November 3rd, 2009
The storm windows are completed. I scraped and painted them then gave them a topcoat of a product that has worked really well with my outdoors projects. I used it on my bird feeders and bird house and they were outside for 3 years in summer humidity and winter freezing rain and snow and they look the same as when I put them out (except where the squirrel chewed it.) The windows just need to be put up and then I’ll weather strip them in place for the winter. They came out a bit shiny (really shiny) but I think they will look fine outside. If not, I’ll take some 0000 steel wool and knock some of the shine off.
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More photos below.
I feel lucky to have a work place set up in my basement where I can be out of the cold and watch TV.
I set my chairs up on my lowest work table and removed, cleaned and glued the rungs and set them in clamps overnight.
The two (out of 7) dining room chairs that I’m refinishing are now stripped down really good. It was a very big job. Every time you turn it over you see another side or cranny that didn’t get completed. I started on these chairs many years ago and gave up. They were my second ever refinishing job and I didn’t know what I was doing back then. Not that I’m an expert now but all those gouges and scratches from the metal scraper wouldn’t happen today. I couldn’t get all the old finish off back then. I still had a hard time using one of the strongest strippers out there. I think the finish that wouldn’t come off was actually a tinted wood filler that they left on like a skim coat back in the craftsman era to get it that mission color. Sanding didn’t work because of all the rungs and crannies on the chair and the sander just didn’t fit into the spaces. I tried hand sanding it but that was going really slow so I took out the stripper.
Even with my heavy-duty gloves and glasses I managed to get chemical burns from it. Don’t scratch your nose. That stuff burns instantly when it touches your skin. My best result came with using the stripper and then carefully taking a curved card scraper to remove it. I use an old planter and a brush to apply it, no matter what you use, stripping is a messy, awful job.
Two days work and I got the two chairs stripped really well. I will still have to clean the residue from the stripper off and then lightly sand any marks or raised grain. Then the fun part starts. I like adding the new finish.
The leather seats look awful right now and some some mildew on them from being stored in the basement for so many years. I’m hoping some leather restoring product will make them look good enough to use for now.
I want to keep the original 100-year old leather on these two chairs if possible.
Tags: antique, arts and crafts, card scraper, chairs, craftsman, outdoor finish, refinishing, storm windows, stripper
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November 1st, 2009
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October 28th, 2009
I have six 1910 oak arts and crafts-era chairs that I started to refinish way back in California about 11 years ago. I’ve carted them with me everywhere from move to move, from state to state. Of course they got damaged along the way. I never got all the old finish off of them so other than some gluing of some loose pieces it is just a matter of getting the joints back tight and stripping and sanding the rest of the finish off of all the parts. It will be lots of work, that’s why I never finished them. There are 5 chairs and a matching arm chair for the head of the table but I’m only doing the two for now. I had taken off the old leather seats and stored them. Two of the seats may be OK to use the rest have the leather torn. When I do refinish the rest of the chairs, I’ll have to buy new leather. I think I’ll have to start a saving account for that.
In the meantime, we have never eaten at the dining room table because we have no chairs. It’s been over 10 years here that we have eaten our meals sitting on the couch using the coffee table. It seems natural now. But too many times I’ve eaten my meal watching TV and didn’t remember eating it when I looked down at my empty plate. Now that’s a gyp.
My husband wants to eat at the dining-room table and wanted at least 2 of the chairs finished now before I start any more projects so he brought down two of chairs from the garage attic that had the least amount of fixing to do. It will probably feel funny at first eating at the dining room table with no TV in the room. I’m thinking we’ll enjoy our meals a lot more looking at the food instead of the TV.
Today I was able to wrestle the chair’s center bottom rungs out of their holes. I sanded them and removed the old glue from the holes and tenon. I glued them and clamped them in place. On these two chairs that is the only gluing job I’ll have to do. Tomorrow starts the sanding.
I normally use garnet shellac on most of my furniture but I’m going to try something different this time. I’m going to use wood dye and then use Waterlox and try to match it with the dining room table.
Tags: dining room chairs, refinishing, Waterlox
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October 23rd, 2009
I finished the weatherstripping project I started and woke up the next day with the reddest eye. It would make you turn away it is so horrifying, it looks like I was stabbed in the eyeball. I don’t need a costume for Halloween, I am the costume. I must have broken a blood vessel in my eye by straining to push the button on the can of foam insulation? Like that is really hard. Maybe it was carrying the ladder from the basement. How soft have I gotten in the past couple years that I break a blood vessel just doing a caulking project?
Some thoughts:
- I just remembered that you never seal the whole storm window. You need openings on the bottom. Moisture builds up between the inside windows and the storm windows and the condensation has to drain out or the wood will eventually rot on the bottom of the sill. You’ll see those holes at the bottom of the frame on the prefab storm windows/screens and they are there for this purpose. Keep them clear so water and moisture can escape. I have to go back and take a thin knife and open up a space along the bottom that I sealed. Seal the inside windows all the way around.
- I looked up what to do with my potted roses I bought this past summer. They are full-sized roses in barrel-like containers that I have set out in my garden. I was debating whether to leave them out or bring them in. I have never grown them in this climate before and being in pots their roots would be above ground level. I did a search to see what hardiness zone we are in using my zip code and the results were: we are in zone 6a. That would do damage to roses in pots left out. I decided we will haul them into the unheated, detached garage which will almost be as cold inside as it is outside but they will be out of the drying winds. We (actually my husband will be doing this) will carry them in after they have “hardened” for the winter. I found out that roses build up a thicker cell wall as the temperature gradually drops so you’ll want to leave them out to “harden” and bring them in before we get down to the below freezing temperatures. According to some forum responses on gardening being inside out of the wind will be all they’ll need (and a little water) if they have had a chance to adapt to the cold. I hope this works. If anyone has more information about what to do with potted roses, please let me know.
Tags: caulking storm windows, harden roses, potted roses, winterizing roses
Posted in garden and flowers, weatherstripping, windows | No Comments »
October 22nd, 2009
I decided to use a foam sealant instead of the caulking when weatherstripping our storm windows. I have worked with the polyurethane foam stuff that expands and stays on your hands for two weeks (Great Stuff.) It is so very messy and not for this use as it is permanent. I tried a latex foam product a few years ago on the storm windows on the sleeping porch I liked it very much. From season to season you can just take a scrubby or a razor blade (carefully) and remove it and reapply when you put them back in. It’s white and it’s like whipped cream and washes off your hands with soap and water when your done. It takes a bit of practice to make it look neat. Paper towels, a bucket of water and barely damp sponge works well for making it look neat. You won’t be able to open the window once done or you’ll wreck the seal. But if you have to open it, it is easy to scrape off the old and add new foam.
The down side is this product is the white “fluff” when you go to remove the windows in the spring. It will brush off with your hand and then you can get the remainder off with water and a scrubby. Have a vacuum handy or you’ll have white fluff like a trail down the hall through the living room and out to the garage. This product is Dap foam latex sealant. I went to Lowes and they didn’t carry it. The worker said they stopped carrying it a year or two ago. Why? Anyway, I went to Home Depot and they had it.
The other “stuff” I’ve used that works pretty well for temporary use for the winter around windows that you don’t use in the winter is the 1/4 inch rope pliable caulking you press around the window. Anyone can use this stuff. You just unpeal a strand of the rope caulk and line it up with the edge of the window and press in down. We don’t use the window in our 1/2 bath and the thin rope is pressed around the whole window for a few years now. You can just peel it off when you want. It looks nice and neat when done properly and it was inexpensive to do, under $10 for 90 feet. I’ve seen it in gray and in brown.
I worked on the patio door with the Dap latex foam sealant yesterday and today I’m going to paint a little around the door’s trim that needs touchup. I’ll also work on the storm windows (squirting in the foam sealant) on our front porch. I think they may need a little touch up of black paint, too. The basement windows look pretty well sealed up still. Hopefully I’ll get a lot done today because the forecast is for rain and colder temps the next several days.
Tags: Dap foam sealant, rope caulking, storm windows, weatherstripping
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October 16th, 2009
First let me say I haven’t painted another storm window since I posted last. We took advantage of the season to go fishing and geocaching before the winter sets in. I better get to the storm windows, it snowed last night.
Secondly, I took another look at the items I brought back with me on our road trip to California as they haven’t moved from the spot I put them in when we unloaded the car. I got the ugly stuff no one else in my family wanted (ha, ha.) However, ugly is in the eye of the beholder.
I looked the print over and brought it upstairs to the computer and started Googling hummingbird prints and found several that were close to mine, but not the same as mine. Those were sketched by John Gould and lithographed in the 1800s and then hand colored afterward. I knew mine wasn’t the original lithograph, that isn’t my kind of luck. But….it is a 1946 (just a date guess by others in forums etc) print of the lithograph and it really does look hand painted. The problem with the print and why no one in my family wanted it was it was in a bamboo frame, with a little string to hang it up. Looked really, really cheap, and the glass was very dirty from being in the attic from at least since 1963 when our family, fresh from Minnesota, moved into the California house. It had no sentimental value, either, because it wasn’t really something handed down from the family.
I pulled the nails from the backing to release the print and matting. Oops! The matting was glued in a couple of spots to the lower side of the print. Rats! Well, nothing I can do about it. I admired the print, the color looked so much like watercolors. It had to be hand painted over the black and white print, I thought. I took out the magnifying glass and looked through the little circle that really magnifies and I could see along the edges of the color that it was a print but not like the prints of today, there weren’t the circle dots. It is really a great reproduction of the original!
On the bottom of the print it says
J. Gould and H.C Richter, del et lith Thalurania Refulgens, Gould. Hullmandel & Walton, 1mp (or Imp or Imq)
Up in the painting there is also IBFCo which I understand means IB Fisher Company of NY to distinguish itself from the originals. It is the name of the print company. The paper it is printed on is 10″ x 11.” It was too wide for my flatbed scanner and the scanner cropped the image but you can see the original outline of the matting was.
I now had a name to Google and I found a few photos posted of the this print. Some call it Refulgens Wood-nymphs but I’m not sure that is the same one. It may not be worth much but it looks very pretty and I love hummingbirds and best of all it was free and I’m thrilled to have it. A new frame will do wonders. Below is my print. The scan doesn’t show the soft blushing on some of the petals. Isn’t it pretty?
Tags: h c richter, Hullmandel & Walton imp, hummingbirds, j gould, John Gould, lithograph, print, Thalurania Refulgens
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October 10th, 2009
How I hate this time of year. Yes, the leaves are gorgeous but I hate putting everything away that we set out in the spring. In the spring it was fun taking everything down because there was a whole summer to look forward to.
Today I unpotted all the plants in the hanging baskets and washed them off. I grabbed the bird feeders to wash and put up for the winter. We’ll feed suet for the winter. The hoses and automatic watering system has to be taken apart and stored inside. The fountain, chairs, tables, BBQ and on and on has to be cleaned and put away. I have to move all my potted plants someplace that won’t freeze. That’s the one really big difference about living in a cold climate. In California, I left most everything out for the winter because you’d still get very nice days to BBQ and sit out on the deck and enjoy. I like potted plants and I could leave my potted rose bushes and some other plants out and they’d be fine.
I notice some of my neighbors seem to thrive this time of year…everything is put away on a certain date, like clockwork each season, and they seem happy while doing it. I just can’t get into it.
My husband brought down the storm windows to put up on our sleeping porch today. We saw the paint was peeling which gave me a sick feeling. We moved them to the basement where I’ll have to scrape them down and paint them quickly before winter. The winter snow and ice would ruin the wood if I left them as is. The weather-stripping on some doors and windows and fixing some caulking that is failing has to wait a week. I was able to find time to get one scraped, sanded and painted today. Five more to go. With all the rain we are getting I feel lucky to have a workplace in the basement to paint things like that.
The one advantage to the coming winter is we stay home a lot more. It’s the time of year I pick a couple major projects to work on. I’d also like to get a stain-glass window made for my son that I promised him a couple of years ago. Maybe it will happen this winter.
Posted in garden and flowers, painting, stained glass, windows | No Comments »
October 5th, 2009
We just returned from a 2-week cross-country trip to California from Pennsylvania. There is so much catching up to do, here and in my house. I really thought I’d have the opportunity on our vacation to get photos of the old houses from the different states we went through but the reality is that I-80 is not the best way to see houses. We did stop at many rest stops along the way to get geocaches so I’d have some logged from each state we passed through. I managed to get a couple of photos from the Lake Tahoe area that impressed me which I’ll post at the bottom of this post.
So here are some random thoughts I had during the 2-weeks we were gone.
*With all the media attention and health departments around the world warning about the H1N1 virus and telling us how important it is to wash our hands etc, I was surprised that all of the rest stops in Nevada that we stopped at (the place I’d think would need it most, yuck!) did not have soap in the rest rooms. I guess the health department in that state thinks water will do the job. We bought some hand sanitizer that we used after each visit to restaurants and rest stops. California also had some rest stops without soap. But at least most of California’s stops had seat protectors. Iowa, by far, had the best, cleanest, most beautiful rest stops. I give them a super AAAA++++ I called the flu hotline and found out the incubation period for the flu is about 4 days. We’ve been home that amount of time so I guess we didn’t get the flu while on vacation because we still feel fine.
*Leaving for vacation without having fixed the dryer left me thinking several times, while looking at the gorgeous views in front of us, that on our return home I’d have lots of laundry to do without having a working dryer. We got home and sure enough there was a mountain of clothes that needed washing and drying. I washed them and then hung up ropes in the basement (it is cold and rainy outside.) I was surprised at all the hooks in the basement beams. I seem to recall I had to take down yards and yards of ropes hanging from these hooks when we moved in. I suspect someone else before us had a dryer problem. When they get almost dry I’ll throw them in the dryer on the fluff cycle since the heat cycle won’t work. Cats are afraid of the sight of things hanging all around which wouldn’t be important except for they need to go to the basement for their litter box. Anyway, right now it is kind of fun hanging clothes on plastic hangers all throughout the unfinished basement both on hooks and draping them over the ropes I put up. I’m sure the fun won’t last. We are still debating whether to fix the dinosaur or buy a new one.
*Many towns listed on the maps through Nevada are now ghost towns. The towns are boarded up, including the brothels (not that we cared.) They need to be unlisted. Signs need to be changed on those long, desolate roads leading to the freeways. There are signs saying “next gas 60 miles” when the town doesn’t exist anymore when you get there and it is in the middle of no-man’s land. We had a big tank but I’m feeling for those on fumes.
*One reason we drove 2500 miles each way (other than we just hate flying and being treated like cattle and because they charge for luggage) is there were “treasures” I had wanted to bring back from the house I grew up in (it’s located on what used to be the Argonaut Gold Mine.) My brother and his wife leveled the old place to build a beautiful new one. They saved some of the old things from the house but didn’t want them themselves. After my other siblings went through everything, there were some things left for me (that no one else wanted.) I’m not complaining, just stating a fact. Framed pictures, light fixtures, and 1800’s vanity mirror frame with mud wasps nest on it (who wouldn’t want that?) But I did want that, it’s the best thing I brought back and the light fixtures are pretty cool, too. I don’t get why the others didn’t want them. I’m the second oldest of 5 kids and my other siblings didn’t want a huge box full of photos of people they didn’t remember or know, but surely these people are relatives. Since I’m one of the oldest, I may remember who these people are so I took the box to go through it and label everything I can. My father (now 93) just wanted to toss it! But when will I’ll have the time to do it, I’m suppose to be working on my house! We drove back home packed like sardines.
Below are the photos of the Lake Tahoe house that had such a neat-looking door. If I had a house in that style I would build one that looks just like that. The other photo is of a wooden yard sculpture in the same area that is the best one I’ve ever seen. Lake Tahoe is such a wonderful place.
Tags: travel
Posted in antique, basement | 1 Comment »
September 17th, 2009
I have become an avid geocacher. Almost every weekend the weather is decent, my husband and I grab our GPS unit and head outside looking for “treasure.” It’s not really treasure as in things that are monetarily valuable but treasure just the same.
We have come across blueberry farms, llama ranches, historic trails leading to historic buildings. We travel back roads that we would never have found otherwise by following the arrow on our GPS to the hidden cache. We see houses tucked back into the woods that are from the eighteenth century and also beautiful modern wonders. Spotting these houses gives me just as big a thrill as finding the cache.
Sometimes we will pass a gorgeous Victorian house with a “For Sale” sign on it while driving to the geocaches coordinates. “That’s it! That’s the one I want one day,” I’ll tell my husband. After finding the geocache we will often backtrack out of our way to take a second look. I love looking. I love imagining living in (what I consider) a “mansion” from the 1800s. We’ll look it up on the real estate listings when we get home. It’s fun, it’s free to look. Usually the houses are way too far to commute everyday for work so it would be out-of-the-question no matter what the price was. But it is still fun to dream.
That happened last weekend while we were geocaching in the Titusville, Oil Creek region. There was an 1800 farmhouse on a single lane road out in the boonies on 88 gorgeous wooded acres. Perfect! When we got home I looked it up on the internet and enlarged the photos. Hmm. Will need a new roof and it needs a lot of attention around the windows. The acreage was beautiful, though, and so near our favorite fishing area.
Then there was the one on Main St. in Titusville that is an 1865 beauty. One real estate site had it listed for $139,000.
http://www.oilregionhomes.com/402_West_Main_Street.htm
Another for $98,000,000. That’s right, 98 million dollars. http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/402-Main-St_Titusville_PA_16354_1089245539
Yep, too many zeros I’d suspect. Won’t get a lot of inquiries with that figure. Somehow the figure didn’t look all that big at first glance. We have been getting used to seeing trillions in print that millions seems small. (Since posting this link, the figure has been corrected by the real-estate people.)
Tags: geocaching, titusville oil creek, victorian
Posted in Erie's History | 1 Comment »
September 10th, 2009
I spent so much time trying to find my “Wave” petunias back in the spring. They had to be the trailing kind for baskets and I wanted the blue/purple varieties because they have more fragrance. I went to many, many nurseries until I found the right ones. You can read about it Here.
After all that work, my petunias started dying off. I read in an Erie Times News article on August 22 about the tomato blight that has hit the nightshade family of plants in the northeast. Our cool, wet weather is part of the problem this summer. Fungi likes this kind of weather. Petunias, I found out, are in the nightshade family, like tomatoes and potatoes. I always thought the petunia stems and leaves looked a lot like tomato plants with the fuzz and all.
Last year I had the same thing happen. I thought maybe it was spider mites or some very small bug that got them. This year I used all new potting soil and put a lot of effort into planting the baskets to hang from my front porch. Six in the front and more on the back deck. I bought new basket liners, too. However, when I went to plant them, the old ones still looked good so I kept and used them. Big mistake. Get new ones every year. It saves in the long run.
I planted 6 plants in each basket. They were going good for a few weeks and then, within a few days, I started noticing some substantial dying-off of the leaves. My heart sunk because I then remembered it happened last year, too. I had some Immunox stored on a shelf in my basement and sprayed them. I followed up in another week with another application. It was too late, but it kind of saved a couple of the plants but still, they looked bad. I took them down and will dispose of them, the soil and the basket liners. I’ll bleach the baskets and let them sit out in the sun.
Below are what all my petunia baskets look like except the ones on the sides of my porch.
When researching this problem, one person on a message-board thread gave advise to someone with a similar problem. Don’t keep using petunias if your area is subject to blight. You also won’t have to use all that insecticide and fungicide if you get plants that do well in your area. That is good advice if the area is going to be shaded (like my porch.) All the effort and expense of planting something that doesn’t thrive is silly. Next year, I’ll plant some other flower that does well in baskets, in our climate or settle for a different variety of petunia. The two side baskets that are really big and had new liners didn’t have as big a problem. They get more air and sun than the baskets in the front side of the porch. They also are of a different variety. Below is a photo of the side basket. The side baskets started to die off on the porch sides but the outside of the baskets is doing really good.
Tags: blight, diseases, fungi, fungus, nightshade, petunia, tomato, Wave petunas
Posted in front porch, garden and flowers | 2 Comments »
