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.

Refrigerator Solutions ~ Kitchen Cabinetry

Here are two views of a preliminary sketch which shrouds a large refrigerator with a broom closet and upper cabinets. There are no off-the-shelf broom closets larger than 24 inches deep, so this will have to be custom made. This carries the line straight across the front of the refrigerator, making the broom closet and upper above that 28 1/4 inches deep.

Timber Frame Studio - Additional Features

I've added a shelter from the elements over the entry in a balcony deck, a wood stove, and a sink for washing brushes or hands. This drawing also illustrates the north-facing bank of fixed safety windows.

Backyard Studio Plans

I am working on a design for a backyard studio. The footprint would be approximately 17' x 27', and be 24' in height done in timber-frame style. The roof would be a steep sort of barn-style gambrel, and allow for a second story office or small sleeping loft under a single dormer. It would also be open below in the middle with a guardrail running the length of it down the middle.









I am looking for feedback on this if anyone has any to offer.

Renovation Work On An Old, Large, Storefront Door

The storefront loft where I've been working Mondays. This door is about seven-and-a-half feet tall, four wide, and two-and-three-quarter inches thick.



It needed adjustment at the doorstop to seal better after the window replacement guys made a good effort. The green stuff is Duraglas. It's like Spackle plus, or wood filler on steroids. I ran a belt-sander on the high spots first.



My client is switching out all the black metal to brass. I had to heat up the paint with a heat gun to unscrew the decorative brace. I guess he has it sandblasted and plated somewhere from here.



I also installed a commercial door closer, and patched a hole - also with Duraglas - that was left when I took out the extra deadbolt he had at the bottom. That was made obsolete by the metal security door a while back.

A Plea To Blog Viewers

Hire me!

Hire me for something. I'm single and unattached. I have some cats, but my neighbor has fed them for a week at a time when I tried to see if I could commute once a week to Amarillo looking into a job as a mold-maker. Make me an offer. I'm used to $20.00/hour, which as a contractor with vehicle overhead is just scraping by after 70 miles per day on a part-time basis.

Look over my resume. I'd be willing to travel if it meant a career change with a steady role and respectable salary.

Picture Mould Adaptation

     I've been asked to try and make a picture mould adaptation that might accommodate the architectural details of the Historic Federal Building's main floor lobby, which also serves as The Fifth Street Gallery. It will allow artists to hang larger canvases without damaging the wall surface. And so I've taken a survey of what's there and tried to see if there were any stock millwork in Pueblo at the various yards and home improvement stores. Since they were originally installed in 1897 it is doubtful I will find a match.

 

I imagined that I could saw or plane off the bottom cove piece, but strict adherence to the design was lifted. I will be putting up a three inch crown below the venting, approximately eleven feet high that will butt end the walls and  two columns. I will begin by installing a flat board onto the wall that leaves about two inches of wood exposed, then the crown, followed by a cap that imitated the cornice below.

[Added March 20, 2010, pictures of it in application:]

Painting Over the Stairwell - 2010

The second to last move. Where once it was thought that a special stagger piece could be used - incorporated with the larger S-Style Scaffolding - an additional section of Baker Scaffolding was used instead, and "marched" down the stairway with angle braces clamped onto the decorative iron to stiffen it.





An improvised method of catching as much debris or fresh plaster as possible.



Chipping out the plaster in areas where it was delaminating, then filling with Structo-lite plaster.



Floating over the Structolite filler with gypsum compound.



With the last gypsum float dry and primed.



Painted!

Chandeliers

In making modifications to the elevator lobby at the Historic Federal Building I was called upon to float gypsum over the ridges of paint left around the florescent fixtures that were taken out, patch holes in plaster, and touch up paint. A large chandelier was hung in the center of the lobby, which after assessment of the owner for it's color was changed from antiqued bronze to a bright gold. This I painted by hand with a small brush and Modern Masters metallic paint.



Before



After



There was a banquet scheduled for the evening when it was just getting the final touches.

Fifth Street Espresso Bar

I recently painted the coffee shop inside the Historic Federal Building in Pueblo, Colorado. With a new tenant it is back in business late in autumn. Here are some before, during, and after photographs of the process with notes:











Previously it had been painted orange. There was paper damage to the sheet rock where something had been pulled down. It had double-sided stick adhesive tabs that would not let go. So I floated that over with broad knife, setting mix and primed it. The result looked like some kind of confused Robert Motherwell painting. A dark red of the owner's choosing was put up as a sample. I also put up a sample that was a dark cherry for comparison and contrast.



I primed over all those when a dark metallic green was chosen out of Ralph Lauren's paint. (There is an accent of Modern Masters copper metallic done in a band above with random brush strokes.)



After the first coat.



Then I brushed the door and randomized the FRP panel that ran up to the chair rail.



To effect a sort of delineation I tried a trick with some Frog-tape at a line parallel to the bottom of the header above the bar at 7'6" high. The owner wanted the texture to be single brush strokes and I couldn't figure how else I would straighten it up, sophisticate it (or even accomplish that) for a wall that ran up nine more feet above the chair rail. I brushed up to that, over-lapping the tape. Then taped to the bottom edge after that dried. Then I removed the top tape, and brushed down overlapping the new tape with the help of two ladders and a plank at about five feet high.



I randomized the magazine rack, perhaps getting a little too strict with the linearity. Everything else was curviliniar. I think it breaks things up though.





After the owner, Todd Pasquin, put up decorative tapestries and the new tenants, Jacob and Cecilia moved in.

I took some additional photos of the Fifth Street Gallery that Starworth Properties leases out. It is my hope that I can assist in promoting it's increased use, and possibly expanding it in the future.



The additional treat of a baby grand piano at present.



A painting by one of the artists whom keeps a studio on the second floor, Robert Wands.



The marble-cased end wall to the old post office, and the entrance to John Wark's Giclee print shop. He leases the giant sorting room on the main floor in the "new" part of the building built during the 1930's, and turns a healthy business here reproducing all manner of two-dimensional artworks and photography.



The long look back through that same door. You can just make out the tall Christmas tree in the east part of the lobby. It's quite a wonderful space kept with loving care by the owner.