Some Trim Cuts I CAN do successfully!

In my last post I neglected to mention or display the trim cuts I can do successfully. Here is the new bump out before I started trimming it:


The baseboard was left over from when I did the upstairs 3 years ago, I had stashed two pieces away in the office closet. Here is the exterior miter:


The piece behind the room door to the right fit nicely, however on the closet door side, There was only 1/2 an inch between the wall and the backband, so I had to mark a line, saw down 1/4 of an inch, then chisel out so the baseboard would fit snugly to the wall:


And here it is in place:


The base shoe was saved from when we had to work on the dining room wall.


I hit the edge of the baseboard miter with a little stain and it looks great.

Coping With My Inability to Cope...

... as in "cope cuts." I am very bad at using a coping saw. I was able to do passable copes when I had to cut new baseboards for the upstairs, but when it comes to coping the picture railing, forget it.

You may ask "How did you manage to successfully trim four rooms upstairs with picture rail if you can't cope?" The answer of course, is that I used salvaged rail and made sure to take advantage of the copes that were already cut by people FAR more skilled than I am. It became a challenge in itself to figure out how to take advantage of the copes already cut!

Which leads to trimming the new bump out in the office/spare bedroom. Way back in the 1950's a temporary closet had been built into that space. We ripped it out and put in our chase for the HVAC and electrical to go upstairs. However the picture rail in the corner had already been cut and removed long ago. I had barely enough salvage left to do this last little job, but it meant having to do a cope cut myself, so here it is:


The top fit pretty well, but the bottom has some real issues. You can see that when I put it up into place:


In my defense it doesn't look that bad when you're standing in the room, and that corner is very out of the way. If I slather enough wood filler up there, it will be invisible.

What you may also notice from that last picture is that the original rail was cut short of where the new bump out starts so I was forced to GLUE a tiny block of wood in place to fill that gap. Once I put a little touch up paint over the glue that bubbled out, it too should be invisible. (I hope!)

It's a DIFFERENT Shade, Really!

So I've been working on the room that will be Lisa's office space and a guest bedroom. This room was originally Helen's bedroom. When she and her husband returned to Foxcroft in the mid 1950's it became their bedroom. I'm guessing the room was last painted about that time. We have already painted the ceiling (after stripping off the wallpaper on it) and stained and varnished the floors. Here are a few shots from painting.

Primer covering the 50 year old paint job, you can also see the cracks I filled in:


When I pulled the radiators 4 years ago we discovered the original rose color for the room, that was mentioned in the plan book Bess gave the builders. The room seems to have been painted a grand total of two times before our current project:


Here's the new paint, which looks a LOT like the old, except maybe not quite as "minty." The color is "Sweet Sage."


And some more:


To remove the ceiling paper I had removed the picture rail. We cleaned, stained and varnished it. With the painting done I could put it back up.


And here is the railing back where it belongs.

Lather, Rinse, REPEAT

We have been working on an interior project lately. The office/guest bedroom/junkroom/dog's room is finally getting some attention.

This room was Helen's when the house was built. Here is an original photo:


Here's the same corner last winter:


We stripped off the old varnish using the same procedure we have before. I've written about it:
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HERE
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And of course who could forget this gem, from the days before "blog" was even a word! Here is a web page I created when we still lived at our old place!
HERE

You get the idea...
Anyway, here is that same corner again, with the floor buffer:


Here are the old radiator holes before I patched them:


Lisa staining:


And varnishing:


Now I'll get to start painting, once Lisa decides on a color.

More to come!