Tuesday, June 30, 2015

1910 style LED lightbulbs

OK, let's try this again. I was looking for Edison style LED lightbulbs for our historic light fixtures. I did a search in Amazon and found some really great ones. But, unfortunately, I didn't realize my search results also included a bunch of incandescent bulbs and I ordered some by mistake. Thanks to a more observant reader, my mistake was discovered before I received my order and I was able to return the wrong bulbs before I opened the box. It cost me $8.45 in shipping, but that is just the cost of not checking all the details before hitting that order button.

I have since done another, more careful search, and I will share what I have found:
LED Vintage Filament Bulb, ST19 Edison Style, 4W to Replace 40W Incandescent Bulb, Super Warm White. I love this one, but tragically it is longer than our light fixture shades.

LED Filament Bulb,VCE® LED Edison Bulb 4W to Replace Incandescent 40W Bulb,Soft White 2700K-6 PACK

Leadleds E27 LED Filament Light Bulb Lamp Nostalgic Edison Style E27 4W to Replace 40W Incandescent Bulb Soft White 360° Beam Angle
They claim to be based on a 1910 style; our house is 1912. These would be perfect for all our open lights in the living areas that currently have compact fluorescents (ugly and definitely not period looking).

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Finished Shellacking

We pretty much took our time, partly because of the heat, but we've finished shellacking the bedroom.

Jeff is off playing this weekend with friends, but next week, we'll go ahead and repaint the room.
I didn't finish shellacking the door because I'm super unhappy with how dark it is. I stained that at the same time as the closet. I'm thinking I'll probably end up taking it outside when the floor is being refinished and sand it down again. :(

I'll probably strip the bathroom door at the same time, since we'll have 3 days where we can't walk on the hallway floor. (We're planning to have the hallway refinished as well, due to the ugly scratches the movers put on the floor.)

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Shellacking Started

I didn't finish shellacking the sewing room today. I was moving pretty slow and I took frequent long breaks. LOL

I finished two coats of shellac in the closet. I really don't like how dark it turned out, but I messed up when I stained it. I was using the dregs of an old can of stain and I added some "fresh" stain and it clearly dredged up some of the pigment that had settled to the bottom of the can and it turned out to be much darker than normal. And I should have used a lot more fresh rags to wipe up the excess stain. Oh well. Luckily, it's just the closet.
I also finished shellacking the doorway into the room as well as one of the window frames. This will likely take me a few more days at this rate.

Now that the windows are back up and we can close them, the outside temperature is less of an issue. We have air conditioning and it is on. :D

I've left messages with the electrician and floor refinisher. I'm hoping they'll get back to me soon. I'd love to get this room completed and get moved back in by the end of summer. And it would be nice to get the guest room back too.

It's almost time to go dig through the paint in the garage and see what color options we have. I'm predicting hubbard squash. I'm pretty sure we have several gallons leftover.

Monday, June 22, 2015

Staining Finished

The second coat of stain is on. (This stain, because someone always asks, is Jel'd Wood Kote in cherry.) This brand of stain we like much better; it's easy to use and not terribly messy (as stains go). It also covers imperfections well.
This is the point where I freak out—just a little bit—because the wood is so dark. But then we put on the shellac and it brings out the pretty grain and everything is fine.

I also put the windows back in and shellacked them with two coats. It was nice to finish early today and have some time to goof off. :D

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we'll finish shellacking the rest of the room.

As an aside, we would have liked to go with lighter stain, but the woodwork on the main floor was originally that really dark mission brown color and we weren't sure a lighter stain would cover the imperfections once we removed the paint and sanded thru the stain on the woodwork. Our stain combo did its job well.

And, I have a matchy matchy problem; once we used this dark cherry stain downstairs, I had to use it in the rest of the house. :D

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Staining Has Begun!

The other day when I said I was gonna fill the holes in the woodwork...well, I didn't do it. I couldn't find the wood filler and I was too lazy to go buy more. But then yesterday, Jeff gave me a hard time about it, so off I went to the store. Jeff filled holes while I removed and stained the windows.

Then this morning I stained the second coat of stain on the windows and stashed them in the bathroom, out of the way. And then we had to sand the woodwork again to remove the excess wood filler. After a break to let the dust settle, we vacuumed and wiped down the woodwork. Then we set to work staining.

Ugh, we still hate Mohawk Wiping Wood Stain. This is our third can of it, and it's just awful; so runny and messy. Yup, Jeff forgot about how runny it was and spilled some on the wall. Oh well, we are planning to paint again anyway.
Not sure why all the pictures are turning out blurry now.

I'm pretty sure we spent more than 8 hours working today and I'm so tired. I'm just not used to this much physical labor. I'm pretty sure we'll both sleep well tonight, which is a good thing, because tomorrow we need to hop out of bed and do the second coat.

We are racing to stay ahead of the weather with this project as the forecast calls for 100ºF weather by the end of the week. Blech. Once it gets that hot, there's not much chance I'll be leaving the gaming lair in the basement. :D

Saturday, June 20, 2015

After Before Pictures

I've cleaned up the room a bit and here are the pictures of the woodwork after paint stripping and sanding, but before staining. We're mostly doing prep work today (i.e. removing hardware, windows, vacuuming dust, etc.). We might not start staining until tomorrow, but I hope to do at least a little this afternoon.
At this point, we've been at this project for 3 weeks.

Friday, June 19, 2015

No Rest for the Wicked

We have finished sanding!! We were determined not to do this for another day so Jeff and I forced ourselves to get this project finished tonight.

I looked up the weather forecast and was really bummed to find a 10-day heating trend. By next weekend, it's supposed to be in the high-90s. No f-ing way am I working on staining and shellacking in that kind of heat.

I had expected to goof off this weekend, but we can't do it. We've goofed off too much over the past two years. So, me being the slave driver I am, we are starting staining this weekend. It has to happen.

I'll take some pictures after I clean up the room and vacuum the woodwork to prep for staining.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Oh, the Dust!!!

Ugh, sanding the woodwork sort of sucks. If we were doing more than one room, we would definitely have to figure out dust collection. I can only sand for about 40 minutes before I have to take a break and let the dust settle.

If I really applied myself, I could have finished today, but ugh, the dust. I couldn't stand that many hours in that room. I'm hoping Jeff and I will finish sanding by Friday night, then we can feel good about goofing off all weekend. :D

Today I finished sanding the closet with 80-grit and 100-grit. The wood had more paint embedded in the grain so I started with the rougher grit. I won't bother to use 80-grit in the rest of the bedroom. I also finished sanding the baseboard with 100-grit. I still have the windows and the entry doorway.

After I finish with the 100-grit, I think I'll go back over it quickly with 150-grit. I'm not sure that I'll bother with a finer grit than 150. I guess it will probably depend on how tired I am. LOL

Again, it's not really worth posting pictures. It still looks pretty much the same as earlier photos. I may try to sweep up the dust tomorrow and take some pictures before I get started sanding again.


Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Fiddly Details

Paint stripping seems to be one of those activities where you are never really done. You can spend a staggering amount of time trying to clean up paint out of all the crevices, but eventually you have to just declare it "good enough" and move on. I spent a few more hours the last couple of days cleaning paint out of crevices on the crown mouldings and door jambs with dental tools, despite my declaration last time that we were done. Seems like I do this every time.

I also finished stripping paint off the window in the closet. Now we really are at the point where we can fill holes and start sanding. Really, for sure this time. LOL

Jeff has been working with his friend, Eric, everyday this week. He usually is the one who does projects like filling holes in the woodwork, so I guess I need to go dig around and find the wood filler. I really want to keep this project moving along. Sanding, here we come!!

Over the weekend, alas, we got a distracted with our video game again. I never seem to be able to do real life house projects on the weekends anymore. Instead, Jeff and I basically "cleaned house" in ArcheAge and dealt with getting rid of "stuff". We had land and a house and lots of chests that were full. We were sort of pack rats and we're now trying to clean house, so to speak, so we can close out this chapter of our lives. It is possible we will go back and play some more ArcheAge in the fall, once our summer projects are finished, so we're trying to get our character's affairs in order for a long, possibly permanent, break in the game.
Family House in ArcheAge

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Two Week Progress Report

I finished the third pass cleaning up the picture rail last night and Jeff did a bit more detail work on the crowns. I've gotten the woodwork in the closet cleaned up so it is "good enough." (My standards for inside a closet are a bit lower than for inside the bedroom proper.)

We still haven't figured out what to do with that bad patch on the baseboard. We'll take a closer look at it and see if we can remove the spackle and get it filled with wood filler. If not, I'm contemplating just covering it with a blank utility box cover.

Jeff has started digging spackle out of nail holes because it makes a lot more sense to fill them with wood filler before we sand. But, once we finish this bit of repair work we will be at the sanding stage! Woo hoo!
Given the hot weather we had last week, and how unproductive we've been for the last couple of years, I'm pretty happy with how fast we're getting through this project. If we keep on it, I think we can finish the woodwork and painting by the end of the month. I'm actually thinking about scheduling the floor refinishing so we have a hard deadline. :D

Friday, June 12, 2015

Dental Tools, for the Win

We are having oh so much fun playing with dental tools. At least the weather has cooled down so we can manage to work for a few more hours a day.

We are getting pretty close on these two crowns. Believe it or not, you don't have to get every last bit of paint out of the crevices; the stain should cover it pretty well. It's better if you don't dig too hard because you'll damage the wood if you keep after it with the tools too much.
We're also cleaning up the picture rail. It's a little bit of a tedious project because of all those curves and edges.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Sanding, for a Change

I needed a change today so I decided to turn my attention to stripping the high shelf from the closet. I wish I had bothered to take a picture before I got started. The shelf was UGLY. The paint left on it was all mottled and you could see several layers of colors. The bottom layer seemed to be some sort of translucent blue stain.

I decided to turn my attention to cleaning it up. I put on a thick layer of chemical stripper and let it set for quite a few minutes. Then I scraped it pretty hard with the metal scrapers and that seemed to take off quite a lot of the paint. It took a couple extra coats of stripper and some elbow grease to mostly remove the blue stain.

After the board dried out for a while, I sanded it thoroughly and it looks pretty good. Not brand new good, but it will definitely look respectable once we stain and shellac it.
I also started sanding the closet door frame and that looks much better now too.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Midnight Project

It was nice and cool last night when I got started stripping paint at midnight. :D

I worked for about 3 hours and I just about finished the first pass with the chemicals. I still have a bit more clean up in the closet, but otherwise it's time to turn our attention to cleaning up the fine details and tight corners with dental tools. :(
We bought a new can of KleanStrip from Home Depot and it's so runny I can barely stand working with it. I don't know if they changed the formulation, or if we just got a bad can. KleanStrip used to be more like the consistency of yogurt, which I really liked, especially for working on the woodwork above our heads.

Monday, June 8, 2015

One Week Progress Report

Well, it looks like we've been at this project for about a week. The weather has turned hot (for us hot is in the high 80s). We've done a couple hours of work a day for the last couple of days, but nowhere near how much I was hoping. We can't really work when it's hot anyway, because the chemical stripper dries out before it has time to do its work. So, for now, we're working a bit at night or in the morning before it gets hot.

The closet is nearly done. I still have to partially disassemble the window and strip the paint around it. Also, at some point the closet door frame must have been sanded down and repainted because it has been much more difficult to remove the paint. I've coated it with paint stripper about 3 times, but it still has paint residue in the grain. I'll probably do one more coat and then deal with the rest with the sander.

The baseboard in this room was not as pristine as the baseboard in the other bedrooms. It has a lot more damage on it and a bunch of holes filled with spackle. It's such a pain to deal with this kind of stuff, especially on the baseboard.
Yuck, found an ugly wood patch. It looks like it's being held together with spackle. :(
You'd think it would be easier to work on it because it is close to the floor, but it's really not. It is hard to get down close to the mess and clean it out. Luckily, as we've learned before, two coats of stain, a bit of stain-colored touch up paint and two coats of shellac can hide a multitude of imperfections. :D

Friday, June 5, 2015

Slow Progress

It's heating up in the sewing room so our progress is slowing way down. I'm a heat wimp. Once it cools down some tonight, I'll do a bit more work on the baseboard.
Jeff worked some more on the picture rail.

Ugh, I just looked at the weather forecast. It looks like our weather is gonna suck for at least the next week. This may turn into a work at night, sleep during the day kind of project. :(

Started Chemical Stripping

I had forgotten how much I don't enjoy chemical stripping. :)

It was a bit of a slow start yesterday because we had to mask the floors. This was thick plastic our contractor left behind in our basement so we decided we may as well reuse it before it hits the landfill.

Our dental tools we use to clean up the fine details seem to have gone astray. I really hope we can find them, or I will have to go buy a few more. :(

A lesson I learned again yesterday: Don't wear shorts to do chemical stripping. Chemical burns aren't fun.
I'm trying to get motivated to go resume more work today, but it's already getting warm and did I mention that chemical stripping sort of sucks? Oh well.....off I go.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

First Pass Finished

Yesterday, we took most of the day off this project and enjoyed The Hobbit trilogy, but we were back to work today. We still have to strip the closet, but we finished the first pass with the heat gun on all of the woodwork inside of the bedroom. Once I am finished with the closet, I'll go ahead and mask the floors and start in on the chemicals.
We removed the door so we could remove the paint around and behind the hinges. We're going to rehang it because of the sanding process. We have enough dust problems without adding to it.
For folks who are just joining us for this process for the first time, the heat gun stripping is the fast part. We are maybe 20% done (probably less) in terms of hours needed for bringing the wood to a stain ready state. Cleaning up moulding details with chemical strippers, dental tools and sanders is a slow, tedious process.

Update seven hours later: Closet is done too!
That painted block of wood on the wall will have to be replaced because it is not douglas fir.

Monday, June 1, 2015

Day 3 Progress

I guess sometimes insomnia is not so bad, as last night I went back to work on the paint stripping. I got started at 1AM. :D

Four hours later and I finished the first pass on all of the baseboard, but for a small section in the corner where we need to uninstall the electrical connections.
Jeff is hard at work on the picture rail
Yes, I plan to strip paint in the closet too. I sort of have to since I removed the closet door and don't plan to put it back. Once I finish more of the details around the room, I will go to work on the closet. (Ugh, I hate working in cramped spaces.)
The closet has been disassembled and I've heat stripped the bottom side of the shelf and it's ready for the chemical stripping. The topside won't strip with heat (maybe milk paint?). It's going to require chemicals and/or sanding to get off the finish.
My current goal is to finish this room by the end of June; I think we can do it.