The never ending shed project....

So Today's "goal" was to get the gable ends complete with brackets, "bead board", and the eave trim installed, heck, maybe even get the tar paper on the roof....

So it appears that this shed project is revealing the fact that my tools are cheap, old, and on their last leg - last weekend I had to replace the power cord on my chop saw, and this weekend my 11 year old portable table saw blade finally stopped cutting...speaks well of the 89 bucks I spent, but that blade did not come off without a fight, and an hour and a half.... Then the jigsaw starting acting up, but with a few choice words, I managed to get through what I needed, but its days are numbered....

In any case, I did get the front overhang done before I ran out of daylight, and I have a plan to get the back done, providing that yet another tool doesn't drop dead completely or need some sort of repair......

More shed progress...

Today I made more progress on the new shed - the fake overhangs are done on the sides and I have moved to the brackets on the front and back - With one of the original brackets from the house as my model, I made a scaled down version. I was surprised to learn that the original brackets are made of three different thickness of wood, so of course, I had to duplicate that element on a smaller scale.

I was able to get the ends installed when I ran out of daylight - I am going to put a third one at the peak, which will be different from the main house - the house has four brackets on each side, two on the ends and two on either side of the center vent - the shed is too small to do that, but I think it should look OK. I am going to build some lattice roof peak vents to finish off the front.

From the side installed - the vertical piece is a 1X4, the angled bracket is a 2X4, and the top is a custom milled 3X4...

Steve got in on the action, and installed the doorknob and lock, so we can secure it without leaning sheets of plywood and cinder blocks...We have a real lock now...

Shed project progress and Garden...

So today I stared work on the fun part of the shed project - that is to make it match the main house with the exposed rafter tails and beadboard overhangs and such, so it looks like it has always been here.

As I was building the fake rafter tails, I had to snicker because the original intent of the craftsman movement was to eliminate "fake" decoration and reveal the true construction details, and here I am making "fake" construction details...I am sure Gustav Stickley is rolling in his grave, but at least it LOOKS Real!

In other news, the front yard is looking amazing...the roses have gone insane and it looks like a postcard...the hard work is slowly paying its dividends...

Outdoor progress...

So over the past few weeks we have been building a storage shed in the backyard - A gift from my Dad. The original plan was to build it from scratch, but we stumbled across a perfect kit at Home Depot that was less than the cost of materials, and actually looks really good - It looked and was scaled like a 1920's garage. We spent the time with my dad getting the structure built, and then he and Steve emptied out a rented storage unit, which will save us quite a bit of money.

The next phase of the project is for me to add craftsman brackets and a wide overhang so it matches the house - The kit roof had no overhangs, so we extended the roof off the sides a foot and the front and back 14 inches. I will be making some fake rafter tails and we got some fake beadboard that I will attach under the overhangs so it matches the house. The brackets will be smaller versions on the one on the house, and I will also make new door trim to match. So much more to do!

I also had a little mishap this weekend with the sprinklers, again! I installed all of the sprinklers, but one of the ones in the lawn is set too high, and I have it adjusted as far down as it can go, but it still gets caught on the lawnmower and snaps off - This has now happened a few times and I always have a nightmare getting the broken nipple out of the pipe - So today I decided to google "sprinkler extractor" and low and behold, they make a tool called nipple extractor that is designed to grip and remove the broken stub, and is only $3.95.... Mind you up to this point it had taken me 45 minutes to an hour to get the broken piece out. I had given up yesterday afternoon so I will be picking a nipple extractor on the way home....

Blast from the past....

So last night when working on the window project, I had to move a stack of boxes from the service porch to access the sash cords from the dining room window. In the boxes, I found pictures from our first house, and a picture of the crystal fixture that now graces our front hall...Now you can see why I didn't realize it was crystal. Somebody had the bright idea to put the chandelier in the

kitchen, Now it would be considered chic, then, downright scary....I honestly thought it was cast iron, so I placed in a bucket of hot water, and out comes a brass and glass fixture...who knew???? So we went down to a vintage light fixture parts place and I replaced the missing parts and voila, the resurrected fixture!

So a few months ago, steve was inspired to replace the multitude broken sash cords in prepartion of summer - after 100 years, most had given up the ghost, but several were still intact. Well ,over the course of the summer weather, the remaining ones gave up the ghost, so I decided today to finish the job, and get a couple of windows that Steve had not had time to finish....
I am now convinced that this house was built by morons and "maintained" by idiots....

As a bit of a background, I have renovated a number of old houses, so I know what the inside of a sash pocket (where the weights live) look like, and what the weights are like.

In this house, no weight are remotely alike, and weren’t even the same size! They must have been in the discount bin in 1910….

So, I replaced the cords, and in the process discovered that the most of the window trim is rotted, and hacked from when they installed the new screens. I have known for awhile that no to windows in the house are the same size (they vary from ½ to an inch), but when they installed the aluminum screens, its clear they made the mistake of measuring one window… So, the screen installer took his reciprocating saw to the trim and hacked the trim so it would fit, and used a chisel for the rest..

The other discovery was the that when they built the house, they used scrap bits of sash cord as filler between the window trim and the siding – When you have clapboard siding, which is beveled, and you install a piece of flat trim on top, you have small triangular gaps between the siding and trim. In most other houses I worked on, they had wood filler pieces…here, they used cord. I am picturing some poor sot coiling bits or cord and stuffing them behind the trim….that must have been painful! When I repaint, I will probably apply liberal amounts of painters caulk…

So everything was going fine until I got to the big dining room window on the back of the house, this was tricky, because one of the houses craftsman brackets was “attached” to the top corner of the frame – at least in 1910 it was… In the years since the bracket had pulled away from the house, and had left a gap in the sash pocket, since the trim was cut around it – so the pocket was filled with pigeon poop, feathers, and stuff I really don’t want to know about… I retied the weights, and then set my sights on repairing the bracket so seal up the pocket – so I took my hammer, pounded the bracket back into position, and then watched the whole bracket crash into my rose bush…oops…. SO… I found a piece of scrap redwood, nailed it over the gap in the siding, dragged the bracket to backyard, and then poured a glass of whiskey… Isn’t the house supposed to look better after a day of repairs????? OIY?

Im not cheap, I am just recycling...

So, we have a get together planned for next weekend and want to use our Barbeque. Unfortunately, the backyard looks like a war zone and rock quarry rolled into one huge mess. so over that past couple of weekends we have been working on a patio made out of the cement slab from our tumbledown garage foundation that is ready to fall over - back in the days of yore, someone decided that it was a good ides to build a garage with a basement - put a wood floor over it and then a thick layer of cement over the wood - moisture + wood + 100 years = nightmare. Since we really need to tear down the thing, I thought why not reuse the cement broken into flagstone like sections and lay it out - at the same time, using the piles of dirt to level out the area at the base of the back steps. So we have been busy moving dirt and cement, and cutting up and throwing away the piles of tree limbs and other assorted piles of junk in 1/4 of the backyard nearest the house - Its actually looking half bad and there is a glimmer of hope -