Part I - Polo Painting
David and Tammy, who sold me their home, used their downstairs front room as the master bedroom. Now under new ownership, it is to become the library! The plan is, paint the walls Derby Red, trim Pocket Watch White, & install crown molding. The color scheme was inspired by a room in a fancy Northampton furniture store.
Master, taken during the first showing....
Another pic from the showing - view of back room in what was the master suite.
Ralph Lauren paint
First, removal of the flower borders. They were stickers of the worst kind! Because the adhesive. The gummy residue came off slowly & very carefully using a razor scraper.
Cover up the goodies....
White primer over blue trim....
Cleaning & taping supplies....
Time for Derby Red!! How will it look???
I did not get far with Derby Red. This photo is as far as I got with Derby Red. That color did not work for me, I could tell right away! Derby was a cool red, but I was looking for a warm red.
Back to Home Depot for the probably the 8th time since I moved, this time, to choose another color!!!! Duke Red, on the left, had the effect I was going for. Derby is on the right.
The paint was going on thin & runny, and it took 5 or 6 coats! This picture below is after 3 coats, where I had to wipe up an unusually large incidence of drips using a brush. The darker color is heavier paint around where I had to wipe off or even out the drips. Later, I learned you should prime the walls with tinted primer, to avoid too many coats. And drips could have been avoided by using 1/4-inch-nap rollers. I started out using half-inch nap rollers, which caused the paint to go on splotchy. For the final 2 coats, I purchased & used 1/4-inch nap rollers.
Crown Molding
I put the table saw to good use cutting angled supports for crown molding.
The mitered angles are complex because the angle relative to the wall was 77 degrees. 45 would have been easier! Below, you see the saw blade at a 61-degree angle, & the guide was set to 60.5 degrees for the horizontal corner angle. And I was still slightly off!
Priming the molding sections!
Homemade brackets, installed into wall studs with 2-inch finishing nails.
Molding strips going up...
Upon inspection, the molding was too narrow for my liking, because the window moldings appeared wider and still dominated. See below, I installed a narrower strip below the crown molding, and the proportions came out much better!
Cleanup
Finished paint job. I will paint the window frames white, once I get the window grilles which are on order.
At Bob's Furniture , I got this beautiful leather chaise for the library all the way home, to realize it wouldn't fit down the hall! Off to return it tomorrow! Is it not sad, such a beautiful decadent indulgence is not to be....Furnishing the library wil have to be a future post.......
Behold! Furnishing & carpeting will be the subject of a future post.
Part 2 - Doors
From a previous post, the 3 doors from Brimfield. From L to R: 5-panel to become upstairs bathroom, 3-panel for former master-suite, and 3-panel for basement door!
The fine Brimfield doors are wider than the hollow-core doors I am replacing. I pried out the door jamb, then reset them for the correct door width. 1 1/2-inch finishing nails.
I chiseled out mortises (1-inch chisel) to fit the existing hinge placement, and used the existing hinges.
Hollow-core door...I've got 8 total to replace!
Lawn - mowing break!
Installing door knob hole using Irwin template.
4-panel door for one of the upstairs bedrooms. It had been stored in a barn rafter on Cape Cod at Andrea & Karl's for many years! The door needs to be sun bleached and dried out for a few weeks, because of mildew & squirrel-nest deposits. Here it is, sunning behind the garage.
Prying out door-jamb to set it back
Scraping the 5-panel door....
The 5-panel door needed to be stripped & scraped, because of so many previous paint coats, the woodwork details were lost. After hours of scraping & 5 rounds of stripper/scraping over 2 days, I hadn't got one side finished. Time to let go & hand it off to the pros!!! Eric of Eric's Restoration, Norwich, CT, stripped the entire door to bare wood in less than a day, for $125.
Rte 12, Norwich CT near Eric's Restoration
After priming, I cut the door to size, but cut too much off at the ends. Here is some of the bottom replacement, which involved reconstructive surgery including replacing part of what I had sawed off, #48-3-inch dual torq screws, Elmer's interior wood filler putty (heavy duty), & various wood laminate strips & other remants.
The repair....
Drilling for door knob hardware. Hardware stores sell coring kits for drills with the proper hole sizes. They require a half-inch drill; shown, Craftsman 5.5 amp 1/2-inch drill. Core at max speed, 800 rpm. Predrill pilot holes for lock set using 1/8-inch bit. Note how I filled in the previous rectangular lockset hole with wood board cut to size & wood filler, see side of door just below the blue & yellow Irwin template. Modern locksets require round holes. The older-style uses rectangular. Let putty harden a couple days before drilling. Even when hardened, I had to nail the wood in place, since the lockset is partially screwed in to the new wood, which is held in place weakly by the putty. It needs to survive years of door slamming!
Garden snake in basement hatchway, discovered during cleanup.
The 1/2-inch chisel was used to chisel out a recess for the door latch insert. The recess is called a mortise. I used a mini-sanding drum (120-grit) on a dremel 300 rotary-tool at 1800 rpm to make the mortise a little deeper as needed to seat the lockset. The knob is a Schlage nonlocking "Plymouth" model in aged bronze finish, $20.95 / set at Lowe's.
Basement door! I had to move the catch on the frame back 1/4 inch for the door to fit snugly without wiggling when shut. Arrange for a visit if you wish to operate a perfect door!
Upstairs bathroom door, primed, till I decide how I will paint the upstairs! Note how I had to plane back the frame (see natural wood color to right of door) where it bulged out slightly. That was typical of many battles in fine-tuning the door fit!! And I had to move the jambs twice. Now it opens & closes perfectly. The knob is Kwikset white porcelain, on clearance from Home Depot.
