyle tore down the wall between the bathroom and the living room. Their job is less wet (all indoors) but more complex as the wall contains lots of plumbing. Bob tossed the old toilet out the front door. The class removed the washer/dryer hookups (those move upstairs), and then rebuilt the wall in a stair-step configuration to create a new linen closet and accommodate a wet bar in Bob’s improved living room.

Bathroom/living room wall framed. The class subsequently installed drywall.

Bathroom/living room wall framed. The class subsequently installed drywall.

The third wall of interest is the exterior living room wall that faces the road. The house’s original front door no longer gets used, and as of Thursday morning the class had removed it. Mark, Hans, and the rest of the perpetual crew stay out of the class’s way, as we have plenty of finish work to attend upstairs.

No sh*t.

No sh*t.

The Doors

/ Scott / 1 Comment

Bob is brimming with salvage ideas for his newly remodeled farmhouse. Of the ideas we’ve executed so far, this one is by far the coolest: barn-style doors for the master bedroom.

Hans and I are building the doors from scratch, using floorboards from the former upstairs. For the first door, Hans found five boards with a combined width that just exceeded the required door width of 40 inches. Then we used a table saw to rip both edges of each board, simultaneously squaring up the corners and reducing the combined width to exactly 40 inches. Hans teased at his artistic side by finding an eye-pleasing arrangement, with a darker board in the middle and a shading effect from one piece to the next.

We cut more floorboards to build a Z-brace that holds the five boards together. 1½-inch screws hold the braces to the vertical boards. I buried the screw heads but not too deep, since the boards aren’t much more than ¾ inch thick apiece. Hans ran a sander across the rough side of the door so it wouldn’t be too rough.

Working in the barn, Hans sands the Z-brace on the first door.

Working in the barn, Hans sands the Z-brace on the first door.

Before we could install the first door, we needed to put up a piece of drywall to fit behind it on the north exterior wall. With Hans’s help, I marked the electrical box locations and cut them out with a keyhole saw, along with notches for the rafters above. When the wall proved too tight I used a rasp to make the notches a teensy bit bigger. Then we glued and screwed it in place, plumb and flush to the studs. Meanwhile, Mark built two posts and a header for the door assemblies.

First (fixed) door installed. Note the header and posts, and new drywall just to the right.

First (fixed) door installed. Note the header and posts, and new drywall just to the right.

The first door is centered under the header and fixed in a T with the north wall. We’ll install the other two barn doors on tracks, one on each side of header. This arrangement will let the doors slide fully open for a feeling of spaciousness (with all three doors pushed to the north wall), fully closed for privacy, or anything in between.

Second door under construction.

Second door under construction.