July 22^nd, 2003

Well, I got the sideboard. It was delivered a few days ago. After I got it in the house I was having a bit of “buyer’s remorse”. It’s nice but I really wasn’t planning on buying anything like this for several years. I’m going to have to work around it. Also, I’ve noticed little “quality issues” with it that I didn’t notice before. Now, though, I’ve had it for a few days and I do like it. Also, it’s nice to have the tubs out of the way.

This weekend I started the second to the last phase of restoring the exterior ornamental wood work. As I’ve told you before, when they put up the asbestos siding they made a lot of changes to the windows. They removed a small crown molding detail under the window sill and they chopped off the ends of the window sills. Over the last two months I put back on the ends of the sills. Luckily I found a small section of the crown molding that was original to the sills. I was able to have about 200 feet of it reproduced at a local mill. Last weekend I started putting it up.

The work itself is not really hard but it is some of the most challenging. If you picture crown molding in an interior room you can see how it goes up on the walls at an angle. Were two pieces meet at a corner you have to make a very precise cut that consists of both a bevel and a miter cut. This is what is known as a “Compound Miter” cut. Once you get the bevel and miter angles down it goes ok. I spent all weekend making sample cuts on rough stock wood before I got the correct angles. Today (Monday) I put the molding on the first window, and it looks pretty good. Now only 26 more to do.

The last phase of the exterior restoration will be the gable decorations. I chose the design of the gable decorations based on the evidence of what used to be there and by looking at what is on other houses with similar architectural features to my own house. Now it is just a matter of getting the materials, building it, and then figuring how I’m going to get it all the up on the attic gables. Of course, I still need to remove the two story addition and give the house a new paint job. Minor details.

Since working on the window sills is outdoor work I hope to start an indoor job this week. It is a very exciting project and will make or brake the front entry. When you walk in the front door the stairs are to the left and the front parlor is to the right. The wall that separates the front parlor and the front entry is 1 foot thick. Very thick for en interior wall. I’m hoping that there are pocket doors in the wall. Pocket doors were almost certainly there when the house was first built. The question is: Are they still there, hidden in the wall. From what I’ve been told, and seen at other peoples houses, it was common to just close up the wall and leave the doors in their cavity when remodel work was done. I’m hoping that is the case here.