5 FOOT BEADED WAINSCOTING

     As soon as the floor had been tiled we were able to install the beaded wainscoting in the master bathroom.   It is a tongue and groove board we installed at 5 feet all around the bathroom.

A small board is attached to the wall at a level 5 foot height all around the room.

Individual boards are cut to size and have adhesive applied to the back

Using the nail gun, Michael attaches each board.

Michael fits the last 2 boards in the corner

A bullnose trim piece is attached to the top and the corner is complete

Opposite wall with cutouts around outlets and cabinet

Upon completion, I was offered an assistant carpenter job by the contractor working on the addition.  Thanks but no thanks.  My Hawthorne house is a labor of love.

EVEN THE BEST LAID PLANS....

    This past weekend had been designated to 'build the balustrade'.  I made a special trip Friday to get  the lumber we required (2 trips actually because my car could not handle the full load in one trip).  As it turned out, the  building of the balustrade was postponed so that we could take full advantage of the hydraulic lift that is scheduled to be returned today.

    A week ago we spent removing the modern bead board and the buckling old bead board from approximately 35% of the porch ceiling.  Doing so unveiled an extremely poor support structure installed by the previous owner.  Before we could install the new bead board (milled to match the original) a new support had to be built.

Removing modern boards

Removing trim supporting buckling old boards

We discover the ceiling needs proper support

Building the supports

The lift comes in very handy

Having completed that and having taken delivery of the reproduction bead boards, we could spend this past weekend installing the ceiling.

Man with nail gun and lift.....enough said

Notching the wood to fit snuggly

Patching with new wood

How beautiful!

A HANDRAIL IN THE MAKING

    As we've come to find out, to no surprise, nothing original to this house is available in your local hardware store or even the specialty lumber mills in the area.  What this means is we find the closest product available (such as the crown molding in the roof repair which has the same basic profile but is slightly less thick),

Missing crown from roof

Newly primed close match to original crown

 change to an entirely different product (such as deck railing pickets since the deck is a new feature),

New deck, new pickets

beg, borrow or 'steal' from areas of this house or another local house (thank you Garland house),

Old floorboards from our kitchen and Garland Street house sistered in to the  back room

 pay an arm and a leg to have a product duplicated (the stair spindles are so unique),

60 duplicated spindles .....  Ka-ching!

OR

we make it ourselves (because, I've been told so many times and I am now beginning to believe it,  "Carlie, there's nothing we can't do." - DLS).

    So, make it we did.  We purchased an outdoor handrail that was close in size to the existing original rail at the top of the back stairs. 

Original handrail atop the bead board (2nd floor)

We milled the rail to be close to the original.

Purchased fir rail with a portion of the right side bead cut off

Using the table saw to remove the bead on each side of the rail

The router will give us a curved side

Clamping the rail before routing

After installing the rail it was time to sand the peak off the top side of the rail (originally milled to be an exterior rail it required a peak to shed water).

A palm sander comes in handy for this task (Thanks Lucius for such an awesome gift years ago)

*We are far from finished.  Check the following posts for the magic of Bondo and the completed wall.

  

BEAD BOARD STAIR WALL INSTALL

    A year ago when we bought this house there was a bead board wall with a door enclosing the back stairway.

  

The bead board itself is pretty unique, albeit damaged.  I have searched all over town for a double bead board of this thickness and width, to no avail.

The stairs had had some of the support timber cut to fit a washer and dryer beneath the stairs.  This alteration lead to unsafe stairs.   See how the stair treads are lower on the right hand side?

    The wall has been down now for some time and, don't you know, we saved the bead board to be re-installed.  It is time to do just that.  Since we are re-configuring the wall to rail height in order to open up the space a bit, it has taken a bit of puzzling as to how that can be done.

    Donnie has properly supported the stairs and recently finished repairing the cracked and damaged treads (see my previous promo for Gorilla Glue).  It is time to build the wall.

Here's what I did one morning last week....

The old railing is off the new drywall by about a half inch at the top of the stairs.  

I removed the handrail to access the first section of bead board

A putty knife works to get through layers of paint and separate the section of board.

Nails hold the board to the top step

My saw makes quick work of the nails.

The board is removed and saved to replicate the angle.

I cut a board to be a nailing flange for the longer and wider piece of bead board.

There's more to come.  We just about completed the wall install yesterday.....Check back!

DONNIE PICKED UP WHERE I LEFT OFF

The other day I ended here.

The next day, when I arrived at the house, Donnie had continued the project.

 Remember I said I would reveal Wallace's favorite adhesive/filler...bondo is it.  

The half inch gap between the hand rail and the new drywall is filled with Bondo .  Hardened, it becomes part of the wood and when sanded it can be molded to any shape.

Once painted it will look like one continuous handrail 

A BENCH IN PROGRESS

The framing for the bench seat covering the duct work in my studio

Seat as seen from the doorway

The front of the bench has 3 compartments for storage

Essential tools

A crude jig to create uniform lengths of bead board

Each board  is cut into 17 1/4 inch lengths  to face the bench

Painted bead board, salvaged from the side porch ceiling

Leveling the first board 

Two wires come out the front for electrical sockets

I'm lovin' the look of the authentically aged boards