The Fittings Are Done

Yes, the fittings are done, now to sand, prime and paint them. Once that is done I can install them. I had to use a number 4 Bailey hand plan to clean up some of the old frame work that I cut back. Some of it was still a bit proud of the wall and caused a little problem, but not any more. The winds were up today sometimes gusting to about 80 Km/h and the rain wasn't falling it was moving horizontally across the lawn.

Our pond is growing.

The results of today's efforts. The four rooms upstairs.



The two plans I've been using.

A Little Piece Of History

We picked up this sofa today from an auction house in Quispamsis, ReBecca saw it yesterday and it may have been make by a cabinet maker form Saint John in the mid 1800's. We have a bit more research to do and I have to take a closer look to see if there are any identifying marks left by the craftsman. This is our little piece of history to go with our 120+ year old home, its in very good shape and probably will get re-upholstered later on, but for now we'll have to live with the blue velvet.

A Close Shave

That is what today was all about, shaving. I had the hand plan going, and well I must add. I admit I need to work on it some more and after today there are only 4 windows left. Pine works really well and the shavings came off smooth. Not much to show for today's efforts, the frames are back up in the dining room and kitchen windows and you already saw those pictures, so I thought I would show you how I was set up today.

A number 5 Bailey planer with new iron on a work mate.

It may not look like much but there is quite a bit.

Hand Work

All the window frames have been placed and it's time to start fitting them, except for the north kitchen window, which was plumb and fit strait off. Oh ya that's the one I installed. After marking what needed to be trimmed I was going to use the jig saw to make my cuts but some are so small that it would be a waist of time, because I'd have to use the hand plan anyway to clean up any cut marks so it's only hand work to fit all 11 of them. It's pine and easy to plan the edge, just a bit time consuming.

The dining room windows in place, not fitted yet.

The west kitchen windows, they'll be tricky to fit.

The master bedroom window in place.

This is what I took off the living room windows, a lot of shavings.

Window Frames.

No I haven't given up, at least not yet anyway. It's been very cold lately and I haven't been very motivated, but yesterday I cut the pine needed for the windows. And today I put them together, just nailed in, so I can take them apart after, to see how they fit and make some final adjustments and fittings. Not all the window hang plumb, that is square, either to the wall or vertically and I will have a bit of finessing to do to try and make them look good so the trim work will go on smoothly. They look good even just set in place, I did have to trim a few and will place them in again tomorrow and made those final measurements, for the next step. If you were wondering, the blocks in the corners help keep them square and the board in the middle helps maintain the width over the length of the window, easier to fit that way.

This is what 12 window frames look like cut and stacked.

Here they are put together waiting to be placed.

It is hard to see but here are the living room
window with frames.

The dressing room window with frame just placed in,
not nailed.

The south dining room window.

A look at the upstairs hallway window.

It's The Little Things

Now that the walls are painted and it's too cold to put on another coat of primer on the door frames in a couple of closets, I thought I'd connect the phone jacks, TV cables and speaker wires. They are little jobs but still need to be done, and today is a good a day as any other. Not very exciting pictures but we are still moving along.

The phone and Internet lines for my office.

The master bedroom phone jack.

The phone jack (bottom of picture, centre) and TV cable jack.

The satellite jacks, a jack for the dining room TV and
speaker wire hookup, beside the plug.

Clean and Smooth

Sorry there weren't any pictures yesterday, all I did was cut off the plugs, sanded a bit, added a few pieces at the bottom of a couple doors, and put on some wood fill to help hide any of the plugs. Not really worth the pictures. Today I sanded them smooth, and put on two coats of paint to clean them up. We'll be putting on more paint later, when the trim work goes up and of course after we move in, things get bumped and a bit grubby when moving. But for now they look good, I hope you can see it in these pictures.



Looking from inside the spare room to the doorway of the
dressing room at the closet door and the walk thru door.

From in the living room to the dining room doorway.



A better look the dressing room doors.

Adding More Plugs

Today I just put in the plugs, and not the electrical type. I cut about 135 pugs this morning and put in about 40 of them. A nice way to hide the screws, and not worry about covering them up later. It's snowing now and a good day to be off the roads, so tomorrow when they dry I'll cut them off, do a little sanding and put on a dab of paint.

This is what 135 plugs look like.

Just to give you an idea of how they look installed.

Looking Better Every Day

All the door frames are installed, I have a little more work to do, like adding a few more screws and plugs to hide them. A couple will need spaces at the floor, I had to raise one end on them to make sure the header was level, minor stuff. All though the trim work isn't up, it is amazing how good it looks with just these few pieces in. Here a few pictures of the doors upstairs, I showed you the dining room and living room yesterday, nothing has changed with them, just that they are screwed in today.

The master bed room and dressing room doors.

The spare room.

My office.

The walk through and closet doors in the dressing room.

We've Been Framed

I took the door frames to the house today and put them together, as well I set the dining room and living room frames in place to see how they'll look, and I'm happy so far. I'll get an early start tomorrow installing them and should have better pictures then. I used the cut offs from the top pieces as an accurate spacer at the bottom, this will help during installation, hopefully keeping the frame square, at least as square as I can make it in a 100+ year old home.

A few ready to go.

The rest waiting instillation.

Living room frame, looks good.

This just completes the dining room.

Bright & Shiny

Well I didn't wait to apply the second coat primer, they dried yesterday afternoon and I put on the second coat of primer, this one was a bright white and the same brand as the first one. So today I got right at it and was able to put on two coats of trim and door paint. A semi-gloss white, bright and shiny. I'll let them set for a couple of days and then take them to the house and start installing them. Today I also put on a touch up coat on the master bedroom, the dressing room and the spare room. If you recall we painted them about this time last year, just in case we got lucky and sold the house we would at least have the rooms painted. Well over the year and after pulling up and installing the floors, the walls took a bit of a beating and needed to be freshened up a bit. The temperature today was about +10° C and the pond made it's debut today, we'l see how it holds out this year.

The door frames are looking good.

The start of our seasonal pond.

Prime Work

All the board are now primed, I just about ran out of space to lay them out, as you can see they take up quite a bit of floor space. From the work bench to saw horses at the door and in between. This was an oil based primer and I'll be adding another primer (latex) tomorrow to help the finished coat adhere, giving it one more layer to help hide the knots and any resin that may try to show through.

Every day we get one step closer.

Making The Door Frames

A busy day today, I cut to length & width and sanded about 164 board feet of pine for the 11 doors that are without frames. All the frames are custom cut to fit, the living room and dining room door are unique sizes, the hallway doors for the four rooms upstairs will be the same size, the closets and the walk through from the master bedroom to the dressing room are all different sizes. Tomorrow I'll put on a primer to help hide the knots and any pine resin that may show through, then paint them with a few coats of semi-gloss and then install them. After that comes the window frames and then all the window and door trim work will start.

Not much to see, but I thought I'd show you today's work.

Colour In The Living Room

The living room go a bit of attention today, I put on two coats of a soft cream, and it looks great. Just a little bit of colour, this soft cream colour will help keep the room bright. I also put on a touch up coat of paint in my office, I'll do the other three rooms shortly.

Looking at the south east corner, the sun will come
that south window and the room will be bright.

Looking back at the north west corner, nice blue in the hallway.

Paint - Take Two

A second day of painting done, and as expected it's looking better. It may need one more coat and then I can touch up the bedrooms before I get started on the door frames, window/door trim and baseboards. You really can't see the difference but here are a couple of pictures of today's progress.

The kitchen north and east walls.

Dining room door from the hallway.

Dining room, west window.

Again looking south down the hall.

Finally Back At It

Yes we are back at it, today we painted, the weather has cooperated and warmed up some so the house is warm enough to paint. We put on the first coat in the kitchen, dining room, and both hallways. This colour flows throughout the these rooms which makes them feel bright and inviting. We didn't what different colours is each room, it might have made them look smaller and separate. The living room will be different as this room is separated from the rest of the down stairs, it will get painted if a few days.



As you wold come in the front door.

Looking down the hallway.



Upstairs looking south.



The dining room.

The kitchen's north wall. Lots of light.

Looking Back - Part VI

One last thing to see is how the floors transformed. We started in January 2012 pulling up the floors from the upstairs and then the living room. Once they were back in my shop I started working on them, I had to get them squared up. First thing I did was go over them with a little metal detector to find any old nails in the wood and I found quite a bit. Then I had to plan them flat, some work was done on the under side as they were never planned smooth and then I had to joint one edge so I could run them through the table saw to continue with squaring them up.  With the boards milled down to ¾ inch and the sides parallel I could cut in the tongue and grove needed too put them down, but first I filled the old nail holes, sanded them, then the routing work came. This work in the shop took 22 days and a lot of effort. After the milling was done I had 19 large garbage bags of saw dust and shavings and we still had ¾ inch of flooring left.

This is what we started with, here is the living room floors.

One small pile of old nails removed. A future project I think.

After using the metal detector this is
what I pulled out of the boards.

A long road but here are all the boards dressed.

A look at the tounge and groove I cut into each board.

A new look for the upstairs hallway,
originally they went across the hall.



Just the stain applied.
 

Three coats of ply alppied., the dressing room.
 

The south end of the upstairs hallway, were the
old bathroom was.