Home Improvement Projects
 

Since we no longer have LJs Office with it's attendant wood project thread, I started this one.

First off, I now have a load of furniture to refinish. Chest-of-drawers, highboy, two night tables, a buffet table and a kitchen table and chairs (veneer, I doubt I can do much with those). The bedroom CoD and night tables all have real marble tops.

Stripper (no jokes, please) seems to take off the finish and the underlying coat of (paint/primer/undercoating) with no trouble. I will try to scrape out the scrollwork with a plastic scraper but may have a little trouble there. The buffet table has a broken/missing leg that will have to be replaced. I will try to duplicate the other one on a bandsaw and a sander but may have to fabricate all new legs. Hardware is mostly good, but one drawer handle looks cracked...maybe I can solder it back together.

Pictures will happen when I can borrow a camera and get back to the house. Figure on the second weekend in January. I have to go there anyway, might as well make a long weekend out of it.

Brian

Ooh. I love this thread. :joylove:

My house is nothing but one big home improvement project. The BIG big project happening right now is the disassembly of the above-ground pool and surrounding deck. Been in progress for a little over 3 months now. I'll take a current picture tomorrow, and post the in-progress series (working title, "How My Backyard Turned Into a Deadly Construction Zone.")

The other four projects currently in progress are: re-hang the cabinet doors in the laundry room once I finish painting them; apply texture to the walls of both bathrooms to cover up our crappy drywall seams, then repaint them; finish caulking the playroom (a roughly enclosed porch) so the damn spiders will stop coming in droves; and replace the sliding glass back door with a French door.

Just for my vanity, a link to the old thread... http://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/smile.gif

You lie, that's not a vanity. That's a (beautiful) bookcase. :p

Brian, why? Is this furniture particularly near and dear or antique or unique?
Refinishing is like major work if there is much detail. Usable furniture is cheap and plentiful, often free.
I mean trying to solder a piece of hardware you can buy for 39 cents doesn't make sense unless it's a rare or unique piece. The cost of stripper, sandpaper, steel wool, brushes, thinner, stains & finishes can add up fast. :confused:

Bruce: The pieces need the work...the finish is chipped, yellowed and yucky. It's not near and dear or valuable. I will repair the handle because it's not generic and I cannot replace it without buying all new ones. It's not covered with many coats of paint, just the one varnish and some base coat or other. I want the furniture to match the decor and I like dark brown anyway. This stuff is a kind of yellow-white. I have the stain already, and enough stripper to do two pieces. I will get more when I get back to work on it in January.

Brian

Geez, aint that that the truth! I've got a 55-year old house, and some of the interior has been painted so many times that you can literally just peel the layers of paint off with your fingers. It had a major renovation before I bought it, but the list of stuff to do never ends... :yeldead:

I'm making and installing cherry plank flooring (10" 8" 6") in the breakfast nook/kitchen right now. Its fun but seriously buying flooring is prolly smarter.

My parents have a Civil War era stone house in West Virginia that has suffered a large number of hamhanded renovation attempts, including sawing a hole in the floor through which to pour a concrete floor in the basement. :rar:

My parents have recently had the roof replaced, and are now in the process of replacing the windows and sills, which have eroded a great deal over the decades. At some point the porch (not original) will need to be replaced.

I happen to know of a cute little civil war era stone house in PA that they could practice their skills on first... you know, practice makes perfect and I'd want their house to look its best and everything.[img]images/smilies/blush.gif[/img]

That's great! I'd make an inlaid patch of contrasting material so people would ask and I could tell them a great story. :biggrin:

Not if you saw the resulting basement floor. It had to be smashed up and removed. Previous owners also walled up the massive fireplaces, probably to prevent drafts. The chimneys are now home to a huge colony of swifts, which are fun to watch in the evening.

And they eat bugs. :yum:

For reference, here's the house. With the new roof, but the window directly over the door hasn't been replaced.

OH, shit. sorry. i wasn;t thinking about all that. maybe UT could momentarily un-archive that forum, and move the threads you guys still want to read.

i just don't have time for much more than trolling the turds. i'll try to stay on them, cuz i like to do it, and it needs to be done, but i haven;t much time for creating anything useful or uplifting.

party on, cellar.

Cool...9 over 6s......unusual. That's not the house you built the bookcase in so it must be the one for the revolution. :eyebrow:

3 stories from the back?