You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘wood’ tag.
Tonight we had a productive, high tech, computer screen sharing, design review video conference call with McElf! Here’s a screen view (on our conference room at work) showing the color palette, renderings and the patient McElf:
We reviewed some details, got to see Maddie the dog, and settled in on a schedule.
When we got home we had some belated bday cake, served in our fancy, new to us, cake dome with flair. It used to be my grandparents, and I officially love it.
I’d like to say I got the cake at Termini Bros or DiBruno’s or some other fancy Philly bakery, but no…. I made it myself Monday night but we’re just now digging in.
This is a nice pic of Rob enjoying his cake… But also a good view of the layered cake:
Once the sugar rush hit, we got to work sorting and selecting oak trim for the various living room locations. It makes a difference because it’s all going to be stained with clear finish so we want similar pieces together. (Also we’re selective, deliberate, and have high standards, and these things are important to us.)
We also visited our basement wood stack! My, how it’s dwindled:
So that was our Wednesday!
Rob installed all the trim and casing on our mostly bare window tonight. We decided to rebuild the casing in the style of the 1900 renovation, with splayed jambs to allow more light to enter the room:
A lot of planning, buying material, then just a little cut here, glue and nail there:
Mm mm mm. Window!
Now all that’s left is a bit of nail hole filling and priming. It’s so strange so see the bright yellow back in this room, next to all our mellow cream colors:
Head detail:
Sill detail:
The new window’s in, but the old wood header still has some things to say… circa 1900 reno. Unfortunately, we can’t read a thing. Maybe the second piece says The Road?
It also has the coolest grain of any of the old wood we’ve seen. Unfortunately the majority of the header was falling apart and water damaged- if it all looked this great it would still be in the wall:
Here’s where I unknowingly sliced thru a nail. I don’t recommend trying it for safety reasons but doesn’t it look cool?
I was planning to just chop the old wood into pieces for the trash but when I discovered ~8″ of un-rotten, cool looking grain I had to make a few thin slices for fun. Have no idea what to do with them except decorate our dining room picture rail:
Any ideas what to do with these? I should probably look on pinterest or something. (Thanks for creating an addict, Laura.)
Ps: The dining room is still periwinkle, but I love the grey color it is in this iPhone pic. Could it be the sawdust from all my unneccessary chopping?
The surround around the new bedroom window is going to have a curved sill & head to match the original window. The original was likely a bowed double hung window, complete with curved glass! Unfortunately the existing wood was completely rotted, so time to start over!
We used pressure treated wood so it will last in direct contact with masonry. Here I am laying out the shape using a full size print of the new window details.
All laid out and ready to be cut with a jigsaw from the West Philly Tool Library.
For an extra level of protection and for ease of painting the window in the future we primed the wood using an oil based paint.
Sanding is super fun.
Sanding process close-up:
Pre- putty:
Rob rolling his eyes at annoying shelving track screws, which he was working on between painting doors, but after I goof-offed the track stickers / spilled the bottle of goof-off for the second time this week:
After a hard night of sanding away, I used up every last drop of our golden-oak wood putty on the three areas. Here’s the (old) threshold now:
So next will be another much- lighter round of sanding, then staining. Luckily we already know what stain matches- we have the leftovers we used last time at the bathroom threshold.
I’ll skip the painting pics tonight and instead show off the start of our mini floor refinishing project. There are 3 sections of newly-uncovered wood floor that need some love. First up, the old threshold into the orange bedroom. We moved the 1900-reno wide/ solid threshold a few feet to the new door location and uncovered this:
Second spot- in the orange bedroom where an ‘L’ or cartoon-foot shaped portion of the old closet wall used to be. Now it’s in the bedroom right outside the closet door:
Third and probably least noticeable spot also used to reside under the old closet wall. Now it’s chilling in the new closet:
This project didn’t really get started until 10pm (see painting and poly-ing) so suffice to say there is more to come. However Rob did manage to resecure one of the boards at the threshold that was practically just laying in place without nails (so I am told):
I also got started on the other two lumps of floor with our new sander & some 60- grit paper. The tape outline is to guide the sander.
These areas obviously were missed when the floors were (recently but before we moved in) refinished so they’re 1/8″ -1/4″ higher than the surrounding floor. Next steps: Sand, stain, poly, done.
Tonight I painted more trim. Rob made the linen closet & little closet jambs. Here is a view of the wood shop (dining room) from the kitchen while I was on dinner duty. Rob was router-ing:
Safety first while using the table saw. That thing is a monster.
Using the table saw in our other wood shop (living room):
Chiseling out for the jamb switch in our upstairs wood shop (the little bedroom). It turns on the linen closet light when you open the door:
Aaaand jambs in place:
Awesome, time to move on to doors!
If you’ve ever purchased trim from the Home Depot, you know it’s priced by the foot, and they encourage you to cut it to size on a giant rolling miter box with dull handsaws. If you haven’t experienced the joy of chopping, it’s definitely as fun as it sounds:
Rob looked so official cutting down all 999 pieces of the trim for our closet project that people thought he worked at HD… One gentleman even persuaded Rob to cut two pieces for him. Sawing away with a dull handsaw:
Regardless of Rob’s “employment” status at Home Depot, (we don’t quite spend 8 hrs/day there, yet) we now have all the wood for trim/stops/jambs. And I’m sure Rob’s arm is happy about that.
Who Said What?