House Archives Part 2
After the hog roast the working on the house took somewhat of a back step in the scope of things. We are living in the house and even though it is not yet finished we find it quite comfortable. A multitude of things were supposed to have happened BEFORE the flood: the greenhouse was supposed to have been finished, the shade house and the studio buildings were supposed to have been painted and things were NOT supposed to have gone as bad as they did…. Overgrowth everywhere, yards torn up and fruit trees untrimmed for two years in a row. In short the compound looks to be somewhat of a mess! SO! We shall work at all the things that need attention and work on the house as time permits. Since the day we acquired the hill property we have been wanting to install a “back door” .We finally took time, acquired a piece of culvert, made a bridge across the ditch and installed a gate! Now Ellen can sneak into her hunting preserve without scaring the deer that might be present and still have a safe and secure place to park the ATV while she’s going to her deer stand on foot. Quietly!
The wooden slats on the shade house had never been painted; the flood and the house building sort of preempted the job, so this fall, finally, Ellen got around to painting. It took THREE days and almost two gallons of primer paint to get the thing ready for the finish coat! The wood just soaked up the paint and it was a good thing the job got done, the bare wood would not have lasted another winter! The same applied to the greenhouse that also finally got some paint on it! Little by little things are getting done around the compound and there is indeed a sense of normalcy permeating our beings. Sara and Elias
closed on the their new house earlier in the month and in a few weeks the guest house
will be vacant again so we can start taking it apart to finish the upstairs. It is going to be
a busy winter! In the shop, meanwhile, the pieces for the staircase are being assembled.
Attaching the risers to the threads will make installation easy and tomorrow or the next day we’ll have cherry stairs… To think I did not used to like cherry… ;-)
Thanks to the pneumatic nailer, the installation of the riser/step assemblies came off without a hitch. Now for the rest of the story…. The banister railing will be supported on spindles that are spaced just about the same distance apart as those of the railings. In order to have the spindles come out the same height as the railings, they will have to be placed on top of a “riser block”, to be designed as we go… Fun this figuring things out!
Two days later the parts were made and sanded and received a finish. Last Spring when
the spindles were made; the nicest ones had been selected for the banister and set aside. Now was time to take them out of storage and give them a finish as well. It will not be long now or all the parts will come together and the banister will be in place. Oops! Forgot! Have to make the railing itself yet…. Ah well… Details! :-)
Installing the spindle riser blocks was a rather tedious affaire, as the steps were not exactly identical and each and every block had to be fitted in its location. Now that the
spindles have a place to “stand” that banister had better arrive soon! The supply of 2x’s yielded yet another couple of nice straight 2x3’s and using the same nut and bolt trick employed earlier for the long railings, it wasn’t long or the “thirteen foot something”
piece of wood was done and ready to be cut to the exact length. But WAIT!! First the
bottom newel post has to be installed! That bottom newel post had to be machined in order to fit properly around and against the first thread and riser assembly. No easy task that! It was a good thing the thing had been made way too long a few months back! Some careful cutting and re-shaping of one edge yielded the newel post ready for installation. We are proceeding with the utmost of caution during this phase of the installation…. One wrong cut, one miss- calculation and there goes the project… Tomorrow, when we are fresh!
When “tomorrow” arrived, Kyle (Our neighbor Barry’s son) came over and helped out to install upper and lower newel posts. In order to install the upper post, the finish flooring had to be laid on the upstairs landing. From our pile of reclaimed flooring the nicest boards were selected and with a little help from a clamp, some Yankee ingenuity and Kyle’s expertise with the nail gun the floor was laid in no time. Bring on that newel post and railing!!
Now for the actual banister railing… First the railing needed to be fitted between the upper and lower newel posts. “C” clamps and some blocks of wood against the newel posts supported the railing while things (that would be the spindles and the final location of the railing!) were figured and measured out. The spindles were cut to length at the precise angle determined by the lay of the railing. Careful here, one slip up and the whole project will be history…. Finally things looked good and we proceeded to install the railing permanently. As with the railings earlier the banister was secured to the newel posts with some construction glue and a carefully placed and pre-drilled lag bolt/nut and washer fastener. Once the banister was secure, the middle spindle was sanded into place and secured to the banister. The rest of the spindles just sort of “fell into place”…. Here and there some sanding with the belt sander, but the hard and difficult work was behind us. It took the better part of the day, but by mid afternoon the stairs could be called “finished” Whoa! What a job! Then to think the spindles and the rest of the base work for these stairs was started almost a year ago…. Construction glue and the pneumatic nail
gun were used to secure the individual parts so, once dry, the whole thing would be sturdy for years to come. Here and there the construction glue oozed out of the joints; it was cleaned up with, of all things, good old “WD40”; it removed all the glue and did not
harm the finish at all. Wonderful stuff! It must be mentioned here that this was only the third time in this cabinetmaker’s life that he tackled a job such as this. While the spindles were being made, after the straight railings were made and installed, there still was a certain amount of apprehension as to whether or not we could pull this project off. Now that the stairs are done, we are a bit more relaxed as the “stair project” had been weighing quite heavily on our mind. Talk about perseverance and faith that it would all “come out in the wash”. When all is said and done the stairway is a beautiful addition to the house. Who wouldathunk! Thank You Lord!
Just before Thanksgiving we rented an insulation blowing machine and with our friend Don’s help we installed six more inches of insulation in the attic. The old Jotul stove will keep us toasty this winter! Just like it did in the smaller old house. As soon as the mess from the insulation job was cleaned up we concentrated on removing all the “stuff” from the master bedroom and the loft; before Christmas we hope to have both finished. Little by little we are “sneaking up” on finishing the house, but we are taking our time as we are quite comfortable in that part of the house that IS finished.
Now for the rest of the proverbial “quarter round”…
Ripping 6 1/2” by 8 to 10 feet long boards is no easy task. First the “best” side of the rough sawn board is passed through the jointer once, twice, sometimes even three times and then the board is ripped to the final width on the table saw. The sides of the beam enclosures are 3/4”, while the top and bottom pieces are 5/8” thick. Keeping the long board firmly against the table saw fence is downright difficult! A couple of days later the workbench was loaded down with boards and the assembly of the beams could begin. Since the beams are so long and space is sort of limited, one beam enclosure will
be made and finished before the next one is started. Assembling the parts is not that difficult, it is the SIZE of the project that makes it kind of tricky to work with. The nineteen feet long beam enclosures are made up of pieces of wood that varies in length from eight to ten feet or even two feet. The individual pieces are joined with a forty-five
degree lap joint. On each side the joints are staggered and once finished are nearly invisible. The first enclosure is now finished with three coats of polyurethane and the second one is in the clamps. Being almost as long as the wood shop, the first beam enclosure is beginning to be in the way of getting around in the shop. Better call our neighbor Barry to help move the piece. Then again: Why wait for Barry, when
experience, expertise and physics all can come together to move the object at hand from point “A” to point “B”. The door to the finishing room opens up to the garage; the golf cart is IN the garage… The beam enclosure is on the cart in the shop…Open doors, move cart from shop to finishing room and observe that the beam enclosure on the cart is four inches lower than the roof of the golf cart… a little shove here, a little pull there and bingo! One beam enclosure on top of golf cart…. Minutes later the golf cart was lined up
with the sliding door and the piece was IN the house... Now to wait for Barry to help
install that “L… A.. piece of wood”! Seems like we’ve been at this point before…And
then, just like it was planned, Barry came over and after a bit of sanding the beam cover “fell” into place. Bring on number 2! The next beam enclosure (one quarter of an inch longer than # 1…!) took less time to put together since we had a little experience. On day one it was made, sanded and stained, on day two Barry came over and after a little belt sanding on the end number two fell into place like it was MADE for the occasion. Number three will be a real piece of cake, since it is only sixteen feet long. The way things are going, the beam enclosures will be done shortly and then we can start on the gambrel wall trim and the stairway threads. Should the bottoms of the beam enclosure go up as easy as the tops, we just might have it (the living room!) all done before the end of summer!
It’s the middle of the month and we’ve been busier than the proverbial one-armed paperhanger… We took time out to design and build a gasoline motor driven pump. A time consuming job, but we can now pump water out of the pond up on our hill property and water the bushes that Ellen planted. The pump kept us busy for a few days and now that schools are back in session, kilns need attention. In between everything the bottom pieces of the beam enclosures were made and this weekend they are being installed. It is a good thing that everything had been carefully measured: wood being wood, some careful and strategic placement of clamps was called for in order to make everything fit
and come together. It took the better part of the afternoon to install just two bottoms. The last beam bottom has to be machined somewhat to allow for the hanging of the dining room chandelier. Tomorrow is another day!
…And “tomorrow” came and went and it was done! Next is the trim for the gambrel and the staircase, but we’ve got to get those crystals back on the chandeliers! Now that the beams are finished the chandeliers are beginning to look “nakid”! :-)
The horizontal trim between the river wall and the gambrel wall needs to be machined in such a way that the top of the trim “dies” into the gambrel wall surface. It means that a fifteen-degree angle has to be machined onto the edge and back side of the long trim boards. Trying to accomplish that on the table saw is a little much for both the saw and the hands. Since edge cutting on a long board at such a depth is hard to do, the hand held power planer proved to be the answer. It took some time to remove the amount of wood needed, but in the end it was worth it. The trim board now “dies” into that flat surface of the gambrel wall that Ellen worked so hard on to attain. Three ten-foot long boards received the planer treatment, enough with some length to spare to do the job. Each edge only took forty-five minutes… tiring job that power planer! Ah well it’s all in a days work and thank God that I can DO it! Even though I have to take plenty of breaks.
Once the backside edge was planed, the boards were cut to length and dry fitted on location. Purposely the joints fell right above the beams so between the beams there would be just ONE nice long board. It took some doing, but finally the boards fit and went back to the wood shop to be finished. Boy oh boy! What a difference a piece of trim makes! Next is the proverbial quarter round (in this case a nice routed edge) to be
installed underneath the trim boards and around the beams and then the living room will be DONE!! Well…. Not quite, we still have to assemble the staircase banister and the rest of the trim… ah well, minor little details! Can’t a guy be a little excited?
In between it all we are continuously moving boxes with “stuff” around. For the most part all our household belongings, all those things that make a house a home have been packed away and stored in various places since the flood, now two and a half years ago. To bring some order and to be able to sort some things out, shelves were built in the
computer closet. Not just any old shelves: these shelves were made out of hundred-year
old one-inch thick poplar. The boards were salvaged from an old storage cabinet that was beyond repair. Some of the boards were sixteen and a half inches wide and seven feet long! The back of that old cabinet was made out of two one-inch thick poplar boards that were each an unbelievable nineteen and a half inches wide and seven feet tall! Imagine the size of the poplar tree that produced those boards! Fortunately not all the boards were needed to make the sixteen inch deep shelves in the computer closet: the two extra wide boards that once were the back of the cabinet will become something special one of these days… maybe a table or some such. Later, when there is more time… if there ever is…
Of God, Faith and friends.
Time marched on and before we knew it Labor Day 2007 was upon us. This year we had decided to do something special for all those who helped with the house during the last two-and-a-half years. In June the following invitation was sent out:
Fairbanks, June 28th 2007
Beloveds!
During the Labor Day weekend, Saturday September 1st, 2007, Ellen and I will be hosting a hog roast as a way of saying “Thank You!” for all those who played a role in the building of the new house. Festivities will start around two p.m and last until everyone has had their fill and has seen enough. While the house is not yet completely finished, it does look like a house/home and definitely is giving the idea that we will be happy here for many years to come. Those of you who have followed the progress on the web site will already have a good idea what the house looks like. Those of you who do not have access to the Internet can use the hog roast as a good excuse to come on over and see what two old fogies plus help from their friends have wrought…
Roasting of the hog will commence at ten in the morning and the succulent and tasty result will be ready for consumption around five p.m. In addition there will be potato salad and open pit fired baked beans. There will be a keg of beer and soft drinks too. We have a limited amount of folding chairs; bring your own lawn chairs if you want more comfortable seating! Bring the kids and/or grand kids as the train room will be open and the sjoelbak game will be set up. There will be golf cart rides to our “park” up on the hill for those interested in seeing that part of our compound. Please r.s.v.p. (via E-mail, phone or snail mail) by no later than August 15th so the right size hog can be ordered!
See us on the web at http://www.donkerstudio.org
During the months of July and August 2007 all sorts of “little” things were accomplished. Long neglected bushes were trimmed, over growth was removed and what was left of our nice lawns was raked, mowed and generally cleaned up. Electricity to the river pump and the septic tank was restored and the nursery was cleaned up. Things generally started to look like “normal’. Normal activities include “living”, hunting, repairing kilns and doing teacher and school workshops. Ellen worked on cleaning up the hill top pond, planted grass and clover seed and we installed a “back door” to the hill top property so, during hunting season, Ellen can sneak in and not disturb the deer…
In between all those activities the house is at a stage where improvements and finishing details happen but are no longer top priority. We are quite comfortable sleeping in one of the unfinished upstairs bedrooms. Next on the list of things to do, “house-wise” is to finish the downstairs master bedroom, then finish that “cozy little (hah!) loft” upstairs. We will take our time demolishing the old house and the guesthouse and materials of those two structures will finish up the porches of the new house and various other building projects. In due time!
…And then it was Saturday September 1st and Labor Day weekend! Hog roast time! To celebrate the partial completion of the new house all those who helped in one way or another were invited to come and enjoy the fruits of our and their labor. For the occasion a 148-pound hog had been purchased. Elias, ably assisted by Brock, secured it on the spit and wrapped it in chicken wire. The latter task took some doing especially
since the beast was frozen solid… THAT was NOT supposed to have been the case. Finally by ten p.m. Friday night the hog was on the spit, the rotisserie was turning and the roasting began. Brock was taking pictures, but between wrestling with Elias and spraying the hog with a mixture of beer and apple juice one of the floppy disks with twenty some pictures on it, bit the dust and consequently there are no pictures of the actual “roasting vigil”. At three a.m. I went to bed and Elias and Ellen took over. I slept till five and then continued watching the roasting, while Ellen and Elias got some more shut eye. Saturday
Let the roasting begin… Seventeen hours later…
morning was spent erecting the shade tent, building the tables and hauling in the chairs. At three o’clock the first people started to arrive and by five we had a “house full”. The RSVP list totaled 87 people and sixty or so showed up. There were golf cart rides to the hill property, the kids played around the secret tunnel, enjoyed the “sjoelbak” game checked out the train room and a good time was had by all! Since the roasting of the hog was the center of the activities, people gathered around and watched the hog become golden brown and smelling up the neighborhood. The smell alone was enough to make one hungry! Around five o’clock Saturday evening the Captain (that would be Elias… Dad ain’t proud!;-) declared the hog done. From the spit onto the “bier” and the carving began. It was a good thing that the hog had been tightly wrapped in chicken wire, once that was removed the meat practically fell off the bone! Roasted hog, baked beans,
Ellen and Elias are carving away…
potato salad and drinks of “ various vintage” contributed to the good time had by all.
With George and Ilana off to the hill George and Rogier
Leroy, Donna, Jim and Carol Leroy, Sandy and Sara
Adam and his girlfriend Saskia, James and Rogier
Lynette and Jim Dave and Ginny, Chuck and Becky
Sandy, Leroy, Byron and Sandy Elias, Ginny Dave, David & wife, Becky
…and then it was over.
It was a happy pig! ;-)
Thus ends the saga of Ellen and Rogier’s house building adventure. For now the monthly updates will be replaced by “seasonal” updates as all the things that still need to be done, will be done in between all the other things and activities that occupy our lives! Those of you who have followed the development and would like to see more will just have to get in the car and come visit! It’s been a ride and a half, blessed in more ways than I can enumerate and all I can say at this point is: ”Thank God I’m still healthy enough to help Ellen, the fittest helpmate of them all, pull this whole thing off. How many 59 and 65 year olds do YOU know who built a house from scratch???
Now for the floor trim… more of that cherry I did not used to care for… the pile IS getting smaller! This morning we are ripping and shaping the floor trim for the living room. Approximately 70 lineal feet… Sure glad the power company cut down all those trees and we wound up with all that cherry I did not used to like…;-) I can just imagine how much we’d have to spend at the lumberyard to purchase the amount needed… and then the material would just be finger-jointed pine…. We are thankful too that we have the tools, the know-how and the experience to do all of this. Thankful also for that wise
woman who made us purchase the golf cart at the beginning of this house building adventure: it and it’s roof sure comes in handy to carry all the “stuff” from the shop to the house! Thanks to the pneumatic nail gun the installation of the floor trim was
accomplished in no time flat. The old molding of the walnut “bay-window-now-corner-cabinet” fit perfectly against the cherry floor trim… it must be said once again: things never looked THIS good!! We are thankful! And pretty healthy too! In order to turn the corner cabinet into a proper AV cabinet, a stand will have to be made for the CD and
the VCR player. Old walnut that once covered the beams in the old bedroom will be used to create this stand. The walnut is the same age as the corner cabinet, has the same routed edges on it and has the same oil finish… The shelving and the top will be made out of the half inch thick walnut plywood that once graced the “floor” of the bedroom clerestory window… Talk about recycling! Just re-arranging parts ma’am…
As mentioned earlier, the panel wall from the guesthouse will be installed on the upstairs landing wall. The wall was made out of raised panels that were salvaged from old doors years ago. Fortunately our friend Don had some old doors lying around that had the same kind of panels. A few hours and some old panels later, the pieces of “panel wall” that are to be installed on either side of the bedroom doors had been “stretched” to the correct size… Next thing you know the two pieces were in place so the plate rails
could be made. There is still a lot to be done before we can call this wall finished. The spindle frames above the doors have to be trimmed in yet and all the nail holes, all the imperfections and repair patches will have to be filled in and sanded properly, but for now, from across the room, the wall looks GREAT! In between things the stereo was
installed back where it belonged, the tapes and records were organized and once again we can have music! One of the speakers is upstairs in the corner of the panel wall; the other is downstairs on top of the walnut stereo cabinet. When properly balanced the sound is Concert Hall quality throughout the house… almost.
The “lumber yard” (that would be the old house!) provided plenty of old poplar trim. The pieces were already painted, so it was a matter of measuring and cutting. Nice to have access to all that old “stuff”!! The spindle frames were framed in, a little filler here and there, some primer paint where needed and the wall is declared “finished”. It is now up to the master painter (that would be Ellen!) to really finish it! Then, on that fancy plate rail, her collection of old canning jars will have a proper “home” once again.
Now that the finishing of the house is somewhat under control we take the time once again to spend some time up on our hill property. Starting last summer, last fall and this past spring we cut down lots of trees, moved dirt around and generally cleaned up the front acreage. “Left over” bushes from the nursery found a home at the entrance to our “park” and once the grass grows again it will be a joy to go up there on the weekends.
While dragging the ground with an old harrow, lots of rocks and other “cultural debris” is exposed. So far we’ve picked up all kinds of broken bits of pottery, broken glass canning jars, a bronze “something-or-other” and two authentic Indian arrowheads. The other night, while picking up rocks and filling the umpteenth five gallon pail we found what appears to be another Indian artifact: some kind of grinding utensil. It’s fun to speculate on all the “stuff “ we’re picking up. To date we have a shoebox full of bits and pieces of pottery shards. Some are multi-colored some are salt glazed. This winter we shall sit down, wash them all and try to assemble the pieces into a recognizable jar, pot or plate…
The rock pictured above is only about four inches long, the hole is about three quarters of an inch in diameter. The thing fits perfectly in the palm of the hand and feels like it was used for some kind of grinding vessel, like a mortar. The following pictures show parts of two arrowheads, the one on the right in the left picture, Ellen calls a “turkey tail”, pictured on the right bits of man shaped quartz and a petrified molar of some kind of animal.
Today was another “historic” day: we tore down the ramp to make room for progress. The ramp served us well while it lasted, but it was in the way of laying out and setting up the forms for the foundation walls of the porch-and-ramps-to-be. A temporary entryway was created on the side of the house by way of a small deck. Large enough to accommodate the grill and a bench seat to take boots off and put back on. Talk about recycling: the preformed concrete steps were donated to the cause by a neighbor who wanted to get rid of them, while the other steps once held up the ramp… before that they were the kitchen floor joists in the old house… A stack of pallets will serve to hold up the charcoal container and a few other things. The whole thing will probably stay in service until the spring of 2008 when we hope to dismantle the screened-in porch of the old house and resurrect it on this location.
Having a little bit more “free” time, now that working on the house is not quite as pressing, a nice after dinner activity is to go up the hill property in the golf cart. First a leisurely ride along the trails and then we end up on the top of the hill, searching for more cultural debris and artifacts. This night, Jeanene (who came to visit prior to her move to Texas) found a “shooter”, a perfectly round ball of marble about one inch in diameter. It was used to play with clay marbles that were popular in the mid to late eighteen-hundreds. Up on the rugged hill property there are plenty of white tail deer. Our friend Kevin set up an automatic “game camera” in an area frequented by deer. The
camera is triggered by movement and is capable of taking a picture every minute… Not only does it catch deer in the act of grazing or passing through, it also catches the golf cart…
Enough of those leisure activities! There’s work to be done and this day the concrete forms for the ramp and porch walls were started. It is a tedious process as everything has to be plumb and level and the proper distance from the house. Old floor plywood out of the old house will serve as forming material. Fortunately Earl had a few forms left from previous jobs and since he’s pretty much retired from heavy concrete work he donated the forms to the cause. Some we can use the way they are, some we have to re-make.
Hey! The price is right and when we are through with the forms they will help burn stumps up on the hill! Hopefully the forms will be ready to receive concrete next week so we can start hauling “fill” dirt to fill in the ramps and porch area. We’ll get the fill dirt from up on our hill property. Elias used a back hoe to clean out the pond up on the hill property and we have a mountain of “dirt” that we have to move somewhere. The Massey and the dump trailer will come in handy for that endeavor. Building the forms takes some time and since I am not forty anymore, I’m taking my time. The entire front straight wall
is now formed and ready for concrete. We are beginning the curve; the outside is simple enough: some heavy sheet metal follows the concrete footer, some stakes hold the metal in place and it is done! Haven’t quite figured out how to do the inside of the form, so this is a good time to QUIT!! For right now anyway, tomorrow is another day… For dinner we’re having cucumber and green beans from the garden. Yum!
Now that we are quite comfortable in the house, the real work begins… There are a multitude of projects that need to be finished and we are confidant we’ll be busy for a few more months. The first order of business is to finish the last piece of railing, install it and then make the newel posts. All the parts to the railing are laid out on the workbench and will have to be “dry-fitted” before the final assembly. Once there are a few clamps in place is no time to find out that something does not fit properly! Better safe than sorry, so over an hour was spent just to dry fit all the spindles. Some of the spindle tenons needed to be made just a hair smaller to fit properly into the mortise; a wood rasp is the tool of choice! Here and there the mortise needed to be made a little larger, a wood chisel did the job in minutes. Once assured that everything would come together as planned, the three-
inch screws were driven through the bottom rail into the spindles and then the top rail was fitted on, clamping as we went. In the end there were almost as many clamps holding things together as there were spindles.
Once the glue was dry, the clamps were removed, a nail was driven through the side of the top rail into the top spindle tenon of each spindle and THIS chapter of railing assembly is over with! Now for the newel posts… Each post will be four and one quarter inches square and thirty-seven and a half inches tall. We’ll need four “whole” posts and four “half” posts. Each post consists of five pieces of wood, four sides and a top cap. All the pieces are ripped at a forty-five degree angle on both sides, and then the radial arm saw is used to cut the forty-five degree angle on the top. Cutting the pieces on the table saw at a forty-five degree angle is no easy task. Should the saw be out of alignment all kinds of terrible things will happen. This is one project where the saws (both the radial arm AND the table saw) have to be in perfect alignment. After cutting a few pieces of the cherry it was realized that the saws were NOT perfectly aligned, so time was spent to fix that problem. Once the saws were set correctly, cutting the pieces was a piece of cake… Just like it was supposed to be! The four “half” posts, will be made as two oversized ones and then, when the glue has dried, they’ll be sawn in half; each half to be cut to size as needed. Especially against the rough uneven stone of the chimney, for instance, it will take some skill to make that half newel post look good. Once cut and laid out, the pieces are marked for the biscuit machine. Cutting the slots for the biscuits is easy, but one has to be careful not to wiggle the machine while cutting. The slightest movement will miss-align the biscuits slots and assembly will become a bear of a job instead of an easy one! As soon as the biscuits are located and the glue is applied the post is assembled and clamped with the band clamps. The band clamps serve just to hold the pieces together; fine adjustment (this is WOOD!) will be done with other clamps, as needed. Making sure that all the corners are meeting, as they should, a clamp here and there will assure that the joints will need very little “fill” in the end. There is a saying that a cabinet shop never has too many clamps, we have a “zillion” of them, but just clamping the two oversized posts pictured here, we’re out of clamps! At least of the type we need to assemble another post, guess we’ll go mow!
Another day in the cabinet shop… The first two (oversized) posts are now dry and are cut down the middle to make a total of four “half” posts. These are the posts that will secure the ends of the railings to the adjacent wall. The full size posts will be at the “free” end of the railings and be secured to the railing end as well as the floor. Only three sides of the full posts will be biscuited and glued, so as to facilitate the joining of the railing end and the attaching to the floor plate, tricky business that as the final side will have to fit like a glove in order to make for a nice appearance. The three sides are biscuited and glued and then all four sides are secured in the clamps. The fourth side, without glue or biscuits serves to keep things square while the glue is setting up. When all is said and done the fourth side will be installed with glue and clamps and lots of prayer! We can but hope that everything will fit! Once out of the clamps, the post is inspected for proper fit of the fourth (loose) side and then, in order for the post to be machined, sanded and finished, the fourth side is held in place by a couple of staples.
…And then came the day the newel posts were about to be installed. Like the banisters before them, the posts received a coating of golden oak stain and one coat of finish; the latter just to protect the surface while the posts were being installed. When all is said and done, everything will receive two more coats of finish. The installation is tricky to say the least, half posts need to be secured to blocks on the wall, and whole posts are located and secured to blocks on the floor. The railing piece in between the two posts must be just the right length or things won’t be square, plumb and level… Are we having fun yet?
The top rail is attached to the posts with a “lag bolt/washer and nut” fastener that requires some precision drilling of holes in both the rail and the post. No time for timidity! Thanks to the efforts of the stonemason, fitting the half posts on each side of the chimney was a snap. Only the North one had to be trimmed a little to fit around the rough stone surface.
All in a day’s work…. And what a day it was! Apparently the guy (duh…) who laid this entire project out did pretty well: only ONE piece of railing had to be trimmed by a mere three quarters of an inch… All the pieces “fell into place” like they were meant to be! Now for some final trim on each side of the base rail and THIS job is history!
After having been submerged in the floodwaters most of the solid oak, walnut and cedar floor trim appeared to have been ruined. Once removed, it all eventually dried out and most pieces could be used again. Using salvaged oak trim, the bathroom is looking good and nary apiece was wasted! The half porch posts that graced the end walls in the old house do so again in the new house, except better! The spindles, quarter arches and all the special pieces of trim are all contributing to the “homey and warm” ambiance of the new house.
Little by little, things are being trimmed out and finished. It will be a while before the old screened in porch will be dismantled and resurrected in its new location. One of this month’s project was the installation of a temporary operating screen and sliding door in the “porch-to-be” door opening. The collection of salvaged doors and doorframes yielded a proper doorframe, screen door to match AND a glass door. Unfortunately the thermopane glass was ruined (had water and mold growing between the glass panels) so it could not be used. A GOOD piece of thermopane was removed from another door and PRESTO! One operating set of doors! Once that project was done, proper measurements for the window trim and doorframe could be taken so trim could be made and installed.
In between the work we cannot help but enjoy and admire the beautiful multi-colored clematis on the I.M.A. Donker-Rutgers Memorial Clematis Arbor. Even though the nursery has been somewhat neglected the last two years (wonder why…) some beautiful plants and bushes are growing there this season. There is a sense of normalcy setting in, as we seem to have a bit more time to tend to those things that have been ignored while we were building our new abode. Life’s good!
Next is the planning of the remaining “2by” cherry out of which the parts for the railings will be made. Another tedious and time-consuming job. The scaffolding is still in the house, but its removal is getting closer.
Mid-March the weather was absolutely beautiful so we thought it a good idea to pick up the shed and move it to Elias and Sara’s field. Elias will use it as his “office” and general storage area while waiting to erect the steel building they purchased. The shed is built like the proverbial brick outhouse and as near as we can figure weighs about three tons. Both our Massey and Elias’ brand new John Deere had a hard time lifting one end of the shed. When we did get it high enough we slipped the trailer under it, did some more pushing and shoving and voila! One moving shed…. Five miles an hour and down the road we went. Some of the skirting bit the dust, but
overall not much damage was done to the old shed. Once on Elias’ field Elias shoved the shed off the trailer until it tipped (trailer and all) then he simply pulled the trailer out from under the shed and watched it “fall” (gently) on the foundation that he had built. Fastest building erection ever!
Back at the new house everyone marveled at how the absence of the shed made the house and the front porch-to-be with it’s on and off ramps look even more beautiful. Ellen came up with the bright idea to possibly use some of the left over spindles for a porch railing…. A wise man listens to his wife… A hundred were made… I wonder how many spindles we really need for the stair railings…
The beautiful weather produced beautiful spring colors; the fruit trees, the dogwoods and the purple plum all made the compound look very much Spring-like. One of the pear trees is host to a dove’s nest as is the kiln shed. Doves all around again this year!
The last week of March it turned cold again, which probably was a good thing as there was work to be done in the shop! Time to make the top and bottom runners of the railings. Four railing pieces are needed: one four feet long, one fifteen feet seven inches long, one just over four feet long and one fifteen feet one inch…. The two short ones are no problem; the two long ones will require some cabinet making skills, as there is no such thing as a fifteen-foot board at least not in this case. We’ll have to employ the old board stretcher trick! First though we’ll rip some 2x3x12’s out of the big heavy 2x10x12s. It was slow going with the thirty five year old 10” table saw, but it finally got done. Then the 2x3’s were planed to their final dimension after which they were laid out according to length. The fifteen foot–plus sections are made out of two pieces. The pieces are joined with a biscuit and a nut and bolt plus washers. Top and bottom will have their joints staggered. Next the edges were scalloped or rounded off depending on which piece was being worked. Once the lengths were established (taking into account the size of the newel posts) the spindle spacing could be laid out. No easy task that, as the joints of the long pieces had to fall between spindles AND be staggered. Once everything was laid out the long pieces were taken apart again and next week we’ll mortise, mortise, and mortise some more…
Time has a way of passing when one is busy: it is now the second week of April. The weather has turned downright cold and it is a good thing we have indoor activities! Too cold to be outside! Since we are very close to move into the house, we’re taking “stuff” from the guesthouse that will enhance our new “digs”. Years ago we salvaged and restored a hundred-some year old door from the old Pogue residence, which was going to be torn down. The Pogues were one of the early settlers of Fairbanks and friends of Ellen’s Mom and Dad. The door had colored glass panes and a beautiful “bell ringer”
which, after some cleaning and coaching works like a charm again. Since we are eventually going to tear down the guesthouse there is no need to leave that beautiful door behind. So this past weekend it was installed between the utility porch and the foyer. Finally the colored glass in the light fixture that I made last year makes sense! Things are happening! There also is a wall section in the guesthouse that was made out of raised panels that were salvaged out of old doors. It too will be removed and find a new home upstairs in the new house.
One of the most difficult things to do when making things like railings is the tool set up. All the repetitive actions have to be “right on the money” or the final project will be a disaster. Should the set up NOT be correct one would, unfortunately, not find that out until it is too late… It took all morning to set up the mortising machine, make a spacer “jig” and have a trial run at making a piece of railing. Patience and careful measuring paid off: we’re ready to mortise the railing pieces!
The mortising machine is an attachment to the drill press. It consists of a square hollow chisel with a drill bit inside of it. As the drill bit goes down (by pushing down on the hand lever on the side of the drill press) the hollow chisel squares off the corners of the hole. The chisel is only 3/8” square, the mortise needed for the spindle tenons has to be 3/4” square, and so it takes four “plunges” of the mortising machine. First two overlapping square holes on one side, then, after rotating the piece, two more overlapping holes on the other side. Once the square hole is done, it needs to be cleaned out by hand using a chisel…We’ve lost count how many operations this railing takes… What was that
saying about patience being a virtue? Once mortised and cleaned out the fifteen-foot plus pieces are joined (with that nut and bolt trick, described earlier and the whole thing gets sanded and stained. THEN the railings can be assembled. From below in the living room the bottom of the top railings can be seen. No one wants to see that nut and bolt attachment trick that had to be performed on the long pieces. We’ll hide it… the golden oak stain will further camouflage the joint and a spindle goes right next to the smaller patch… Now you see it, now you don’t! I’m so good! ;-)
Meanwhile at the house, things are moving right along: the last part of the ceiling that requires scaffolding is being finished! The scaffolding will be out very soon! We have learned not to ask “When”…
With the kids sort of “camping out” in the house and living out of a suitcase, so to speak, Ellen came up with a thought: Instead of the kids being in the house, why not vacate the guesthouse, let the kids move into IT and the old fogies take up residence in the new house? Finishing things up will go a lot faster, the kids can get their “stuff” out of storage and all of us can get some order back into our lives… Great plan! So it came to be… As soon as the scaffolding was no longer needed, it was moved out and for the first time we got to enjoy the full view of both the finished chimney and the various views that the spacious dining area/living room offers. Wow! We said in unison…
The fourth week of April 2007 we moved into the new house even though the scaffolding was not yet out. While Ellen and Sara are finishing that part of the ceiling area that still requires the use of the scaffolding, our furniture is temporarily stored in the unfinished master bedroom. The plan is that we will finish the hardwood flooring in the living room. Once that’s done we will move the furniture into the living room and finish the master bedroom. In the meantime we will sleep in one of the unfinished bedrooms upstairs. We can DO this and it all looks great on paper! By the end of April the scaffolding was moved out, Ellen took possession of the kitchen and the hardwood floor in the living room was being laid. The final floor was installed in the bathroom, crystal chandeliers were hung and progress, generally, is being made by leaps and bounds. … Ah there’s so much more to do, but it will go faster since we are now IN the house!
Thanks to that floor hammer and the improved energy level of the operator (that would be yours truly!) it only took a couple of days to install the remainder of the hardwood
floor. Back when we planned the floor covering an inventory of the square footage of both the old, salvaged floor and the new boards had been taken. On paper it was figured out that if the foyer and the little hallway were done in OLD flooring, there would be just enough NEW flooring to do the remainder of the downstairs living room. There still would be quite a bit of old flooring and “seconds” of new flooring to cover the largest part of the loft and gallery floor. Imaging the pleasant surprise when there was JUST enough (not a board to spare!) to cover all of the living room in new flooring. As soon as the last board was nailed down it was off to the rental store to rent a floor sander. With a little bit of fortitude the floor could be sanded quickly and no additional rental fees would be incurred. Sanding the floor was a matter of three hours hard labor, but, since we knew what we were doing, we only used up TWO sanding belts. Talk about doing a floor-sanding job “on the cheap”! The folks at “Complete Rental” couldn’t believe the sanding machine was returned so quickly and promptly lowered the rental fee by a considerable amount. Ah, for life’s small blessings! No sooner was the floor sanded or it received the first coat of water-based polyurethane. The stuff dries in a matter of “minutes” and by the end of the day three coats had been applied. One added bonus of the sanding machine was that it removed the finish of the old flooring and when all was said and done one could not tell the difference between the old and new flooring…
Once the floor was thoroughly dry, our lounge chairs were brought in and we could finally stretch and put our feet up for the first time in two weeks. Boy! The feet were grateful!! Now that the living room is “finished” we can think in terms of bringing in the rest of the furniture. One of the first things to be moved in was the solid walnut bay window cabinet out of the old master bedroom. The front of the cabinet is more than eight feet wide and what was once a cabinet to sit on, put one’s socks on etc., will now become the audio-visual cabinet to house the DVD player, VC and Television and the multitude of tapes we’ve acquired over the years. Elsewhere in this epistle it was noted that all the salvaged things from the old house came to be used in better and more beautiful ways in the new house. Such is the case with the bay window cabinet… it never looked THIS good! Must have something to do with the spaciousness of the new house! Meanwhile, back in the shop, the railing units are being assembled. The two short pieces came together in a matter of minutes; the fifteen footer took almost three hours!
The spindles were attached to the bottom rail with a 3” screw to pull the tenon tightly into the mortise. Some glue aided in the sliding of the tenon into the mortise. Once all the spindles were attached to the bottom rail, clamps brought the top rail into place. A slow and tedious process as only three spindles at the time could be glued and engaged. Once the railing was together the power nailer was used to send a nail through the top railing and the top tenon to hold everything firmly together. The same finish that was used on the floor will be used to finish off the railings. For now only one coat will do. Once the newel posts are made and installed the whole unit will receive two more coats and look fabulous! Temporary installation of the first three pieces of railing only took minutes… The last unit (another fifteen feet!) will have to wait for another day. To lend strength and “leaning-onto-dependability”, I better make the newel posts a.s.a.p. But oh! those railings sure look good!
…And just to show those who know about my health problems of the last few years: Dr.Dupre finally figured out what had been ailing me since the pancreatitis of five years ago: That episode damaged my pancreas to the point that it was no longer producing enough insulin for this big dude. It took five years to come to a head… In the meantime I was diagnosed with that case of silicosis, the symptoms of which are the same as those of un-diagnosed diabetes…. So! Now I shoot myself twice a day with an insulin extender, watch my diet a bit and feel like I am FORTY again!! Thank YOU LORD!!
For the inside curved form 3/4” plywood (from the “lumberyard!”) was partially cut through every inch so it could be bent. The square form in the foreground of the right picture above is for the concrete pad/foundation on which Ellen will build the stone steps that will lead to the utility room door. Stakes and chunks of old concrete (that will be used for “fill” later) are holding the form in place. Earl came to inspect the whole thing and had me reinforce the stakes here and there. He also made me install a few more pairs of stakes to assure us that the whole thing would not collapse while pouring the concrete! Driven into the ground by about two feet, the stakes were bound together at the top with baling wire. A tourniquet (walnut or cherry, from the scrap pile…downright decadent!) tightened things up some more. Bring on the concrete! Jeff and JT came to
give, Ellen, Elias and myself a hand. Good thing Elias is the agile one of the bunch… Nancy at IMI had them mix the concrete a little too dry and it got stuck in the chute. Better too dry then too wet, the driver added a few drops of water and the pouring went as easy as any concrete job we’ve ever done. Just under two hours later the job was done and we could sit on the bank of the Wabash, drink a cup of coffee and count our
blessings.