Stair Railing Progress

Our forecast calls for nice cool weather for several days so it seems like a good time to finally get this railing installed. We made good progress this afternoon. 

We have a couple more hours of work to install the outer boards and the flat upper portion. Then I'll have to touch up the paint.

We also still need to route the edges of the board that goes flat on top, but it will be nice to have most of it finished by the end of the weekend.

Back Stair Decking

I don't remember what kind of wood CDR used for the back stairs—it was something tropical—but it looked really nice when they finished the project. I really regret we didn't finish it sooner. The nine years of weathering did not improve the appearance of wood and my several hours of sanding didn't do enough to remove the weathered wood.

Yesterday, I finally finished applying the Cabot Australian Timber Oil. I like the finish. Too bad I didn't do it sooner. =)

The boards next to the door are covered by a roof overhang so they look the best.

All the sawn balusters and railings are painted. I just need to finish prepping the newells (sanding and painting) and we can finish this project. 

It has gotten crazy hot in Portland—we have a forecast for something like 112℉ on Saturday—so it likely won't happen for a couple of weeks. I am really hoping this hot weather doesn't last the summer.

Front Porch is Finished

Jeff from Hand Made Home finished our front porch. It looks amazing. It took three coats to get a nice even finish.

This was the before.

He obviously removed the old decking and replaced it with new wood.

The cedar for the back stair railing has been cut out. We got some help with the cutting from a guy named Tracy Livingston who used to be a contractor and is trying to get back into the game.

They were removed after this photo so I can paint them before the final install. Since we're out of the paint, I'm basically waiting for the next paint sale then I'll go buy a gallon.

I'm also waiting for several days of nice weather so I can sand down the deck and apply a new finish. Given the current forecast, it could be a couple of weeks.

Railing Progress

I've planed down the cedar and our installer did a temporary install on these boards so we could get the spacing right. There will be additional pieces of wood installed at the top and bottom that will hide the ends of the slats.  

Once the lower portions are cut out, we'll mark the diamonds, take out all the wood and cut them out. We'd also like to route the edges of the top rail. Then I'll start finishing it. I've learned from my past mistakes; we'll be finishing before the final install.

I was planning to paint them, but we seem to be out of that white color paint. But we do have lots of the opaque white stain we used on the pergola and fence, so I'm considering staining instead. I really don't understand the difference in durability.

Stair Rail Demo'd

It's too late to turn back now. We have bought the materials for the new railing (and OMG it was not easy to find clear cedar 2x6s). This time we're going to paint it before it's installed. The newells seem to be in good shape so I think we'll leave them alone; we need to fill some nail holes and repaint them before we install the new rails.

The rails came out really easy because they were so rotted on the bottom. Demo only took about an hour.

I am also planning to clean and refinish the decking while we have the rails out. I'll need to wait for several days of good weather before I can get started so it will probably be a couple weeks. We're expecting rain for the rest of the week so I'll focus my efforts on painting the new lumber.

New Porch Floor

The porch is not finished, but they won't be making any more progress this week because of the snow. The new porch floor is looking really nice. As a reminder, the wood is meranti decking.

The contractor added a groove along the edge and installed it with a separate tongue. This is a photo of an exposed edge so you can see the detail.

The wood is unfinished in this photo. After he finishes the install, he'll finish the floor in place, but that won't happen until we have warmer weather, maybe in March.

Porch Progress

Hand Made Home started the porch remodel on Monday. They started by plastic-wrapping the porch (because of the lead paint) which made it impossible to take photos of the floor removal. LOL

Today they were leveling the floor joists and prepping the floor for the new decking. Tomorrow, they are going to finish the bottom of the boards back at their shop, then on Monday, they're going to start installing the new floor.

Sorry for the bad photo, I had to take it through the screen door.

Meanwhile, I have spent the week up in my sewing room working on my WOOFA list and One Monthly Goal. I've made a lot of progress. I'll do an update over the weekend.

Front Porch Repair

The front knee brace and our front porch have some dry rot issues. Since we have the proceeds from selling the Prineville house, we decided it was finally time to deal with some lingering issues with this house. Unfortunately, our skills are not up to dealing with these projects so I have been looking around for a contractor who could help us.

For the porch, I was hoping we could just replace wood in the affected areas, but nobody wants to touch it because of the age and likelihood of lead paint. It turns out it's easier to find someone to rip it out and replace the whole thing than it is to just repair it. 

This rotten wood is going to be repaired.

Today we hired Jeff Inskeep from Hand Made Home to repair the rotted knee brace/barge board and to replace the front porch. He's going to install and finish meranti decking.

He is supposed to start the work on February 1 so we shall report how it goes. If this job goes well, we may hire him to do more work.

This is our rotten front porch.

Leaded Glass Pattern

In typical fashion, I am flitting around my different projects. Last night found me playing with Corel Draw. I really need to learn how to use a photo editor so I can make patterns for making tile, leaded glass and/or stencils. I have a pretty old version I bought about 5 years ago, but it still does the job well enough for my needs.

This is the leaded glass panel I was considering for our front door.

Tonight (or rather last night by the time I got this finished) I managed to draw it out in Corel Draw. I had to extend the height so it would fit in our door. It is nice that CorelDraw can print out this large design across multiple pages so I don't have to pay extra to have it printed on a plotter.

I still have a lot to learn, but this project went pretty well.

Update: And for the record, I also tried making this pattern in SketchUp. In the old Google days of SketchUp it would have been pretty easy to make this pattern, but the new company that owns SketchUp has stripped nearly every worthwhile feature out of the free version (SketchUp Maker). Since I cannot justify paying $700 for the pro version, I guess my SketchUp days are over. I may eventually spring for another CAD program if I can find a good value, but I'll make due with other programs for now.

Floors Finished

It was agony to wait, but we finally got upstairs to take pictures. The guy(s) from Reborn Floors spent 5 long days sanding, filling, scraping and finishing our upstairs rooms and stairway. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of every individual step because we were trying to stay out of their way, so we'll just have to content ourselves with the after photos.

We decided to finish with a clear finish—Bona Traffic—as we did downstairs so the floors are now quite a bit lighter.

The difference in the big closet is amazing. Except for a patch done by CDR up in the back corner with unattractive knotty wood (upper left in this picture), the wood looks gorgeous. This might be the first time it was finished.

Here's the stairway.

Now that I can get back into the master bedroom, I think I'll try and work on stenciling the frieze. This will be my last chance to do it before we move the furniture back into the house.

Entryway Finished

Finally, the entryway is finished. The walls look so much better painted. It was really nice having someone else come in and paint the high ceilings; I just wasn't comfortable painting on such tall ladders.

Everything is still a little dusty, but I don't see the point in cleaning when the floors in the stairway and upstairs bedrooms will be refinished next week, creating more dust.

(The color is a little off in these photos—the Hubbard Squash is a more mellow butter color, but we've had heavy rain the last few days so we don't have much in the way of natural light. It may be months before we can get good photos, unless we borrow some good lighting.)

Entryway area after paint stripping and finishing

Here is a photo before we bought the house

Entryway area before

I'm so glad this project is finished.

Shellacked and Painted--almost done

My closet has been repainted as well.

We hope you all have a good Thanksgiving.

Painted

I'm pretty excited. The painters did the first coat today. They'll be back tomorrow to finish up and to paint the stair risers.

I decided to abandon the funky color in my closet and we've repainted it White Hyacinth—the ceiling color in the rest of the house.

Once we painted the master bedroom Ruskin Room Green, I didn't like the Orchid-colored closet anymore.

Almost Done

I've been busy this week. I finished staining the upstairs hallway today. The doors and drawers for the linen cabinet are also stained and drying in the garage.

That painted door is the very last one and will probably go in for dipping when we have the floors refinished—or I'll strip it myself if I'm not too busy with getting ready to move back upstairs.

The entryway is shellacked and finished. I finally got to pull up the floor masking today.

The fireplace is finished and the paint is touched up. If Mia ever chews on the fireplace again, she will probably find she has lost her cage spot in the living room.

Just a couple coats of shellac on the upstairs hallway and linen cabinet and we'll be ready for the painters on Monday.

Finish Trimwork

There are lots of pictures to post today. We "rented" Nathan from Craftsman Design & Renovation for a day and a half of carpentry help.

He helped us install crown moulding in our entryway. It wasn't installed quite as we were hoping because the picture rail would have had to be tipped too much to make it work. I think the rest of the rooms must have had the wood installed, then been plastered, then had the cove moulding and picture rail installed. The materials we had wouldn't have worked without digging into the plaster. So, we installed the picture rail with a small gap between it and the 1x6. It will have to do.

I've finished staining it, but I still have to shellac it.

Nathan also helped us install picture rail in the hallway/stairway. I had pre-stained the pieces so I wouldn't have to shimmy my way up the ladder to finish it, but, unfortunately, I was a piece short. I ran over to McCoy Millworks this morning and Nathan cut the last piece for us. I'll finish it at ground level and Jeff can crawl up the ladder and nail it in place in a couple days.

Nathan installed new boards on the fireplace to replace those damaged by Mia's adventure. We sacrificed some of the salvaged baseboard we stripped for the closet built-ins. It's old growth and has nice grain and is actually prettier than the piece that was there. I stained and shellacked it yesterday afternoon and this morning, though I still need to do some paint touch-up—again. Sigh.

And, finally, Nathan helped us with our shattered fir on the linen cabinet. It was really beyond repair. Our best option was to cut out the broken part and replace with another piece of wood. (Another scrap I stripped the paint off of.) Now that this piece is fixed, I can finish staining the linen cabinet.

I've got five days to finish all these staining and shellacking projects before the painters come next Monday!

Shellacked

The stairway paint stripping project is all done! I just finished the second coat of shellac this morning. I am so excited to be done.

Before applying the shellac, I went through and touched up the whitish spots with stain-colored paint. There were not many, but there were some in the hard-to-reach crevices.

Nathan from CDR—the talented carpenter who built our colonnades—is coming out on Monday to help us install the crown moulding in the entryway. That project proved to be beyond us. If we were painting, we probably would go for it, but with stain-grade we can't just fill the gaps and paint over the mistakes.

We also still need to stain the upper hallway and linen cabinet. It turns out installing inset doors when you don't know what you're doing isn't so trivial. So, we're still working on installing the linen cabinet doors. We're hoping to get them finished today, then I'll stain and shellac the linen cabinet.

Once we're done with the last of these staining projects, we'll be painting the walls again. And then having the floors refinished. I expect we'll be mostly done by the end of the month. At least I hope so, because I've already hired a floor refinisher to start right after Thanksgiving.

And because these before-after photos give me so much pleasure . . . I can't resist posting them again. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a before picture before the baseboard woodwork was stripped and stained during our remodel.

Staircase before paint stripping

Staircase almost after. We still need to paint.