Renovating A French Door

I had the recent opportunity to renovate a French door. It is from my own home, one that my brother gave to me when he replaced it with something else at a house he owned for a while. It was a Craftsman Style home that is about 100 years old or older. The glass had been painted over at some point, probably to be used for a private room. I did pull out a couple of obstructive nails where curtains might've hung.



It took about two quarts of orange stripping gel. I removed about three different colors of paint, and it took a total of about twenty hours.

Bi-fold Doors

I was asked if I could create a set of bi-fold doors to match the southwestern style cabinets that one of my clients had been installing in his residence. The furniture maker said that he couldn't do that for one reason or another. In order to make them rustic-looking the lumber chosen to do the work was less than FAS. It was 2" x 6" tongue and groove decking and 1x pine stock. I planned on using the groove as a pre-set  gauge for the raised panels, which I would shoulder rip out of 1" x 12". I just copied the existing press-board bi-folds.



The decking would require a little planing with a 12" planer that I borrowed from my brother. Drilling dowel holes into the stiles was a little tedious, not really set up for this, and the horizontal boring into the rails I had to improvise with a scrap of tongue and a 3/8" piece of pipe reamed out to 7/16". The formula was shared for the stain which was Minwax with 50% turpentine.

Gallery Space Expansion Ideas (continued)

This is what some of main lobby space of the Historic Federal Building looks like. The above depicts the entrance with its vestibule. These are taken from photos I took a couple of years ago around the winter holidays.



Above, a look west towards the elevator and north vestibule with a great source of natural north light coming in through the arched tops of the windows.



A sample of one of the post office box walls. There are about 2,500 of these. I had thought at one time that auctioning these off as curio items might fund some of the renovation. Behind them is a large sorting room with more high ceilings and giant heating and cooling ducts. At one time the space was considered very favorable for an upscale restaurant. I think the end reason it didn't happen was the problem of parking space.

These would be in reference to the previous entry here a while back,

http://ryecraftsman.blogspot.com/search/label/3-D

which was made last year on Wednesday, December 23, 2009.