A long break after Christmas

Spring finishing

Wow, that was a long Christmas break from the Tea Room project!  My last blog post was four months ago – Dec. 19 – in the hectic holiday season. I was scurrying around making the room habitable for Chris to bunk in because the other bedrooms were reserved for our distinguished visitors from Britain. Speaking of which . . .

. . . Dear Betty, my favorite Scot, presented us this hand-made sign from England as a Christmas gift. We also received tea cups and cake plates, and, of course, some proper tea.

Another Christmas gift came from Anne: a Hitachi compound miter saw (photo below) that I had specifically requested for use on the finish-woodwork in the new room.  When I told her that I might also be able to use the tool to rebuild the stairway, well, the gift was in the bag.

So why did that Christmas saw remain unopened for 4 months?

Well, admittedly I had a minor a mental block against learning how to use a complicated new tool. But, mostly, I was swamped with multiple other projects. Things such as rebuilding shelves to accommodate new garage doors, trimming  trees, planting a spring garden, refinancing two properties, organizing office goodbyes, doing the income tax, and, most importantly: traveling as much as possible to stay sane.

Four months just flew by.

But I'm back at it and hope to wrap it all up within a few weeks – and then start on the stairway. Once that's done, we can carpet the Tea Room along with the rest of the house.


This new room is actually a decent woodshop too. I bolted the compound miter saw to the floor for stability and began work on the door frames, quickly discovering that with this wonderful tool I can effortlessly cut all sorts of complicated angles.

If I had had this saw 30 years ago when I built my house in Texas, I could have saved months of time spent cutting trim by hand using cheap miter boxes.

 

Having one cool new tool sparked an urge in me to get another – a finish nailer. This 16-gauge Freeman nailer, which I bought on Amazon, shoots the ammo through the pine trim, counter-sinking the nails just right. If I hammered nails in by hand, I'd have to counter-sink them with a punch before applying wood filler and sanding. I have been impressed with how the super-thin nails in this gun cause very few splits in the wood.

Between the new saw and new nailer, this is basically just an arts-and-crafts project!





The saw has pre-set positions for common angles (i.e. 45 degrees, 30 degrees).



Above and below:  Because I had rounded the drywall corners to match the style in the rest of the house, installing baseboards around such corners requires an extra little piece. The angles are 22.5 degrees (half of a normal 45-degree angle that would be used on trim over a square corner). 

I know. Cutting these pieces looks like a total nuisance. But with the precision of the compound miter saw, I did this perfectly on the first try – and it only took me 10 minutes.

The tiny corner piece would likely split if I attempted to nail it, so I glued it and placed a temporary brace against it (below) to hold it in place until the glue set.

In the outside hallway (formerly the bridge), the baseboards required a 22.5-degree outside angle to go around the 45-degree wall angle.

The next project:  It has bugged us for 20 years that the builder of our house cheaped out on the stairway, wrapping the carpet through the spindles and around the edges. It might be fine for an apartment, but we've always thought it looked stupid in our house.

Worse, when we had this berber carpet installed about 12 years ago the company charged us an extra $1,000 for the tedious work of slicing the carpet around each spindle and stitching it back together so that the seams would not be visible. (The first installer made such a mess of it that we fired him halfway through the job.)

The ultimate solution is to remove all the spindles, line the edges with wood, and do a carpet runner down the center of the stairs.  Unfortunately, the stair experts want anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000 to do this work.  I cannot stomach paying that much after managing to add the Tea Room to the house for less than $6,000. (Roughly $1,000 in permits and $5,000 in materials and tools.) For any of you who hire contractors, rest assured that most of what you pay them for is labor.

So, armed with my new tools, I'm going to become my own trim carpenter and do these stairs myself. If it turns out that I need a table saw, I'll either rent one or buy one or take the wood to someone who will cut it for me.

Below: I might just use this Tea Room as my woodworking shop as I do the stairs. It's so handy having this workspace upstairs that Anne is afraid I might want to keep things this way!





Final inspection passed!

Monday, Dec. 19:

A Lake Forest city building inspector came out this morning and gave me the final sign-off on my project. For the city's purposes, it is done – and legal.  The only remaining paperwork is to send a form to the Orange County tax collector so that I may pay a bit more in property tax each year.

I've installed the french doors, though the door trim and paint will have to wait until 2012. Anne says this now looks like a balcony in "Romeo and Juliet." We really like the coziness of the dining room with the lower ceiling.  It was cold and drafty with the original vaulted ceiling.

In addition to the door trim, I'll need to install baseboards. New carpet will have to wait until we deal with the stairway, which is one of my 2012 projects.  (I want to edge the stairs in wood and get rid of the cheesy-looking carpet that wraps through the spindles.)

The closet doors, trim, baseboards and door hardware will also have to wait until January. (I have temporarily propped the left closet door into the opening.)

I painted the walls with Behr antique-white-flat, and the ceiling with Vista swiss-coffee-flat. I still need to touch up the paint on some of the edges.

The final inspection essentially was for the electrical outlets (tamper-proof) and carbon monoxide/smoke detectors.

One last thing before Christmas:  I will install shutters over the window and spread a doggie blanket over the floor because Chris will have to sleep in here on an air mattress this weekend.  (The other two guest bedrooms are reserved for our honored guests flying over from England.)

'Tenting' the upstairs for sanding and texturing

Tuesday, Nov. 29: On the weekend following Thanksgiving I applied the final coatings of drywall compound to the Tea Room and the new wall along the bridge. I was careful to go over and over each wall, floating and feathering out the imperfections as much as possible to minimize sanding – some of which is always inevitable.

Sanding walls is dreadful work.  To minimize the dusty mess, I decided to "tent" the upstairs – that is, seal off the construction zone from the rest of the house.  Otherwise, the entire inside of the house would be coated with fine white dust.

My strategy was to "paint myself into a corner."  I would seal the construction zone and then access it from the outside window using a ladder.  Maybe even some of the dust would happily float out the window toward Trabuco Canyon.

First, I sealed off this opening into the office.  I then climbed out a window in one of the front bedrooms and went down a pre-positioned ladder.

Using flimsy painters' drop-cloths, which come cheaply by the dozen at Lowe's, I taped up a dust barrier from floor to ceiling.

This is the new room, ready for sanding and texturing.  Prior to sealing it off from the rest of the house I brought most of the materials and tools up – because once it was sealed off, the only way in and out was the window and I didn't want to have to carry everything up a ladder. (Note the top of a ladder propped into the window from the outside.)

All access to the room was via this ladder.  It may seem like a hassle, but it's well worth it to prevent the dusty mess from floating all over the inside of the house.

Above and below:   The dust barrier.

When you make a flimsy barrier like this, it helps to close every window and door in the house to minimize air flow.

This view shows the two small closets in the Tea Room. Once everything was sealed, I donned a mask and began sanding.  I found that a pole sander worked well on the walls, but an electric sander was necessary where the new walls joined the old ceilings.  The metallic rounded corners next to each closet required sanding by hand.

 Texturing: This was the fun part. I used a large paint-mixer on the end of a drill to thin out a bucket of drywall compound into a texture that was the consistency of pancake batter. I just kept adding water until the consistency seemed right.  Then I poured the mixture into my Homax sprayer, connected it to an air compressor, and sprayed the hell out of all the walls.  It came out great.

"Orange peel splatter" texture effect.  It's actually smoother than it looks in this close-up photo, and will be even smoother once coated with latex paint. (The opening is a switchbox – all of the wires are covered with tape.  I'll just have to clean up the edges a little to be able to screw the switches into the box.)

As it stands now:  The room is ready for paint.  Once painted, I will put the electrical fixtures in and obtain my final inspection.  Then it's a race to Christmas:  I need to make this room habitable for my son, Chris, to sleep in over Christmas weekend.  We won't yet have carpet, but I have to get the door and window-shutters installed.

Dining room reassembled

In the two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving I managed to complete the downstairs part of the Tea Room project. The second photo shows how the house looked at the beginning of the year – with an open, 2-story ceiling above the dining room (behind the bridge).

The dining room is ready for Thanksgiving, although this turkey will be at work.  Oh well, at least Anne and Chris can enjoy it.

This is how it looked before.

I'm thrilled with how seamlessly the new ceiling blends with the existing bridge ceiling.

Prior to shining up the crystal and moving everything back into the room, these were the steps I took since my last blog post:

• I draped plastic sheeting around the dining room to keep dust from the rest of the house.
• Using various tools, I lightly sanded the ceiling and walls.  I bought a "pole sander," which worked well on the walls but was awkward to use on the ceiling.   Therefore, I switched to an electrical orbital sander for the difficult spots.
• I bought a Homax-brand texture sprayer, connected it to an air compressor, and sprayed texture liberally all over the ceiling and the upper reaches of the walls.
• I painted the room with Vista swiss-coffee-flat, switching to a semi-gloss for the baseboards.
• I lightly sanded the shutter and touched up the paint.
• Anne cleaned the saltillo tile floors and re-sealed them with high-gloss finish.

Next step: I hope to finish and texture the Tea Room walls on my Thanksgiving holiday (next Tuesday), then install the electrical outlets and get my final inspection later in the week.  After that, I will start on the baseboards, french doors, door trim, etc.

Closing in on the dining room

I am just about ready to sand, texture, and paint this dining room ceiling.   I've troweled layer upon layer upon layer of drywall compound across the ceiling surface to try to get it to blend with the existing ceiling under the bridge.    I'm pretty happy with the way it's evolving.

Below is a photo taken this morning, followed by a photo that shows the unfinished drywall.

The goal is to make this look like one seamless ceiling.  Below, the unfinished dryall abuts the existing ceiling under the bridge.  Actually, it no longer looks like a bridge, so I guess I'm on the right track.

With the dining room almost finished, I have begun taping and floating the walls inside the new Tea Room.  Below are two photos taken this morning.  It took me about 15 minutes to put the yellow mesh tape over all the joints, and then about 45 minutes to trowel the first layer of joint compound onto the wall.

Finishing the office wall

Since my last post, I have spent some time plastering walls.  Taping, floating and texturing sheetrock does not make for exciting visuals, but it does have the tendency to transform a room if it's done well.

The addition of the Tea Room affected the adjacent office wall and the downstairs dining room.  My goal has been to get those two side-projects done prior to finishing the Tea Room. 

This week, after multiple coatings of drywall compound and some light sanding, I put the final coat of paint on the office wall, which once had an interior opening that overlooked the dining room.  Below, a sequence of photos in reverse order:





The finished office wall, with its first piece of artwork – an oil of a Maltese street scene – 
painted by Anne's uncle, Ted Burke, about a half-century ago.

Below:  A reverse sequence that shows how it looked before.







As I neared completion of the office wall, I was finally inspired to tackle the dining-room ceiling, which is, by far, the hardest finishing job I face.

Below:  Some photos of taping and floating. 

When I cut away the upper part of the plantation shutters 6 months ago, I made no effort to get a clean, finished cut across the wood frame. The shutters ran upward into a vaulted ceiling – I just wanted to get them out of my way so that I could build the new upstairs Tea Room.

But last week, prior to taping and floating around the window, I used my circular saw to make a clean cut across the top of the frame.  I screwed a 1x3 board onto the wall to use as an edge-guide, put a diamond-tipped "Diablo" finishing blade onto the saw, and then dragged the saw horizontally across the top of the frame for a perfectly straight, smooth cut. 

Once the walls are finished, all I need to do around the window is touch up the paint on the shutters and re-hang them.

One of the trickiest parts will be blending the new ceiling (right) into the existing ceiling (left) – the underside of the original bridge.  I will need to trowel heavy amounts of drywall compound across the seam and feather it out widely.  

From years of experience, I have learned that it is much easier to apply repeated coats to achieve a smooth finish rather than trying to do a huge sanding job.

3rd inspection passed

On Tuesday, Sept. 6, the Lake Forest building inspector came out to make sure all the sheetrock was screwed on adequately.  He spent about two minutes at the house, then commented: "It looks like it will hold."  My next inspection will be the final one.  The city just wants to make sure I have installed tamper-proof electrical outlets and a carbon monoxide/smoke detector.

Below are views of the project as it stands. I am now ready to begin taping and floating all of the drywall.

The outside is finished!

I managed to finish a huge part of this project – the outside wall – just prior to Labor Day weekend.

I worked my way down the wall, covering the new stucco with Behr paint.  (Kudos to the paint guy at Foothill Ranch Home Depot – I brought him in an old stucco chip and he skillfully used his computer color analyzer to create a near-perfect match.)

Below are views of the finished wall and the original wall.

The new Tea Room window (upstairs-center), and new stucco from the roof down to the large plate-glass window.

Below:  The same wall at the beginning of this year.

The final coat of stucco

Monday, Aug. 22: I troweled and sponged the color coat of LaHabra stucco onto the wall, feathering it out widely to blend into the existing surface. As some of the thinner parts quickly dried, I could see that although the color is close, a coating of paint will be in order.  A good coating of quality latex paint will also help make it more water-resistant.

The darker areas consist of a thicker application of the color-coat. It all eventually cured to the lighter color seen around the edges, but the surrounding paint is darker.

I will paint the upper areas prior to removing the scaffold, then get the lower parts using ladders.

Sunday, Aug. 28: I painted the upper portion of the wall and removed more of the scaffolding. I was careful to caulk the holes in the rafter-tails where the scaffold and hoist pulley were attached. On Monday, Aug. 29, I painted under the window and then tore the entire scaffold down and tossed it into the garage (below).

Tuesday morning: I removed extraneous nails, screws and staples from the scaffold lumber, then carefully restacked it against the wall (below).   I will use the same wood to build forms for concrete planter boxes in the backyard once my interior project is done. . . .

 

. . . Meanwhile, we can at least get one car into the garage.