Just as I Thought

Guess what is in this canvas bag?Yup, those are the elusive hinges that I have been eluding me for the last week or so.And you know what? They were right where I put them. I remembered that I needed to use the shipping box for something else but I could not remember what I put the hinges in to keep them safe. Duh....National Trust for Historic Preservation canvas bag, of course they are vintage style hinges.

I chose the hinges because I needed surface mount hinges and did not have a lot of space. I also needed a hinge that was available in black. I originally thought about the L hinge but wasn't really wowed by the idea. One night while watching one of my favorite movies, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), I noticed these hinges on casement windows and I liked how they looked.

My favorite part of this movie is when Mrs. Blandings is trying to explain what colors she wants the contractor to have his painter paint her rooms.

Mrs. Blandings: I want it to be a soft green, not as blue-green as a robin's egg, but not as yellow-green as daffodil buds. Now, the only sample I could get is a little too yellow, but don't let whoever does it go to the other extreme and get it too blue. It should just be a sort of grayish-yellow-green. Now, the dining room. I'd like yellow. Not just yellow; a very gay yellow. Something bright and sunshine-y. I tell you, Mr. PeDelford, if you'll send one of your men to the grocer for a pound of their best butter, and match that exactly, you can't go wrong! Now, this is the paper we're going to use in the hall. It's flowered, but I don't want the ceiling to match any of the colors of the flowers. There's some little dots in the background, and it's these dots I want you to match. Not the little greenish dot near the hollyhock leaf, but the little bluish dot between the rosebud and the delphinium blossom. Is that clear? Now the kitchen is to be white. Not a cold, antiseptic hospital white. A little warmer, but still, not to suggest any other color but white. Now for the powder room - in here - I want you to match this thread, and don't lose it. It's the only spool I have and I had an awful time finding it! As you can see, it's practically an apple red. Somewhere between a healthy winesap and an unripened Jonathan. Oh, excuse me... Mr. PeDelford: You got that Charlie? Charlie, Painter: Red, green, blue, yellow, white. Mr. PeDelford: Check.

My other favorite line is when the Blandings' friend, Bill Cole says, You've been taken to the cleaners, and you don't even know your pants are off.

Every time I have to deal with a contractor, I think about those lines.

I just read that they built replicas of this house all over the United States. Two years ago there was a story in the newspaper about one built in the Toledo area. You can read the article here.

If you are building or restoring a home buy this DVD. It is so timeless when it comes to contractors and the highs and lows of home improvement. Plus, Cary Grant is just so debonair. A polished up George Clooney. You ladies know what I mean.

Shingling is Done Until Spring

R and I shingled until after 5PM today. The last few shingles were installed in near darkness.

I was sure we would run of of shingles but to my surprise we still had a 1/3 of a bundle remaining when we installed the last shingle.Last weekend I found the best tool to use when installing cedar shingles. This tiny plane is the perfect size to keep tucked in your pocket. There were so many times I needed to adjust the side of a shingle and ended up having to walk over to the WorkMate, score a line on the shingle, and then either use the saw or a utility knife to cut away the excess shingle. This slowed down progress and as in the case today....we had absolutely no time to spare. So today whenever I needed to make an adjustment, I just pulled out the little plane and made as many passes as needed to get a good fit. This saved a lot of time because I did not have to walk away, make my cuts, and walk back to where I was shingling.

Best part is that this little gadget was less than four bucks at Harbor Freight.

We are both sooo happy that the shingling is done for now. We both have slivers in our fingers and those little slivers hurt big time. My nail tech spent the first 15 minutes on Monday picking slivers out of my fingers. Thank you, Virginia. Virginia and her band, Still Waters, have a CD coming out in February 2010. She filmed her music video last month and I was able to view it a couple of weeks ago. I'll let everyone know when it will be available for viewing on the country music and Christian channels. I was impressed and I am not a fan of that particular genre either. Strictly R n R, jazz, or blues.

Which reminds me that if you have a chance to take in the Trans Siberian Orchestra around this time of year, don't hesitate...go and see them, they put on an excellent show.

Today we had Sweers Eavetrough and Roofing stop by for an estimate to install 6 inch gutters and 5 inch downspouts. We will also have them install the leaf caps on the gutters. We have too many leaves to not have the gutters covered. The new eave troughs will be installed in two weeks.

I am still waiting on the chimney guy to show up. We need chimney caps on 2 of the three chimneys. Each chimney has at least 2 flues. The fireplace in the family room/library needs an expert to look at the firebox. We think that some of the mortar needs replacing. Plus, I want someone to say "yes, it is alright to fire that fireplace up." We have an abundance of wood to burn and it would be nice to use it to help with heating that room. The other two fireplaces can wait for now. I haven't decided if I want gas or not in the living room and master bedroom.

FYI...I still have not located the hinges.

Under the Gun

I think our string of good weather is running out. The forecast for Tuesday is slightly colder than today and after that the forecast is for rain or snow showers.

Tomorrow we have to hit it hard if we are to finish the south wall. The south wall only needs two rows but of course the bottom row is done twice so essentially we have three rows.

I think we have just enough shingles left to finish. I better measure twice and cut once because I do not want to stop and go buy another whole bundle just for a couple of shingles.

We were making good progress today but then we came to the very last small odd shaped shingle. It took forever to get it right. Since it was an interior corner it was important that the fit was tight to keep the rain out.Sometime in the next year we will be replacing those two ugly banks of windows. Who would put a bay window and bow window in the same room? I'm hoping for double hung windows in the same configuration as the windows in the living room which are 8 over 8 flanked on each side by 6 over 6 windows. That would leave the original dining room bay window as the only bay window in the house. The windows in the family room/library are 1960's era windows so they are not original for that room nor the house.

FYI....I still have not located the hinges.

More Shingling

We finished the sun room area two days ago. Remember this mess?It looks like this now.Unfortunately I still have not found the hinges I ordered. So we moved on.

The only two areas left that need shingling are the two areas where we replaced the rotted sill plate. Someone or at sometime dirt was piled up against the house. After we removed all the over grown shrubbery we realized that we also needed to remove quite a lot of dirt so that there was adequate drainage and so that the dirt was no longer in contact with the wood shingles.

Yesterday and today was spent shingling the west side of the family room or the library as it was referred to in the listing when we purchased the home. Tomorrow we will finish this area and start on south side. This should complete the major shingling jobs until we remove the 1960 era window in the game room.

Please excuse the photo's poor quality. It was nearly dark when I remembered that I needed to take a few photos.

One Last Board & We're Done

The weather report today was for rain after 3PM. It was rain free at three but you could feel the cold front moving in from the south.

We have only one board left to install and we will do that tomorrow. That leaves the installation of the windows which cannot be done until I find the hinges.So rather than hear R say, "if you would quit writing and reading blogs all night and look for the hinges instead, we could wrap this project up!" I'll post a quick photo and then it's off to look for the hinges.

More Sun Room Progress

We have now progressed to the point where we are left with the tedious part of the project. All the shingles are installed except for the last two which will be the first thing we do tomorrow.

That leaves the rotted wood area just under the eave. R has removed the 1 X 4 that looked like a chipmunk gnawed through it. We will replace the board because it is missing at least 4 or 5 inches. Once this is done we can reinstall two small trim pieces and we will almost be done.Last on the list is the re installation of the casement windows. But before we do that I must find the hinges that I bought last year. I know I put them somewhere safe so I wouldn't lose them but I forgot where that location is located. Drats!I took care of one of the small details while R was removing the chewed up/rotted board from the fascia. The area right below the sill needed a small piece of trim to cover the nail heads that hold the last row of shingles in place directly under the sill. I knew I wanted something simple and I really did not want to put something like a 1 X 3 board under the sill.

So this morning we made a quick trip to Home Depot and scanned the racks of trim for something appropriate. I was hoping for trim that could be cut on the end without the need of cutting a small return piece to finish it. Nothing struck me as perfect so I went with a small cove type moulding.

I cut each end at a 45 degree angle and then put the saw back to zero degrees and cut off the little point so the trim has what appears to be a nice return. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it looked when it was complete. Installation was fast using the air brad nailer. From first cut to the last nail...total time for installation of trim piece...10 minutes.

The last two photos show what has been done so far and where we will pick up tomorrow. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the 30% chance of rain doesn't materialize.

Continuing the Sun Room Exterior

Waaaaay back last year we started to restore the casement windows in the sun room. The windows were in terrible shape and required a lot more work than what we originally thought. It seems that the windows were held together with the many thick coats of paint they had received over the years. This is a photo of the windows after we removed the paint.The paint covered rot, cracks, loose muntin bars, and loose tenons. Through the power of glue and wood epoxy we were able to bring the casement windows back from near death. This is what the windows look like on the back side of the sun room.One of the other problems with the sun room was the nonconformity between the three sets of windows on the front and back of the sun room. Also the windows were not trimmed out in the same fashion as the rest of the house. Notice the two different sizes of windows in the photo above. The photo below shows how the windows throughout the house are trimmed out on the exterior.So first on the list to remedy this was to rebuild the window jambs so that the windows could be mullioned together. Here is a photo after the shingles were removed but before the new jambs were installed.The photo below shows the new jambs and the start of the sill repairs.We also needed to rework the sills to make it appear as one long sill instead of three small sills. We not only added wood between the three sills but also about four inches to each end of the sill. We cut down a 4 X 4 post to the correct thickness plus about 1/16th of an inch so that we could sand the piece to the exact size once it was in place. Wood glue and a hidden nail held the piece in place. When all is said and done....R will add a small bracket underneath and hidden from view to reinforce the patch. FYI....that is not the hidden nail but an old nail that we could not remove so R countersunk it so we could putty over it.We then trimmed out the windows in the same fashion as the rest of the house trying the best we could to keep the same reveal. The trim measured 4 1/2 inches so we needed to rip about an inch off a 1 X 6. We then used the discarded piece to build up the one edge to give the illusion of a 2 X 4 1/2 which is what is used on the rest of the house. I then sanded off the sharp factory edge on the new wood to make sure the new work blended with 72 year old wood. Once all the trim work was complete we could start shingling.

This is where we were at in the project at the end of the day on Friday. Saturday was beautiful and set a new record of 66 degrees a perfect temperature to shingle. Did we shingle..no....we went to a racing banquet so R could receive his Rookie of the Year jacket and his trophy for 10th place in the Michigan Traditional Sprints Racing Series. He is probably the oldest known Rookie of the Year in captivity....LOL. At the ripe old age of 57 he competed against guys in their 20's and 30's with years of dirt sprint car experience. R on the other hand was coming off the asphalt and use to racing modifieds. So we started shingling on Sunday when the temps were barely 50 degrees. Brrrrrrr

We were able to get approximately 1/3 of the shingling completed today before we ran out of daylight.

We are not looking forward to shingling the area where the sun room attaches to the house. I see a lot of customs cuts are in our future. Grrrrrr