Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Gameroom French Doors Part 3


Google+ and G+ are going away so you will no longer be notified when I post.  You can follow my blog by using Bloglovin and they will notify you by email when I post.  I am also looking into using feedburner etc. as a means of notification.  Also, Bloglovin has 1000's of blogs so you might find an additional couple of blogs to follow.  Gear Acres is in the DIY/Craft category.  You can only pick one and Decor didn't seem like a good fit.

Actually, I think getting rid of the Google+/G+ will be good.  I have been told that some people wanted to comment and couldn't because they did not want to join G+.  I probably wouldn't want to subscribe and remember yet another password, either.


Gameroom French Doors Part 1 
Gameroom French Doors Part 2


Today we installed a wood threshold that we made to mimic the concrete thresholds on all the original exterior doors. I didn't want to just use the same thickness of board that make up the door trim.  The door trim was made out of a 2X6 that was ripped down to 5 inches wide.  For the threshold we used a 1X6 and a 2X6 screwed together so that the threshold was thicker.  If we had used just a 2X6 it would have looked too picture frame like.
After we finished with the threshold we measured and cut the PVC drip cap for above the door.  All windows and doors need drip cap on top of the top piece of trim.  This piece of trim hangs over the edge of the top trim board and keeps rain water from getting behind your trim and eventually rotting the trim and sheathing which ultimately lets rain water get into your house.


I have been replacing the original wood drip caps, on this house, with the PVC drip caps. Several of the wood drip caps showed the beginning of rot so why not replace now and be better safe than sorry.  It's not a design feature so I am not changing anything aesthetically about the house.  I am though changing to a better performing material that will not rot.

The PVC drip cap in the photo above shows the little groove on the bottom.  The drip cap is attached to the top trim with small finish nails and positioned so the little groove on the bottom sticks out slightly over the trim piece of wood.  The groove works like magic when a slow moving drip wicks around the front edge of the drip cap.  Rather than continuing to wick back towards the wood trim the groove breaks the surface tension and the drip falls off.
  
FYI A good concrete porch with a design where the concrete porch cap has an overhang should also have a groove incised into the underside to eliminate drips from wicking back.  Without that groove the drip continues back and will then leave the sides of your porch wet.  If you have a brick porch and live in cold climate the wet bricks can freeze and crack.  If you already have a porch without the groove you can add the groove by using a grinder with a thin masonry cut off wheel.

Notice the thin white line on top of the top trim board.  That is the drip cap installed.  Barely noticeable but very important to the long term health of my wood trim.

Tomorrow I will cover the new door handle, the install, and why we chose this style, color finish, and what measurement you will need before ordering your door handle.


  We will wait until spring before we install the dummy handle on the right side door because we will need to drill 2 large holes in the same location as the factory holes.  The only difference between the operating door handle and the dummy door handle is that the dummy does not come with a lock set or a door latch.


Winter Outdoor Projects


Hang cedar shingles

Finish adding the 1X4 trim on the peak area on the gable end of the roof
Build and install a replica of the gable vent
Build another 2 sets of shutters

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Monday, February 18, 2019

Gameroom French Doors Part 2


Google+ and G+ are going away so you will no longer be notified when I post.  You can follow my blog by using Bloglovin and they will notify you by email when I post.  I am also looking into using feedburner etc. as a means of notification.  Also, Bloglovin has 1000's of blogs so you might find an additional couple of blogs to follow.  Gear Acres is in the DIY/Craft category.  You can only pick one and Decor didn't seem like a good fit.

Actually, I think getting rid of the Google+/G+ will be good.  I have been told that some people wanted to comment and couldn't because they did not want to join G+.  I probably wouldn't want to subscribe and remember yet another password, either.
We finally have the french doors permanently in place.  The tweaking took several days for several reasons.  One being the house is old and the opening was slightly askewed and the other is that we are not the best nor fastest door installers.

There is one thing we noticed right away that we love. It's the fact that you can open both doors and it makes carrying in and out larger items so much easier.  This opening is smaller than the standard opening for exterior patio doors.  Standard openings are 72" X 80" for your typical sliding or french door exterior opening.  Our opening is 60" X 80" which is an entire foot narrower.  

The old doors were sliders which meant that the open side was actually less than 30 inches and more like 28 inches.  That is OK for walking through but we are using this as our workroom which means we are hauling items in and out all the time. Now with the flick of a finger we can unlock the fixed side and have nearly the full 60 inches.
After screwing the door in place we could move on to the exterior trim.  We decided to trim out these doors to match the front entry door.  The front door exterior trim is a 2X6 trimmed down to 5 inches.  So the first thing we did was to take 1/4 of an inch off one side to get a nice crisp edge.  After that, we measured off 5 inches and cut.  We prepared all 3 trim boards at the same time so we didn't have to keep adjusting the table saw.
Now  that the boards were all the same width we measured and cut the side pieces first.  We attached them with 2 finish nails at the top and bottom.  Then we moved on to the other side and did the same.  I held the top piece in place while R marked it with a pencil.  The top board was nailed in place with two finishing nails at each end.  

Now that the pieces were all in place we went back and added 2 more finishing nails every foot on both sides of the boards.  In some places we needed to shim out the trim so that it would be level with the trim board that was next to it.  This house is sheathed with various 1 inch thick lumber and over the nearly 100 years some of it has bowed, cupped, and shrank so we use wood shims to make the trim boards lay nice and flat next to each other.

We finished up by countersinking all the nails.  The proper depth is to sink the nail head into the wood to the depth of the width of the nail head.  In the spring we will putty those holes but for now it is far too cold. 

Tomorrow we will install the door handles that I purchased from House of Antique Hardware.

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Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Gameroom French Doors Install Part 1


Google+ and G+ are going away so you will no longer be notified when I post.  You can follow my blog by using Bloglovin and they will notify you by email when I post.  I am also looking into using feedburner etc. as a means of notification.  Also, Bloglovin has 1000's of blogs so you might find an additional couple of blogs to follow.  Gear Acres is in the DIY/Craft category.  You can only pick one and Decor didn't seem like a good fit.

Actually, I think getting rid of the Google+/G+ will be good.  I have been told that some people wanted to comment and couldn't because they did not want to join G+.  I probably wouldn't want to subscribe and remember yet another password, either.  

But guess what?  It wasn't snowing or raining and so we started the patio door install.
 Yesterday (Monday) R removed the old, rotted, and extremely ugly patio door.  This back room is currently our workroom but will ultimately be our gameroom.  If old school video games are your jam, stay tuned for some gaming action.

We have 4 upright videos games.  They are Tetris, Defender, plus we have an empty Stargate cabinet and a board so there will be a monitor install in the future.  We also have a Mr Do upright plus we own all the other boards including a bootleg Yankee Doodle Do who eats oil barrels and is chased by terrorists.

And finally we have Elevator Action which is sort of a rarer game.  It came to be when they converted Jungle Hunt/King into an Elevator Action by changing the graphics.  The controllers and game layout are the same.  I am guessing that they felt that there were a lot of jungle themed games and that is why they changed.

We also have a Japanese Mr Do slot machine.  We plan to add a cocktail table MAME that has 1500 games.  They still want big bucks for the cocktail table Ms Pac Man so for the same money we can get 1500 games or one or two games with the traditional cocktail table version.

We also have a 1930's era Brunswick pool table that we will restore.  In the past we shot a lot of stick but I dislike going to billiard halls because people do not know the correct etiquette and it totally throws my game off.  Looking forward to fine tuning my game.

Enough about video games.  Let's talk french doors.
And let's not forget the roof.  We are very pleased with the  results.

The french doors still need some tweaking.  We ran out of daylight and stamina. Tomorrow we will square everything up and install the new door handles.  And if everything goes along without a problem we may even start the trimout.
 I cannot wait until I can paint the shingles grey. 

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