Saturday, June 15, 2013

New Dining Room Hinges

Since we were planning to have 12 people for lunch today, we finally found the motivation to finish a project that's been sitting unfinished for several weeks now. The dining room built-in has finally gotten its new brass hinges.
The old hinges are really skanky. The exposed portions were mostly black and the painters applying stain over them, certainly did not improve their appearance. And while it seems like it would have been more thrifty just to have these old hinges replated, it isn't. I looked into it, but it was more expensive to replate the old hinges than it was to buy new solid brass hinges.
I tried to buy identical hinges—I carefully measured and scoured the online websites for the same size—but I still failed. The new hinges are about 3/32" larger and, of course, the screw holes didn't line up. So, it was a bit of a slog to take off all the doors, re-mortise the frames and doors, and fill the screw holes. Jeff used a small dowel and wood glue to fill the original screw holes.
After the glue dried, he had to redrill all the screw holes and reinstall all the doors, but we finally have pretty, shiny hinges to go along with our pretty new leaded glass panels.
I've just got to look at it again. I'm so pleased this is finally done.

And for those, just dropping by for the first time, this is where we started in 2010.
And now.

(For more before and afters, visit our "Before and After" page.)

3 comments:

  1. What a transformation going from white paint to stained woodwork! That's beautiful. It's those fiddly jobs like the hinges that always get postponed, isn't it?

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    Replies
    1. It was worse than getting postponed. We get all the doors off and then got stalled.

      Where are the chisels?
      Oh, they are dull.
      Who can we borrow a sharpening stone from?
      Oh, we need the chisel sharpening jig thingy. ...

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  2. I just had to come look at your stained wood again for inspiration to keep going... started stripping the wood in the dining room again last Sunday. It's going to take me forever as Sunday is the only day my 5 year old grand-daughter isn't here. (Don't want her inhaling fumes)
    I cannot wait for my dining room to look as pretty as yours!!

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