Another Quilt Project

Sharon is plotting her next quilt for the master bedroom. It's probably silly to upload these posts because of how often these projects tend to fizzle out and get indefinitely delayed, but it's always fun to plan "out loud."

Since last summer, Sharon purchased a number of William Morris reproduction cottons and an amazing quilt book. When she ran across this webpage on the internet she figured out how she wanted to build her bedroom quilt.

Using blocks originally published in 1906 chosen out of The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns she is going to use a variety of squares alternating with the Alabama Variation block.

Sharon's main challenge before she gets started is to convert the image of the block into a useable pattern. She's trying to decide whether to hand-draw blocks on paper or whether to try and figure out how to reproduce the patterns on the computer. If she hand-draws the squares she can make them any size, but it will be more work. If she finds a way to design the blocks on the computer, she is limited by the size of the paper she'll be printing on. Jeff is trying to assist by writing a program that will plot out the blocks given our parameters. More plotting is needed...hopefully we'll figure something out before Sharon gets distracted by the next project. =)

This is a sampling of the blocks dating from 1906 Sharon is hoping to reproduce for her quilt.

Living Room/Parlor Progress

Both areas have been stained and have one coat of shellac. The crew is planning to paint the walls next week. The last coat of shellac goes up near the end.

Kitchen Cabinets Finally

The kitchen is finally starting to look like a kitchen!

There is still another pair of upper cabinets to install, but they sit directly on the counters, so they won't go in until after the counters do.

Another DIY Project

We took a pause from our master bedroom stripping project to work on another, shorter deadline, project. The parlor has this lovely bookcase built-in with 6 stained shelves. (One of the few things in the house that hadn't been painted on the inside.) About half of the pieces were cupped (bent) and didn't work very well, plus they were stained a very dark brown.Originally we were planning to just replace all the shelves with new wood. However, after some phone calls to local lumber yards, we learned it would cost more than $200 for the replacement wood. We would need three 8-foot 1x12s. which were something like $75 each. It is past time to clamp down on the spending for this job.

While considering our options, in the garage we saw three large boards removed from the kitchen pantry. They appeared to be large enough, but they were, of course, painted.

So we decided to go to work cleaning up all the boards we already had. We pulled out the three best (least curled) of the existing stained shelves and went to work sanding those. And we also went to work stripping paint from the salvaged kitchen shelves. Stripping paint was pretty easy, but the wood was still full of primer in the grain.

Sharon spent probably 10 hours over the last couple of days sanding. The wood is not pristine, and the previously-stained boards are darker, but the project is nearly done. We just need to cut down the larger boards to the right size.

Staining has Resumed

With rain today, the painters returned to work on our house interior. It is too hard to resist posting pictures of the living room staining in progress. This is just the first coat; there's another coming after this one. (Excuse the mess, please.)

Master Bedroom Progress

Though Sharon has spent a couple more hours stripping paint on the windows, they still look much the same. As she approaches completion, it takes longer and longer for each little bit. In part, due to rising expectations of how clean we can get the wood and also limitations of getting stripping tools into small crevices (like in between the crown moulding and the picture rail).

Sharon resorted to using a sander on the wide, flat areas to do the final clean-up of the paint residue embedded in the grain. The sills were cleaned with quite a bit of effort and most of the window has been stripped and sanded. Now we just have these pesky corners!! What a mess. We need to find our dental picks.

Jeff has made great progress stripping the closet doorway with the heat gun. Though, this paint seems to be different (more gummy) and it is pretty resistant to the chemical stripper and scraping tools. The final stripping probably will involve sanding.

Soapstone Cutting

[Jeff here, stunt blogging today...]

Today we got word that the soapstone slab was being cut.

Jeff headed over to Portland Marble Works to observe the operation.
They have an impressive wet saw with laser guide.
It puts out a lot of water that mixes with the talc dust that comes from the cut.
The saw is operated by a hanging control panel.
A lot of care went into marking and setting up each cut.
The saw cuts all the way into the table which is covered with a gritty compound that actually sharpens the diamond coated blade. Every three weeks or so, the table gets a new coat.
Here is an "art shot" of the mirror surface of the water on the stone slab.
One rectangular piece ready for edging.
And finally, a look at the control panel.