Into the door and outa the door, and don't forget, the finished floors

   My writing today is all about doors... stories and pictures of doors... whoo hoo! So I thought a bit of beauty was in order. This is a quick shot of Lake Sonoma that Phillip snapped with his Iphone. We sure do live in amazingly beautiful country. Now onto doors!

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We have been on long haul projects the past few weeks and they seem to go on forever. Take the flooring for example... how many weeks? seven I think, of continuous measuring, and choosing, and cutting, and gluing, and drilling, and nailing, and now... all three thousand square feet of Black Walnut flooring have been laid, (or is it layed or Leiaed? lets ask Oprah!) and covered in brown paper so that we no longer even see them, out of sight out of mind, forgotten, don't even know they are there... until something gets droped and we suddenly cringe, and it takes a moment to remember why we are cringing... oh yeah the new floors.
Now it is all about doors. Exterior doors, not interior. The Front door, the back door, the door above the front door, the dining room doors, the study doors, and the master bedroom doors. Arg, there are so many.
The dining room, study and master bedroom doors are all brand new replications of a door that was in the house that we are pretty sure was on it when it was built. That door which used to reside in the dining room will now grace the kitchen as the back door.


It like all of the old doors has been meticulously stripped to the bare wood. Layers and layers of ancient paint carefully removed with chemical stripper, a heat gun, and hours of sanding. That followed by the application of different types of wood fillers, then more sanding, then priming with an oil based primer and then more sanding, more primer, more sanding... you get the drift. Isn't this an exciting post!

The kitchen door, stripped bare and awaiting filling, priming, and sanding.

The door to the right is the door above the front door and it is now ready for glazing, and installation. I think we are going to have to seal it closed so that we can pass all of our inspections, but someday we will be able to open it and step out onto the portico, and... I guess we shall wave to all of the little people. We will have to don white gloves and learn the queens wave. Not that kind of queen, a real queen, with a tiara and everything!

The door to the left is the front door "before", after it was sent to the cabinet maker to increase its size so that it would fit the opening. And below it the front door stripped of all paint and finishes, filled, sanded, primed and ready for painting. We still need to match the molding for the lower panels, but one thing at a time.

The dining room doors, hung and ready for glass and paint.

The study doors. These are really beautiful and have wonderful proportions. These are in our future office and it will be wonderful to throw them open to the side yard while we are working.

The final door in today's post is the new basement door. This one we actually built from salvaged lumber that was removed from the old section of the house that we tore down. A few weeks ago we arrived at the house to find that someone, or someones, or somethings, or a couple of dras ah frassen god @*$ sons a #%@#'s, had hauled two chairs into our basement and proceeded to set up a table and have a little coffee klatch under our home, while we were not there, on private property, without permission. They left behind empty frappa, frappa drinks and Turkish cigarettes. Unfortunately Phillip threw it all away or I would have called in CSI to spray some magic spray around that always seems to identify the culprits. To say the least it was very disturbing. So, to the lumber pile we went. The door is made from true dimension two by eight, one hundred and forty year old planks, and weighs about three hundred pounds. Phillip and carried into the basement after it was complete so that we could position it and measure the width for trimming. I was sure it was too wide for the opening and as we struggled to lift its mass into place it slipped right into its new home, a perfect fit. All it needed was its hinges and a latch, that is if we could get a hold of it and pull it back out of the door jamb, where it now comfortably and heavily rested literally trapping us in the basement. The back of the door is smooth and we could not get a grip on it anywhere. It was eight thirty in the evening and as luck did have it that day, Brent (our part time worker) had yet to leave and came running to the rescue at our insistent shouting.

It is a fun door and we will be building two more of them, one for the wine cellar and one for the doorway that separates the two large sections of our basement. If anyone happens two know two shady creatures that drink frappa frappa drinks, smoke Turkish cigarettes, and like to hang out in semi dangerous dark and cool places...

Call me!

Step it up to get home

If you live in Healdsburg you have passed by the house over the last month and puzzled in wonderment at the front stoop of the house. For those who have not had the pleasure of seeing it, it is a complete mess. The front porch is the last thing on the list for our builder Jim to finish. Roughly five weeks ago he built a form for the concrete base. The form was built of timbers and thick plywood, with heavy iron stakes driven two feet into the ground to hold it in place, but the ground was still saturated with water from all of the rain. After tons of concrete were poured into the form it looked just fine, proud and solid one moment, and the next moment the stakes gave way and the form burst outward on both sides. When the form was removed the next day we had just what we wanted, the crooked front steps leading to the crooked porch like some Dr. Seuss nightmare. Well not exactly what we wanted. Many discussions surrounded the topic of "what do we do now". We came to the conclusion that the best plan of attack would be to remove the steps and side walls using a jack hammer, and use the remaining concrete as a base for a new version of the porch built entirely of brick. Old used brick salvaged from the former foundation. The call to work rang out and the cleaning of brick began, one thousand, one hundred and forty brick to be precise, had to have the old mortar chiseled and scraped from all sides. Then brick by brick a new front stoop has appeared. Stylistically Jim built it to look as if it has always been there, rough and old. This took us by surprise at first, but we have warmed up to it and all who pass by seem to approve. Of course with addition of a new set of steps, no more climbing the ruins like a goat, and a stoop outside the front door, the natural progression is the reappearance of the columns and porch covering. It has been so long that we have forgotten what the house looks like with a front porch and a set of stairs. It will need a lot of work to make it pretty again, but it is there and we are looking less colonial and definitely more Victorian again.

Stairs, Stairs, Stairs.... who would have thought they could be so wonderful!

Although incredibly lovely, these are not ours

Could be these, but no, although this is an insight to my mental trains of thought

  These are definitely closer to the truth

 Not these, they give me a sinking feeling

Closer yet, but the wrong man at the bottom

 That's it! those must be our stairs! I am almost sure...

Ok, perhaps these are the ones

And the long forgotten porch has reappeared.

Ouch, oh, ouch, groan, ouch, groan...

We were on vacation for a week and had a wonderful time. The accommodations were splendid, the towels ultra soft and the food divine. We spent 9 whole days away from our day jobs and worked full time on the house. Which of course translates into our bed at the rental house that never got made after we had thrown our sad sore bodies into it and drug them out 8 hours later, towels that had to go to the wash daily due to the amount of grime still remaining after showering, and whatever food was available in Healdsburg after 9 pm. If you live in Healdsburg you know that the options after 9 in the evening are slim at best and most would turn this group of dirty filthy boys away at the door.

It was a very busy week with incredibly long days. Garry was with us again, up from Los Angeles for the week and Brent, our part time carpenter went beyond full time. We all had our chores to do and tried to stay focused. Garry was back at window restoration, working on the two west facing windows on the ground floor, Brent and myself were manning two giant floor sanders in a valiant attempt to flatten the old redwood floors in preparation for the new walnut flooring, and Phillip was exiled to basement with the massive tangle of electrical wires that waited desperately for organization, and organize he did! We did not see him for days as he stood perched on a ladder in the dark, a bare bulb barely lighting his way, as he untangled the mass of wires and one by one fed them into the electric panel.

After hours down in the dark hole Phillip poses with his masterpiece, albeit he looks a bit mad, as in crazy, coo coo, lost his marbles, as most artists are.

*Meanwhile back at the ranch*

Every floor in the house was sanded and sanded, and then sanded some more. Fine brick colored powder covered everything as layer after layer of redwood was removed from the original floors. In some ways they were quite pretty, in shabby chic sort of way... that is, if you're into that kind of crap, ooops, that was supposed to be inside voice... but the new floors were on their way and we needed to be ready.

And before we knew it, they were here. A big semi pulled up in front of the house and the door slid open to reveal stacks and stacks of wide plank, black walnut flooring. Brent, myself and our day help Fabian, lined up at the truck and carried the bundles of flooring to the living room bay window where we passed them through the open window to Phillip and Garry, who stacked and organized the bundles on the living room floor.

And then the work began. We all have a new found respect for those who lay hardwood floors for a living. At the end of the day each and every joint, muscle and bone hurt. I have never had knee trouble in my life... now I think I need new ones. Bundles of flooring were carried to the upper floors of the house, and we all gathered in a closet on the second floor to figure out how to lay our first board. First decide on a starting point, draw lines, with pencil, on the floor every sixteen inches, choose at random a width and length of board, apply lines of adhesive to the back of the plank, lay the board onto the floor and firmly press it into place, using the pencil lines as a guide drill two pilot holes in the floor board at sixteen inch intervals, drive square cut nails into each hole, and counter sink the nails slightly. Repeat. Repeat three thousand square feet of flooring. Leave it to say that we have completed bedrooms one and two, the second floor hall, the laundry room, the linen closet, the living room, gallery, kitchen and dining room, and we are only a bit over halfway finished... at this point we are all a bit mad, as in crazy, coo coo, lost our marbles, as most artist are!

Garry switched from windows to floors when we realized how long the job would take.

Phillip standing on the new kitchen floor just after completion.

The bay window in the living room, showing the floor chasing into it and back out around the edge.

A NEW look and "Plan B"

Just when you thought Spring was here the sky keeps opening up and pouring water on us. Wet, wet, wet, everything is wet. I have to say everyone around town has finally caught up with us and are no longer remarking how good all the rain is, or we need it so bad, everyone is sick and tired of it! Today the sky has cleared and sun has come out so we all scurry about in hopes that it will stay.

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Big days are ahead at the house. Our friend Garry arrives from Los Angeles on Thursday to tackle more of the old window restoration. He will start in the Library and the Study, and we hope to see him on the second floor by the middle of next week. Phillip and I will be on holiday from our regular work beginning Saturday the tenth, and we will be working full time at the house for nine straight days. Now, this is a good thing, and boy do we need it. 

My Mother was here last weekend to create the leaded panels to surround the front door. We cleared the living room and set up a great big table to work on. Restoration glass and zinc were the the name of the game. Restoration glass is hand blown glass which resembles antique glass and has a charming, olde world look to it. The zinc came and surround I ordered from a stained glass company back east and was perfect to work with, strong, sturdy, and easy to manage in a six foot tall window.

***URGENT UPDATE***

I received a call last night from my Mom who was infuriated by the photograph of her that had been used here for this posting. She said it did not look like her and all it showed was gray hair, spots, and wrinkles. So I have agreed to remove it from the blog and replace it with another. I looked and looked through the photos that were taken and could not find another that she would approve of, so rather than go without, I have doctored the photograph, let's say I have given her a disguise. So please enjoy my Mom's new look. If you would like to see the original I can send it to you, but we must be very hush, hush about it lest "she" find out.

Geraldine Goff, with her new look for spring. You can find her down at the bowling alley, sippin beer with Dame Edna and Rue Paul

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Carefully planned and drawn to within a 1/32nd of an inch, I had ordered the glass precut and ready to go. Tin snips, a hack saw, and a screw driver were all that remained. We quickly cut the zinc came that fit between the panels of glass, followed by the zinc surround, relying on the cut glass to give us our dimensions. In two hours we had all three panels laid out and held together with nails driven into the table. A few hours of soldering the next day and the mixing of a secret recipe grout were all that remained.

By Monday evening the panels were finished drying and ready for installation. Some said it could not be done, and would not hold together, they will sag, or perhaps break when the front door was opened and closed, but I have to say this was one of the most satisfying things we have done. Within a matter of two days we had created beautiful windows that fit perfectly into place and look tremendous. Its also wonderful to actually see something that is a finish detail rather than a rough in or a tear apart job.

All that remains is the new front door, or should I say the old front door. The door is a four panel double tombstone that is with our cabinet maker for restoration. it was found in the cellar of the house next door and it is possible that it is the original front door to the house. It will go the full height of the opening, unlike the current, more contemporary door that had been filled in above it to accommodate its shortness. 

Friday begins the mad dash. The bricks will be laid over and around the concrete base just outside the front door, and the floors are coming. The wide plank black walnut floors are arriving next Monday. They are not coming ahead of schedule, we are simply behind schedule. Our intention was to be signed off on our mechanicals, and have insulation and sheer wall complete before the floors made the trek across the country to grace our rooms. Well... plan B! The old floors have been screwed down for strength, we will sand them smooth and flat and fill any low spots this weekend, Monday we will begin the installation of the new floors and we will have to leave a space for the sheer wall to fit into. I suppose it could be worse, and I think I better start looking for something to cover the new floors with until we are ready for finishing.

Rooms with a view

Sometimes even I think we are crazy. Well.... uh... I guess you should take Phillip out of that equation and just say that I am crazy. The hinges arrived and oooh were they purty, that is if you like white marble statues, blue carpeting, and gold curtain rods. If you need the reference for that list of  items please see Southpark episode "D-Yikes" season 11, episode 1106, hee, hee, hee, one of my all time favorites! So there I was faced with 69 vibrantly glowing, greeny brass, super shiny, grab you by the throat, shake ya up and throw ya down, brass hinges. I put on my sunglasses and accessed the problem.
The first issue... a thick coating of spray lacquer, ouch, and all that brand new brass. So out came the chemicals, our favorite products that we have to keep in a dark, hidden place away from prying Prius driving, vegan eyes. Not a single thing green about them, but if you want to get the job done there is nothing better. I was going to title this post "Get out your furs for stripping" but then I would have Vegans, Prius drivers, and PETA members out to get me.   :-)

The hinge on the left is shiny and new, the one on the right has been stripped of lacquer, scrubbed with detergent, soaked in Selenious and Phosphoric acid until black, lightly scrubbed again with a scouring sponge and detergent until the black gives way to a darkened multitoned brass with slight copper overtones, buffed dry, and finally lightly rubbed with super fine steel wool to add a slight sheen to the finished piece. Nothin to it. quick as pie and leaves your hands as beautifully antiqued as the hinge.

After hours of scrubbing and adding a new patina, the new look is very acceptable next to the 130 year old door hardware. We could have come even closer but that requires hot processes or fuming, and even I have my limits.

The antique door hardware that is waiting to be installed and that which the hinges need to have some sort of color relationship with.

---NEWS FLASH---

Passing by 227 North Street one will notice a strange occurrence that has been taking place. Windows!

The reconstructed back of the house is now sporting beautiful double hung windows, with glass and everything. It is an amazing site and the house is beginning to look like a house. There is still many steps ahead to complete the windows, more sanding, priming, and painting, installation of pulleys, ropes, and weights, inside trim, and outside trim, and a serious cleaning, but at least they are in and getting us one step closer to weather safe.

Somtimes a sad story must be told to light the way

As we move forward making the right decisions can be difficult. Difficult and expensive! No one told us to "beware the little things". A quote of three thousand dollars for door hinges made me have a sit down. And these are just reproduction, pseudo period hinges off a production line. Antique hinges are out of the question as it is virtually impossible to find enough of the same hinge to do the entire house. Sixty nine hinges, custom made to match the door hardware at one hundred and fifty dollars a hinge... OMG put me out of my misery now! I can think of better ways to use ten grand than swingin a door on it.
The door hardware, outside of hinges, is antique. We have found a great company on the East coast that is collecting period hardware for us, that does not cost and arm and a leg.... a leg perhaps, but not both. The hardware is very pretty, a small bit later than the house, 1880 instead of 1870, but its beautiful and give or take ten years won't be noticed... I hope.

Beautiful, yes, but one drawback. Phillip will be wandering around the house with a huge ring of skeleton keys attached to his belt, like an old prison matron with a deep voice and a "don't %*?# with me fellas" attitude, locking the doors as he moves down the hall after dark. So guests beware of locked doors whose keys go missing in the middle of the night, or a subtle click at your door as you are nodding off to sleep. If we have to start bricking up doorways to cover the aftermath, you know we're in trouble.

And now a sad story. One I have hesitated to discuss. A few months ago during one of my internet excursions into the realm of research, this particular search was on gas lighting to be specific, I came across a gentleman and his wife who were losing their circa 1870 home to the bank. This in it's self is a sad story, but they were feeling a sense of relief at their decision and were ready to move on. They were selling off architectural pieces of their house before they left it. This too is a sad story and it made me feel bad for the home and it's losses, but we were not going to be able to talk them out of stripping it and we are in need. We purchased four gas ceiling fixtures from them, that had hung in the same home for one hundred and forty years. Although they needed work to return them to their original state they were an affordable option, and would get some true period lighting into our house that has none. 

A matched pair of this fixture above for the living room. The shades, sockets, bobeche (the brass bits cupping the shades), and the finish are all incorrect, but workable.

This fixture, although needing the same things as the others, has great structure and will hang in the Library

 

And lastly this small fixture, in the same condition, to hang in the center hall.

Remember up above when I said "they were an affordable option"? The light fixtures were paid for and picked up, in Michigan, by a dear friend who in turn took them to a frame and packing company for packaging and shipping. A packing company that packs art for worldwide shipping. You know those moments in life where you just put too much trust in others that you do not know? Well this was one of them that will cost a handsome ransom to rectify. Oh, if we could take it back. Oh, if we were not so trusting. Oh, if we could go back in time. Lines of communication broke down. I thought I was very clear about packaging the fixtures in new containers for secure protection. Protect and support the metal, the gas valves, all the small pieces, wrap, cover, enclose. I thought I was clear, specific and concise... I thought

After a long wait the fixtures finally arrived in Healdsburg. One look at the four old, beaten and abused boxes and we knew we were about to see the worst that long haul shipping can provide. The opening of the first box gave way to broken, bent and destroyed metal. One hundred and forty years these light fixtures had hung in the same home, and in a matter of days poor packaging had obliterated them.

 

  

  

I have only photographed one of them. I could not bring myself to photograph the others. All four fixtures have broken arms and bent gas valves. Due to misunderstanding there was not any insurance and even if there were UPS would have taken one look at the packaging and denied the claim. I wouldn't blame them. All four need major restoration. By the time we pay for the restoration on top of what we have already paid, which wasn't a drop in the bucket, we could have gone for the really expensive pieces that I drool over. The funny tag to the whole story is that a week ago we received a bill in the mail from the frame and packing company. A bill for packing services.... HA!

The light at the end of the tunnel comes by means of a gentleman in Grass Valley California by the name of Paul Ivazes. Paul's Company, Quality Lighting, specializes in gas light fixtures and he has had the graciousness not to yell at me for what happened and will restore the fixtures to their original appearance. He has even gone so far as to provide us with pictures from a catalog for Mitchell Vance and Co in New York City, the Company that made our ruined fixtures in the 1870's, showing what the light fixtures looked like when they were new,  and what they will look like again. Paul is a font of information and really fascinating to speak to, he loves gas lighting, he loves his work, and it shows.

The two fixtures in the center are two of ours. The one center right is the matched pair for the living room. The one center left is the fixture for the center hall, it has been somewhat changed over the years.

The fixture in the lower left is the fixture for the Library. It will be really exciting, someday in the future, when they all hang proudly in our house looking like their former selves.

One year and a Night visitor

Its true folks. We have been living in Healdsburg for year... My how time flys... and it's still raining.
I don't think the rain will ever stop. I am thinking that we should simply build a large boat around the house and float it away to sea. We spend our weekends working in the pouring rain as our fellow Healdsburger's (hee, hee, Healdsburger's) rush about to find tasty snacks, and rental movies so they can snuggle in by the fire as the storm rages on. Jealous you may ask? Damn right we are. You made your own bed, you say? yes we did sign up for this sentence, but it does not make it any easier. I want to snuggle in, drink toddies (what ever they are) and watch bad movies by the fire.  -Sigh-

We are still in mechanicals hell. The wiring goes on and on and on. Phillip is on the second floor and has done some of the third floor as well. By the end of this month, come hell or high water, we will be ready for our first big inspection. We can't even begin to think of closing in walls until the mechanicals are approved and signed off. We must finish the wiring, add smoke detector lines, add phone and cable lines, and add gas pipes. Then we get the pleasure of sealing up the sewer line at the street, and filling the entire system with water by putting a hose in the highest vent pipe on the roof. Then quickly run around and check for leaks. We need to do this once without the inspector, so we can make sure we are water tight, and then do it again with the city inspector present. I hope the pipes can hold the pressure of that much water.

I was going through pictures looking for interesting things to post, and I came across this picture...

 

How quickly we have forgotten the decrepit and sad state the house was in when we bought it. We get lost in the slowness of what we are doing, anxious, depressed, and frusterated, but a quick look back brings things back onto focus.

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A few "visual" and "moving forward" things have been taking place inside the falling down wreck we call home. A beautiful set of pocket doors have been set in place between the Library and the Study.

  

The set of doors came out of a house in San Francisco built at the same time as ours. After removing the original wall between the two rooms (it had to come out as it was only 2 x 3 construction and would not accommodate the new doors) we then constructed a new, much thicker wall and created pockets to the left and right for the doors to slide into. We have had a terrible time locating a floor track for them, but as soon as we do, we can add the top guide and the doors will be ready to slide.

The floor in the center hall has been preped for tile. No easy task! the old floor was taken up and the floor joists were shaved and leveled. New floor joists were then sistered to the old for added strength and stability. The old front door sill was removed, and finally plywood was laid down in preparation for cement board and tile. The toughest part was the staircase. Was it possible to cut the old floor away from the staircase without it collapsing into the abyss below? 

Brent (our part time carpenter) carefully cut away the old floor upon which the staircase had been built. Everyone crossed their fingers that it would hold.

Phillip was underneath and held the whole staircase up for hours while we built around it to give it a new support structure.

Well, maybe not. Perhaps he was faking the whole thing for the camera. Perhaps the stairs were never really in danger of collapsing into the earth from the get go. But it was a cute picture and he felt so manly holding them up.

Our wood floors are finished at the Mill and await our "go ahead" for shipment.  We are looking forward to bathroom fixtures, tile, and creating showers. I have been doing a lot of research on the new high tech methods of creating completely water proof spaces that never leak, mold, or mildew. The windows for the back of the house are primed, glazed, and ready to be installed, and Brent and I will tackle them this weekend.

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The side note for today. In my last post I wrote of people that we do not know, who just walk into the house to have a look around. Well, last Saturday we were not able to put our front door back into place so we had to cover the opening with stapled down, black plastic. When we arrived on Sunday it was very apparent that someone or something had been in the house the night before. The plastic at the door was completely loose, there was a cigarette that had been put out on the floor at the top of the stairs, and a few small things had gone missing. Seems like we now have crossed the line. On top of everything else there was no floor inside the front door leaving a six foot drop into the cellar. Whom ever was in the house managed to walk the floor joists to the stairs. I would have rather shown up on Sunday to find the intruder moaning on the dirt floor of the basement after having fallen through the open floor, then at least we would have known who it was and find out why they had been in our home. I am one hundred percent positive that I would not have accidentally kicked them in the head a few times as I helped them out of the dirt, no really, I would not do such a thing... I promise! On the other hand, with the way things are today, who ever it was probably would have sued us for damages as we did not have a floor inside our front door and they fell into the basement. Ironic...