The Petch House

One of Three

2009-07-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

The first plaster medallion is up!

I wrote about it the other day. While the medallion is real plaster, it is a reproduction. I bought it several years ago at Ohmega Salvage in Berkeley. I recall that the guy who sold it to me said it was cast from a mold of an original, period medallion, but that could just be wishful remembering on my part. I’m not really sure if this is a new design or a period design. Either way I like it.

It has a fruit and vegetable motif, so it is a good fit for the dining room.

It came in 5 pieces and the idea is that once it is on the ceiling I will fill in the gaps with plaster and no one will be the wiser. So the first challenge was to get the center section up. There are 2 important issues here:

1) It can’t fall down once it is up.
2) Because it is square it must be aligned properly on the ceiling. The closest wall is less than 4-feet away and it would be noticeable if it was crooked in the room.

So after a few careful measurements I was able to put it on the ceiling. I whipped up a batch of runny plaster, which I would use as an adhesive. This is the way they did it back in the day. Back in the day, though, they had a fresh plaster ceiling and a fresh plaster medallion and some fresh plaster to stick the two together. My plaster ceiling is anything but fresh. I was going to need more.

The plaster would hold it in place, but was not a long term solution. The first thing was just to get it up there and make sure it is straight. I cut some half-inch wide strips of wood that were a little taller than the space between the scaffolding and the ceiling. This worked well to hold it up there while the plaster set. So I smeared fresh plaster on the back and stuck it on the ceiling. I held it with one hand while I maneuvered the sticks in to place.

Ultimately what is holding it in place is the original gas pipe that is still in the ceiling. In the diagram above, you can see the gas pipe running along the top of the ceiling joists. I screwed in a piece of pipe that would hang down a few inches from the ceiling. To that I attached a modern electrical box. I used the center knock-out of the box with a nut on both sides to hold it firm.

To this box a screwed on a modern 4-inch cross-bar. This is what a modern ceiling fixture would normally connect to. This is where the beauty of all of this comes in. Back in the 1890s when fixtures went from gas to electric, the original electric fixtures were little more than modified gas fixtures. This meant that all of the threads on the fittings used in electric fixtures were – and are – identical to gas pipe fittings. Even today you can mix and match like you want.

So I took another piece of gas pipe and screwed it in to the center hole of the 4-inch cross-bar on the box in the ceiling and fixed it with another nut. Now I could stick the medallion to the ceiling and the piece of pipe hung down a half-inch or so past the medallion. To this I mounted another, shallow electrical box with another 4-inch cross-bar. This is what the chandelier will be hung from.

So the chandelier is hanging from the original gas pipe and the ceiling and medallion are sandwiched in-between. Basically, the entire plaster ceiling could fail and fall to the floor during an earthquake, but the medallion and chandelier can withstand pretty much anything.

Island Adventure

2009-07-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity last night to spend The Forth on Indian Island. The island is roughly 240 acres of mostly uninhabited and undeveloped land in the middle of Humboldt Bay. A friend of mine owns one of 4 or 5 small lots on the island and held a Bar-B-Q out there to celebrate the birth of our nation. The island is really very beautiful.

Most of the islands sits barely above sea level and is little more than grass land. The small area with the houses is a densely wooded area of Wax Myrtle and what looks like some type of Bay tree. There are deer and a few people, but not much else. Even though The Samoa Bridge seems to stop on the island the only way to get to it is by boat because there are no roads.

The small red circle shows where we were on the island. The red box in the channel shows where the barge was set up for the fireworks display. I have never been closer to a fireworks display in my life. It was pretty spectacular. The green circle is Woodley Island and the green box is Eureka. The black box at the upper left is the Samoa Peninsula and beyond that, out of the picture, is the Pacific Ocean.

The island has a colorful and tragic past. The tragedy came in about 1870 when a group of about 70 Indians living on the island were massacred by the new locals from the main land. I guess that was the thing to do at the time. It is interesting how easy that sort of thing becomes once you dehumanize a group of people. Sadly, it still happens today all over the world.

At other times there were also 2 sawmills, a yacht club, some grand houses, and other activities. My friend who now owns the property gave me the long and very interesting story of the island, but the short version is that by the 1920s most of the fevered activity was over and the island settled into a long and relatively quite state for the next 80 years.

In about 1920 2 small house boats from San Francisco where beached on the island. Legend has it that house boats in SF were a popular retreat for the city-slickers but after the 1906 earthquake they became permanent housing for people who were left with nothing else. After a few decades – possibly around the time of the 1915 World’s Fair – the house boat community was asked to leave and two of them ended up on the part of the island that is now owned by my friend. He is in the process of restoring them.

It is all very interesting.

After dinner and before the fireworks a few of us took a long hike around the island. We followed the tree line on the north side. There are a lot of old remnants of old docks and other man-made devices that are slowly being reclaimed by the environment. The sky is dotted with Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Brown Pelicans, Sea Gulls, and a few other types of birds no one was sure of, and I actually saw one of the deer that live on the island. We stared at each other for a moment and then he bolted in to the woods.

There were these two square pools of nasty stagnant water with the remains of some sort of dock or fence in the middle. Gracie was bounding through the tall grass and found them unexpectedly when she suddenly disappeared off the horizon.

This is Gracie, wet and smelly seconds after extracting herself from the pool. We didn’t touch her much the rest of the night.

It was really a wonderful evening. There was cloud cover but the air was still and the clouds were high enough that they didn’t get in the way of the fireworks. We were minutes away from town but it felt like we were hours away. Oh, and as I said, the fireworks were spectacular at such close range. Unfortunately, my camera does not do them justice.

Skimmed

2009-07-04T15:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I skim-coated the walls in the dining room and today I did the ceiling. It went well – I think {I hope}. It is kind of hard to tell. I painted on the Weld-Crete on Thursday and it is an odd shade of blue. After skim-coating, the blue color shows through a bit and gives the walls a very mottled look to them. It is very hard to see irregularities.

Normally, I would end up with a more uniform color to the walls and it is easy to spot and fix bad areas before the plaster sets. With these walls it was like plastering by Braille. I know there are a few areas that will need attention. The bay window was a tough area to skim-coat. Those little strips on either side of the window were especially difficult to get right. There is no question I will need to - GASP! – sand them down and go over them again.

The other problem area is where the plaster meets the wood. I had plastic covering the wood and it kept getting in the way of the trowel. There are areas where the plastic is stuck in the plaster a little bit. I also may need to go over a few areas where the walls meet the ceiling. I’m going to let the plaster set up and do all of this next weekend.

Tomorrow though, I get to install this charming little thing…

I bought this at Ohmega Salvage in The Bay Area about 4 years ago and it has been up in the attic ever since. It is real plaster, but it is a reproduction. The high relief areas on the 4 sides are of fruits and vegetables, so it seems fitting for the dining room. I figured since I have the scaffolding up and the plaster equipment out, I might as well install it.

It comes in 5 pieces and they get assembled on the ceiling and then the seams filled with plaster. I will be painting it a gloss white instead of an eye-popping color scheme. My research tells me that this was the more traditional way of finishing these medallions. When ever you look at old, period pictures, the medallions are always white unless they are installed in over-the-top Rococo Revival style interiors with other gilded or painted plaster work on the ceiling. This high style was usually reserved for large and impressive rooms in mansions.

I Wish I Were Taller

2009-06-29T17:58:00.000-07:00

If I were ten feet tall it would be perfect. As it is, I come in at a relatively shrimpy six foot four. If I were ten feet tall I could plaster the ceiling without needing a ladder or scaffolding. When I did the kitchen several years back I used a ladder and it was very hard. Lots of up and down, not only to reload the trowel, but also just to work the plaster.

The ladder in question is an old wooden ladder – one of 2 ladders that came with the house. I found that I could straddle the ladder with one foot on the back-side brace and one foot on the 4th rung and the height was perfect for working on the ceiling.

I have spent countless hours on this ladder standing just like that. It worked, but like I said, lots of up and down. Now, I’m going to be working on the dining room which has the largest surface area of any room to date. Not only that, but next will come the foyer and then the 2 parlors, which are even bigger than he dining room. I needed something else.

I could rent a section or 2 of scaffolding, but that would put me too high. I need to be just three and a half feet higher. The ceilings are ten and a half feet so having my head at ten feet is perfect. So I decided to make my own scaffolding.

For about $60 worth of lumber, fasteners, and casters I get a 4X8 foot platform that is the perfect height and can roll around the room. This should work well, not only for the ceiling but for any part of the wall over 7-feet heigh. I’m actually looking forward to doing the plaster work now. Of course, I still need the trusty ladder to get up on the platform, but once I get myself and a big batch of plaster up there I won’t need to come down for a while.

Biohazard

2009-06-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I panicked. I realize that now. Still, with everything in the news these days about The Swine Flu, you can’t be too cautious.

As I was walking through the dining room with my first cup of coffee of the morning I thought I spotted a Swine Flu virus on the floor. I quickly dumped out my coffee and slammed the cup down on top of it. I then preceded to isolate the room from the rest of the house.

After I sealed the room off and got plastic sheeting over everything, I donned my homemade biohazard suit and with a can of Lysol in hand I carefully lifted the coffee cup off of the “virus”.

Well, it turned out to be an ant. A very confused and angry ant at this point, but an ant none the less. No, there was no Swine Flu in my house and I was completely safe after all.

Boy, isn’t my face red.

It wasn’t a complete waste of time, though. Now that the dining room is sealed off from the rest of the house and all of the woodwork is covered in plastic, the stage is set for plaster wall repair. The plaster is largely intact and structurally sound. The first step will be to clean the walls and get rid of any remnants of wall paper. I stripped off the 7 or 8 layers of wallpaper years ago, so this should not be too difficult.

I will then patch the minor nail holes and small divots. Once that is done I will paint the entire surface with Weld-Crete. Weld-Crete is a masonry adhesive made by Larson Industries. Its purpose is to help the new skim coat adhere to the 100+ year old lime plaster. They also make a product called Plaster-Weld, which would be more appropriate for this application, but the local supplier only carries Weld-Crete. They are essentially the same thing, only Weld-Crete is designed for exterior, industrial applications.

After the Weld-Crete is applied and has had time to dry I will skim coat with Diamond Finish plaster. After that I will paint, which brings me to my most feared and hated job of all…

Picking Out Paint Colors

This hideous and disgusting process started today.

Because I already have the dado in the room I will be doing a traditional “tripartite” wall where the wall is divided horizontally in to three parts: The dado, field, and frieze. This is a style that was popular from about 1870 to about 1910 and was championed by critics of the time like Charles Eastlake and Clarence Cook. When selecting colors of paint or wallpaper it was suggested that the frieze should be light in color, with the field darker, and the dado the darkest. The ceiling will be the same color as the frieze.

I’m leaning towards a red field and a gold frieze with a picture rail where the two meet. The dado, of course, is the burl redwood raised paneled wainscoting that is original to the room. So far the first round of color selection includes Sherwin William’s Bolero (7600) for the field and Humble Gold (6380) for the frieze and ceiling. If history repeats itself I will decide I don’t like these colors only after I have painted the entire room.

Another hair-brained idea I have is to paint the ceiling sky-blue and sponge on large, fluffy white clouds. I think this would only work if I applied a heavy cornice where the frieze and ceiling meets and chose something else for the field and frieze. Given that I have 2 green rooms in the house and the exterior paint is a monochromatic green color scheme, any shade of green is out of the question.

Eighteen of Eighteen

2009-06-13T17:22:00.000-07:00

For all intent and purpose I am done with these cabinets!!!! I finished and installed the 18th and final door this afternoon.

Door Goes Open

Door Goes Closed

There are still a few things to do, but the carpentry portion of this never ending project has finally come to an end. I need to putty a lot of holes and everything – and I do mean everything, not just the cabinets – is covered in sawdust. There is also a little painting left to do on the butler’s pantry side. I should be able to finish all of that up mid-week next week.

Oh, and then there’s this…

The shop is covered wall-to-wall in 3 to 8 inches of saw dust. I'm hoping to find a few lost tools under there.

Trim Marathon

2009-06-07T16:05:00.000-07:00

I had a late invitation yesterday to a Bar-B-Q out in Freshwater. I had every intention of going, but it looked like rain in the morning, so I started in on the trim for the middle section. As it turned out, the clouds cleared around 1:00 and it turned out to be a spectacular day. By that time I was committed to the trim and there was no looking back.

The Bar-B-Q would have been nice, but now I’m glad I stuck with the trim. It took about 12 hours to get it all done, but it is done!

Before I could even start the trim I had to frame out the little door in the middle section. Then it was on to mind-numbing repetition of measure, cut, cut, router, router and install. Then the next piece. That’s if I got it right the first time. I rarely did.

Each piece took a minimum of 2 cuts on the saw and two passes on the router. If it is was off by as much as an 8th of an inch it was another cut on the saw and another pass on the router. There are 62 pieces of wood total. To make it even more interesting, I was afraid of running out. Below is all there is left from that big pile of trim I cut.

I also milled and installed the trim just under the marble. It is a two part bead and cove trim. When the fabricators came to make the template for the marble I suggested an inch and a half over-hang. I was planning on just doing a ¾-inch cove under the lip. The guy making the template told me that 2-inches is standard, so I said OK. God forbid I should not do what is standard.

For the next week after the marble was in place I cursed the 2-inch over-hang every time I saw. I was too much. It was sticking out so awkwardly. I decided he suggested 2-inches because most people do a laminate edge these days. That is were they take an additional piece of stone and glue it to the underside of the over-hang. They then finish that off and it looks like you have 4-cm thick stone when it is really only 2-cm.

In the end it worked out. I did the 2-part trim and it looks fine. All of those sleepless nights were for nothing. So now it is on to the little door in the middle section. I’m going to see if I can find the time to work on it this week and then install it next weekend. After that I will be officially done with this cabinet!

I looked back through the blog and found that I started them in September of 2008. Really, though, I first mentioned this project in November of 2005.

Three And A Half Years Ago!!!

The Count Up

2009-06-03T19:29:00.000-07:00

The sanding of the marble has officially started. I hope to finish by the weekend so I can start in on the wooden trim in the middle section. Here is the progression so far.

Factory cut

Router bit

100 Grit

150 Grit

220 Grit

So far all of the sanding has been done with the random orbital sander, so it goes fast. I plan on going to 600 wet sanding, so at some point I will switch to sanding by hand. The top has a polished surface, but I’ve decided I don’t like that. I polished the marble in the bath, and I was planning on doing that here, but I’m rethinking it. It just looks too new and modern. I’m leaning towards doing a final sanding with 600 grit over the entire surface to given it a dull, honed looked.

Shwing! Marble’s Here!

2009-06-02T18:34:00.000-07:00

There was a message on the machine last night when I got home, but it was too late to contact them. At 10:00 this morning I got a call saying it was on the truck and ready to go. I met them at the house about 10 minutes later. Installation took them all of 5 minutes because it was pretty much just drop it in to place.

I had them leave it hanging about 6 inches off the edge so there was room for the router.

It is pretty much just a rough, saw cut edge when I get it, so the first thing to do is run the router over it.

The router bit has a bearing on the bottom that rides along the edge as the blade cuts. This ensures a even depth of cut. In the kitchen I did a quarter inch round-over and was able to do it in one pass. This time I went with a 5/8th inch round-over and it took several passes. Note the vacuum hose on the router. This is am absolute must.

The first couple of feet were very nerve-wracking. After a few minutes though, I got in to a groove and it went quickly. I would work on about a 1-foot section at a time and keep running the router over it until the bearing bottomed out.

Here is what I’m left with. From here I’ll work on it with the random orbital sander, starting out with 100 grit and working my to at least 300. I’ll probably finish it up by hand with some 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper and then polish it out. It is just the edge, so doesn’t take too long.

As it turns out, the slab they ended up getting was over 9-feet long. Even they couldn’t explain it. What this means is that there was no need for me to shorten the width of the middle section. I brought the sides in 3-inches on either side so it would be less than 8-feet. Not much I can do about it now.

Because I bought the whole slab they have a huge piece left over. Originally, the plan was to store it in the garage, but based on the size of the “remnant” (There is more left-over than I used) they talked me in to leaving it in their yard. I think I have a plan for it, but more on that later.

All Dressed Up And No Where To Go

2009-05-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago the fabricator bought the slab of marble for the cabinet. I made 3 phone calls to them and each time I was assured it was a simple job and they should be able to get it to me soon. As far as stone counters go, it really is a simple job. It is just 4 or 5 straight cuts, with no sink holes to cut, and no finishing or polishing of the edges or surface.

Last week someone was out sick and they got a little behind. No big deal. These sorts of things happen. This week I called and was told I would get it by Friday (Yesterday). I was sure it was going to happen, so I spent a few hours after work each night getting ready for the installation. I got all of my tools set up and took care of some normal weekend chores so I could spend all weekend working on marble and trim for the middle section.

The marble needs to have the edge trimmed, and then the surface polished and sealed. The final trim for the middle section will consist of more than 4 dozen small pieces that will need to be cut precisely as they are installed. I decided to just set up shop in the dining room, rather than making what could be hundreds of trips back and forth between the shop and the dining room. Each piece will take multiple cuts, so despite the potential for mess, this will save hours and hours of time.

Below are some shots of what the dining room looks like right now.

1. Router hooked up to the shop vac with a new bit installed and tested for height, ready to finish the edge on the marble
2. RO sander with 100 through 220 grit paper, along with the polishing attachment and solution
3. Compressor, hose, and brad nailer to put on the trim after marble is finished and in place
4. Compound miter saw ready to install the trim
5. Router table set up with the female bit of the rail/stile set installed and tested for height, ready to install the trim
6. All of the trim I’ve milled over the past few weeks ready to be installed

There is, of course, just one little problem…..

The marble never showed up. I feel like I’ve been stood up for the prom. I spent all week getting all gussied up, only to be left here waiting and wondering where my date is. It is very frustrating. If I were a woman I suppose the thing to do at this point would be to start shoveling ice cream in to my face while I watch predictable chick-flicks all weekend. As a man though, I feel compelled to get shit-faced drunk while I sit around and watch predictable sci-fi movies. I have nothing else to do!

The Internet To The Rescue!

2009-05-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

I think I came up with an idea for the trim. I couple of readers left some good comments, and others with rad Photoshop skilz submitted a few doctored up pictures. While it is hard to say at this point how any of the ideas will work in the end - mine or theirs - the different perspectives allowed me to think of things I might not have otherwise.

Allen’s Idea

Paul’s Idea

Allen’s would definitely work, and is not off the table at this point. Paul’s idea is closer to what I will most likely do. The rest of the trim for the middle section is sort of a coffered ceiling look. Because I must maintain symmetry with all of the squares, I can’t have the new trim encroach on the other trim. Think Paul's idea, but a little less.

The real problem all along is the space I have to work with. It is only a half inch thick. The existing piece I made is about 3/8th inch thick. Quick math will tell you I only have an 1/8th of an inch left. That is not enough to do much of anything with.

Like I said, I think I came up with a good solution, but rather than confuse the issue more, I’ll post better pictures in a few days. I thought the marble was going to arrive this week, but it didn’t happen. I spoke with the owner of the shop on Tuesday and they purchased the slab, but didn’t get a chance to cut it yet.

I’m going to call again this Tuesday. I really need to get it in next week because I’m reaching a point where I’m running out of things to do without having the marble in place. On the plus side, I am literally weeks away from finishing the project.

I got the shelves finished today….

And I have piles of trim waiting to be installed after the marble is in.

The only thing left to work on really, is the last little door in the middle section. I’m hesitant to work on it because the final shape and size will be determined by the middle section trim and marble. None of that matters though, right now, because this weekend is The Big Race, so it is not like I don’t have other things to do.

For The Glory!

Doing Lines

2009-05-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

When I was still in the design phase I made the decision to bring in the sides of the middle section of the cabinet so I could have a single piece of marble for the counter. If I made the middle section the same width of the rest of cabinet, the width of the counter would have been 8’ 4”. I was told by local suppliers that stone slabs only come in 8’ widths. So I brought the sides in 3” on either side, which makes the counter 7’ 10”. I can now have a seamless piece of marble.

One problem solved and another one born.

As you can see in the picture above, I now have these gaps to fill. I’ve known about this all along and never gave it a whole lot of thought. It was always thought that as I trim out the middle section, I will just add a piece of wood there to cover the framing. {You can see a blog entry I printed up and stuffed in the cavity}

So yesterday I made up some trim pieces to cover the cap. Because I was impatient months back, and wanted to see progress, I put up the casing around the edges. This should have been one of the last things to do, but I couldn’t wait. Now, I may need to get the trim in place before the marble goes in.

I left a half inch thick space to slip the trim in behind the casing. So I planed down some scrap pieces of curly redwood and slipped them in to place, but I don’t really like it. In the picture above, the red circle marks the door and the green circle marks the stile of the face-frame. It seems like this trim piece should line up with the stile.

If I move it back, though, it will leave parts exposed that shouldn’t be. Because I only have a half inch to work with, there is very little room to get something else in there. I’m not sure what to do at this point, but I need to come up with something this weekend because the marble is supposed to be here next week.

I may try and cut a then piece of veneer to go behind the new trim piece and in front of the exposed section. It will need to be very thin, though. Remember, I only have a half inch to work with and I need to be able to fit both the trim piece and a new veneer piece.

The Marble Is On Its Way!

2009-05-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

They came by today to make a template. I supplied them with an accurate diagram, but the woman in charge strongly encouraged me to get the template done. I started to protest, but then capitulated because I just got the feeling that the more I insisted against it, the more likely something would go wrong and it would be my fault because I gave them the diagram.

So they came by a made a template today. They showed up on my lunch hour and were in and out in about 20 minutes. They showed up about 10 minutes late and the woman actually apologized for being late. And it was a sincere apology! This sort of thing is almost unheard of coming from a contractor or tradesman.

I called 3 different people for estimates. One place said they only do granite, not marble. Whatever – click! The next place got the estimate wrong. I sent them the same diagram with the same explicit instructions on the edge and they still added in more than $300 for a laminate edge I didn’t want. Even after deducting that, they were still 20% more than the people I ended up going with.

The people who are cutting this marble are the same who cut the slab for the kitchen island. I’m doing the same deal, where they cut the basic shape and then I finish the edge. For the island, they had a partial slab in the yard and I picked it up, so that was dirt cheap. This time, they will need to order a new slab and I will have them deliver the final piece. I will also get the remaining part of the slab, which is larger than the piece for the cabinet. More on that later.

While the young man made the template I took the woman in to the kitchen and bathroom to show her the other marble work I had done. It was fortuitous because she said she would try and find a piece of marble that closely matched what I already had. They buy from someplace down in San Leandro. She told me the cost was about half as much as buying locally.

So they should have the slab by Monday and cut it sometime next week. If all goes well it will be in the house by next weekend and I can start to work on the edge. In the meantime, I’ll work on the shelves and start to make the final door. The only thing besides that, is the trim on the middle section.

I could be done in a month!

Back To Solid Foods

2009-05-11T17:54:00.000-07:00

Which is good because I like solid foods. Many of my favorite foods only come in solid form. Unfortunately, a nasty abscessed tooth prevented me from eating solid foods for several days last week. On Monday I was able to pay an endodontists absurd amounts of money to drain nasty liquids from my jaw. By the weekend I was back to eating solid foods and back to working on the cabinets.

I milled and installed the baseboard. That was pretty straight forward.

I also got the glass installed. In the end I did not do any etching on the glass. I couldn’t decided on anything and I’m too far into this to drag my feet now. Even so, this was a time consuming and tedious project. I made the quarter round to hold the glass in myself. It is ¼ X 3/8 quarter round that I made on the router and table saw. Then I had to nail it in to place! I’ve broken glass in the past doing this and I didn’t want to brake any this time.

I also made the shelf brackets. Veeeerrrrry tedious work. Lots of time with a jig saw. If you’re not familiar with these types of brackets, you can read about them here.

Aaaaand, I bought a carpet for the room. I’m a sucker for 25% off and couldn’t pass it up. The rug is 8X11. Originally (1895) the room had a 9X12 rug in it. I can see where it was tacked down to the floor. I could probably find a 9X12 rug at a zillion times the cost of the 8X11 one I bought at 25%. I’m happy with the 8X11 rug.

The Last Of It

2009-04-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

Well, Heter Brothers it ain’t, but I’m hoping the tour-de-force use of curly and burl redwood will detract from my obvious lack of fine cabinet building skills. Yes, it looks fine, but lets face it, people normally go through apprenticeships and train for years to be fine cabinet builders. I didn’t have that luxury, so it is was it is. What it is, is a very passable substitute for original 1895 cabinets in the dining room.

Here is the trim stock for the middle section after being run through the router, sanded, and oiled.

Most of this came out of that big chunk of wood I wrote about yesterday. It is interesting that the whole cabinet is being made of redwood, yet with the variations in the wood you might think there were different species of wood used. This last batch of redwood has some of the pretties grain. Some of it kind of reminds me of tortoise shell.

As I wrote before, the wood is difficult to work with. This batch had the added difficulty of being in such a large and unwieldy shape, but the curly redwood in general has its own idiosyncrasies that present challenges.

Because the grain undulates through the wood, all of the dark areas are like end-grain and the light areas and like straight grain. Even with brand new router bits and planer blades there is a lot of sanding to do with the “end-grain” areas. Straight-grained redwood mills up so nicely that it usually comes out of the machine needing little more than light sanding. Not so with this stuff.

I may not have enough of this curly trim to do the whole thing, so I ran a few pieces of regular redwood just in case. You can see them in the last picture. I’ll start at the bottom and more visible areas and work my way up. The non-curly stuff should end up in areas that will only be seen when you’re on you knees.

Hmmm, come to think of it, that happens a lot in this house. I'm on my knees a lot lately whimpering about how I will never finish this house. I may need more curly redwood.

Trim Stock

2009-04-25T16:52:00.000-07:00

Once upon I time I bought a big, gnarly chunk of redwood burl. It turned out to be a very difficult thing to work with. In the end I was forced to cut it in to very small pieces in order to work with it. Over the past few days I’ve taken those small pieces and made them even smaller.

What I’ve ended up with is roughly 60 uniformly sized pieces of curly redwood which I’ll use to trim out the middle section of the cabinet.

Below is what I started with….
{The top slab in the back became the drawer fronts and the bottom two became the face-frames for the cabients}

It was really a difficult thing to work with. I still have some of it left in tact, but most of it ended up looking like this….

Now today I turned most of that in to this - 1.25 X 7/8ths….

There is still some of the cut up stuff left over….

Eventually the uniform pieces will be used to trim out the middle section like this…

Tomorrow I’ll run the uniform pieces through the router. Once the marble is in I can trim out the middle section. No word on when the marble is going to come in.

Seventeen Down

2009-04-18T16:03:00.000-07:00

These last four doors are the best yet. It is nice to see that I can improve with practice. They all fit the openings well. The hinges are mortised in perfectly. They were a lot of work to make, but for the most part there were no real problems.

There is just one more door to make. It will be for that small, center opening in the middle part of the cabinet. You can see the opening in the picture above, and to the left of the opening you can see the curly redwood board that I’m going to use to make the panel for it.

Before I can do that though, I need to install the marble counter and trim out the middle part. The trim will define the jamb and casing for the door, so that needs to go up first. I’m going to order the marble on Monday and there’s no telling how long that will take.

There is still plenty to keep me busy. I need glass for the upper doors. I need to build brackets and shelves for the upper cabinets. I need to mill all of the curly redwood for the trim on the middle section. There are going to be a lot of small pieces of trim for that area and they are all in odd shapes and sizes. Finally, I need to make a baseboard for the bottom. Even if I don’t get the marble for a month, I think I have enough to keep me busy.

The bast part is, I have a punch-list and the end is in sight.

Slouching Towards Completion

2009-04-05T17:23:00.000-07:00

I’m a little more than half way through 4 of the last 5 doors. I’m working on the 4 small doors on the bottom of the dinging room side of the cabinets. I now wished I had done these bottom 4 before I did the 4 uppers. These went pretty smooth with the jig to mortise the hinges, when compared to the uppers.

In this picture the doors are just sitting in the openings. The mortise and tenon joints are just dry fit. The hinges are mortised in but they aren’t screwed in to place. This is just to make sure everything fits. The next step will be to add a decorative bevel to the inside-front of the door and to mill a dado to accept the panel.

These doors will be solid wood, raised panels. This presented a bit of a problem and a missed opportunity. The panels need to be 12.5 inches wide by 14.5 inches high. I found some beautiful wood at Almquist Lumber that was almost perfect - almost.

Apparently there are some guys in Korbel, CA that are going up in to the mountains and salvaging old-growth redwood logs that were felled 100 years ago but never taken to the mill. For what ever reason – the logs were too big or not deemed good enough – there were left there. So now Almquist has a great selection of rough-cut, full-dimensional old-growth redwood. There is every size from 1X4 up to 1X12. They also have 5/4ths thick lumber, which is great for making the cabinet doors, since I milled all of the curly redwood to 7/8ths for the face-frames.

The problem is, the largest width is 12 inches and I need a minimum of 12.5 inches. It is not something I could fake, so I had to get some 1X8 and glue up two boards. Those are out in the garage in clamps right now.

The good news is, I should get these four doors finished by this weekend. Then there will be just the one center door left. Whew! If it weren’t for the fact that I need to write a fat check to the Government in 10 days I could order the marble, but that will need to wait. There is plenty to do still, so I don’t think the project will sit idle for lack of marble.

Sigh of Relief

2009-03-25T18:20:00.000-07:00

While hardly Norm caliber, these do qualify as good Greg quality. The pair on the left, which I just hung tonight, still need to be taken down, sanded, oiled, and have hardware put on. The worst is over, though. They are up and they fit.

The first pair on the right did not come out as good. The doors themselves look good and identical to the pair on the left, but they are a little crooked. They are not crooked vertically, but rather front to back. It is odd because I’m not really sure why. I think it is the cabinet that is a little off because the doors themselves are square and lay flat.

Once they are closed and latched shut it is not really noticeable. As with everything I do, this cabinet has a little folk-art quality to it. I’m happy, though. This could be going much, much worse. This is a very ambitious project for a novice cabinet maker like myself. I think Norm would like them, but he would cringe and some of the craftsmanship.

Gettin' Jiggy With It

2009-03-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

This is a trick I learned from Norm. I had never tried it before, mainly because I lacked the proper equipment. The idea is to make a jig for the hinges and then use a router to route out the hinge mortises for the face-frame and cabinet door at the same time. This ensures that the hinge mortises are identical on both sides.

You can buy hinge jigs, but every one I saw was for large door hinges that start at 3.5 inches and go up. I’m using the cast bronze hinges from the 1890s. They are 2 & 1/4 inch hinges. I looked at Sears for an 1890s, 2 & 1/4 hinge jig, but the cashier said they had been out of stock since 1912, so I had to make my own.

Making the jig was time consuming, but it paid dividends when it came time to hang the doors. The hinges are 2 & 1/4 X 1 & 5/8th. The jig sort of works like the old Spirograph drawing tool, but instead of a sprocket that rides around inside a larger sprocket, you have a router that rides around inside a hole cut in a piece of plywood. Cutting the hole to the right size is the tricky part.

Calculating the height is easy enough. The hinge is 2 & ¼ and the collar on the router (the part that rides against the plywood) adds a quarter inch at each end. That means the hole must be 2 & ¾ inches high. The width is a little more tricky. The hinge is 1 & 5/8th inch wide, but some of that is going to stick out from the cabinet door.

The knuckle of the hinge, where the 2 halves of the hinge meet, must stick out from the cabinet door a bit. I figured a ¼ inch on both sides. So that left me with an inch and an eighth. Then add on the half inch for the collar on the router and you come back to an inch and 5/8th. It seems straight forward now that I write it, but when I was standing in the shop with a hinge in one hand and a piece of plywood in the other, it was far from clear.

So here’s how it works….

Before assembling the door I clamped the hinge stile of the door to the face-frame with a spring-clamp. It is clamped on in the position of the cabinet door being completely open.

Then the jig is clamped on for the first hinge.

The router has a half inch straight bit and a collar that will ride around the inside of the jig.

After the router is run in the jig you have a mortise on both pieces. Once the jig is removed I use a chisel to square up the corners.

Then, with the spring-clamp still in place I move the jig up to do the upper hinge. After the upper hinge is mortised, I remove all of the clamps and drill the holes and mount the hinge on both the face-frame and the stile of the cabinet door.

I then remove the hinges and assemble the doors. I should be able to get these hung by Wednesday. Then it is on to the lower cabinets. I will breath a sigh of relief when these upper doors are hung. I’m not out of the woods yet.

Two More Up

2009-03-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

At this rate, literally, I may never finish these cabinets. I think when the weather gets better this spring the pace will pick up, but right now, there does not seem to be an end in site. After the issues I had with the doors on the butler’s pantry side I am being very cautious with the dinging room side. Even with that, there were still some minor issues with the first pair. Fortunately, they were minor and I was able to make due. There was definite improvement over the butler’s pantry, though, so that is something.

Now, I just need to keep from getting cocky with the relative success of the first two. These two sets of upper cabinets on the dining room side are really a focal point for the whole room. Even minor issues will be noticeable, but major ones will be glaring. I think once I get the other pair finished on the left side, the 4 small ones on the bottom will go faster. After that, I just need to do the little pass-through door.

I changed to a shallower and wider bevel on the front side of these doors, as opposed to the butler’s pantry side. This means I will be able to use the wooden stays to hold the glass in. I bought some stencils to do etching on the glass, but I haven’t decided if I’ll use them yet. You can see some of the designs here. My main concern is that they are too small. The doors are 4-feet tall and the rose stencils are only about 7-inches tall. Most of these are made for use on wine glasses and picture frames.

The other issue with these is the color. The burl and curly redwood is a much denser and darker wood than even the tightest old-growth vertical grain redwood. I haven't decided if I should celebrate the contrast of try to darken the doors.

At the blistering pace I’m moving these days, there is plenty of time to decide about both the glass etching and the tone of the wood.

Almost Done!

2009-03-01T16:33:00.000-08:00

I am so close to finishing the butler’s pantry I can taste it. I got the glass installed and re-hung the upper doors Friday and Saturday, and then installed the last of the hardware today.

Putting the glass in was nerve-wracking and time consuming. Because there is the possibility that the glass could break someday, it must either be installed with wooden stays that can be removed or with the more traditional glazing putting. I had wanted to do wooden stays, because it would take less time. Because of the way I made the doors though, there wasn’t enough room. I made the bevel on the front too deep and it did not leave enough room for piece of quarter round for the stay.

So I had to do glazing putty on the eight panels of glass. It seemed to take forever and I was afraid I would break the glass. And that glass ain’t cheap. Once it dries I will paint the putty with burn sienna oil paint to match the wood.

As with a lot of my cabinet making projects, they look good in pictures, but when you get up close it is obvious I’m not a trained cabinet maker. The upper doors are especially wonky. Most of the wonkyness is because of the hinges. As I said in an earlier post, every time I’ve ever mortised hinges and hung doors I’ve worked with loose pin hinges that could be separated. It was really difficult for me to hang these doors without being able to separate the two hinge parts.

I’ve learned a valuable lesson though. The hinges for the dinging room side are antique cast bronze hinges that don’t come apart either. So for the that side I’ve made jig to router out the hinge mortises. I’ve already done on pair of doors – or at least one stile from each door.

On the butler’s pantry side I completed the doors and then went to hang them. This time, I’m taking one board from each door and the first thing I did was mortise the hinges and hung that board as if it was a complete door. I now know that the hinge stile board is the proper height and the matching hinge mortises on the stile and face-fame match perfectly. Now I can make the rest of the door and only need to worry about getting the width correct. I hope the dining room side doors will go much more smoothly.

On the butler’s pantry side, the only thing left to do is a little touch-up painting and make the small door for the middle section. That door will need to wait until I do some more work on the dining room side, though. So for now, I’m going to stick a fork in this baby and call it done.

Thank God!

Iron & Wood

2009-02-18T17:53:00.000-08:00

Cast Iron Pulls: Circa 1890
Burl & Curly Redwood: Circa 0

Nine Up & Seven In

2009-02-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

While it's true I haven't been blogging a lot lately, that doesn't mean I haven't been working on the house. The lack of blogging is largely due to my inability to both do hard-core coding at work and maintain the blog at home.

When I become immersed in a big project and I'm doing a lot of programming at work, I really find it difficult to write on the blog when I get home. It is like there is a finite amount of creative writing in me during any given week. If that is all spent at work, then there is nothing left over for the blog.

I think the solution is clear: I need to quit my job. Until that happens, though, there are going to be long periods of inactivity on the blog. It's a fact of life.

So, yes, work has been progressing on the cabinets, albeit at a much slower pace. The winter is not conducive to work, and post-season NFL can cut in to the weekends quite a bit. But the weather has turned warm again, and football season is over, so I'm starting to get some things done.

I've made and installed 9 doors and 7 drawers on the butler's pantry side. The drawers were not too difficult, but the doors were a real challenge. The upper face-frame did not go smoothly and ended up being less than square. The mortise and tenon doors themselves were a challenge because I've not made a lot of them. In fact, I think I've only made three before these. They are really a lot of work.

Also, I'm accustomed to working with loose-pin hinges and none of these were. With a loose pin hinge you can remove the pin and have two parts of the hinge to work with. It seems minor, but when you are accustomed to doing something one way, the change can be frustrating to deal with.

Shortly after the above picture was taken I dismantled the cabinet by removing all of the doors, drawers, and hinges so I could paint everything. After it is painted I will install the glass in the upper cabinets doors and then put everything back together. After that, there will be a little more trim and then it is on to the A-Side of the cabinets. That is to say, the dining room. The practice on the butler's pantry side was much needed. I hope the other side goes better.

The glass in the upper cabinets will be colored glass with alternating red and gold glass. This is inspired by the Luther Mansion in Smallville, Kansas. Each of the 4 upper doors will have 2 glass panels. Starting from the left, the first door will have red on top and gold on bottom, the next will have gold on top and red on bottom, and the pattern will continue to the right. The idea is that the dining room side will have single panes of etched, clear glass. With the lights on in the butler's pantry, the interior of the cabinet will be bathed in red and gold light from the dining room side.

Now I just need to find the glass.

The Winter Hiatus

2009-01-14T17:46:00.000-08:00

An anonymous blog reader pokes their head in the virtual front door of The Petch House.

“Knock, knock, anybody home? Greg, are you there?”

They wander in to the foyer while cautiously looking around for signs of life. The house is frigid and seems deserted. Again they call out, “Greg, is everything alright?”. They can faintly hear singing coming from behind the closed pocket doors leading to the parlor. It sounds like the TV.

They push open the doors to see me on the couch under a blanket. There is a half eaten box of Oreo’s and an empty bottle of wine on the coffee table. On the TV is season 6, episode 7 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It is the musical episode, "Once More With Feeling". I’m asleep under the blanket.

They tip-toe across the parlor and gently rock my shoulder. “Greg, are you alive? Is everything OK?”. I don’t move so they rock me harder. Finally I come to. I hear the singing, sit up on the couch, and reach for the remote to turn up the volume, pretty much ignoring the person standing there. Again they ask, “Greg, is everything alright?” I ignore the question and only reply, “This is a great episode. I love this musical episode, don’t you?”

{Singing on the TV}
(Buffy)I was always brave and kind of righteous,
Now I find I'm wa - vering.
Crawl out of your grave, ya find this fight
Just doesn't mean a thing
(Henchman) She ain't got that swing.
(Buffy) -pause- Thanks for noticing.
(Demon & Henchmen) She does pretty well with fiends from Hell
But lately we can tell
That she's just going through the motions
Faking it somehow.
(Demon) She's not even half the girl she...owww!

(Buffy) Will I stay this way forever?
Sleepwalk through my life's endeavor.
(Handsome Young Man) How can I repay - (Buffy) Whatever!
(Buffy) I don't want to b - e
Going through the motions,
Losing all my drive.
I can't even see
If this is really me
And I just want to b - e a - live.

The blog reader asks, “Greg, can I get you anything? How’s work going on….”. I look up at them and cut them off in mid-sentence, “Shhhh! TV”. I lay back down on the couch and pull the blanket back over me while I sing along, “I don’t want to b – e going through the motions, losing all my drive. I can’t even see, if this is really me, and I just want to b – e a – live”.