One of Three

The first plaster medallion is up!

I wrote about it the other day. While the medallion is real plaster, it is a reproduction. I bought it several years ago at Ohmega Salvage in Berkeley. I recall that the guy who sold it to me said it was cast from a mold of an original, period medallion, but that could just be wishful remembering on my part. I’m not really sure if this is a new design or a period design. Either way I like it.



It has a fruit and vegetable motif, so it is a good fit for the dining room.



It came in 5 pieces and the idea is that once it is on the ceiling I will fill in the gaps with plaster and no one will be the wiser. So the first challenge was to get the center section up. There are 2 important issues here:

1) It can’t fall down once it is up.
2) Because it is square it must be aligned properly on the ceiling. The closest wall is less than 4-feet away and it would be noticeable if it was crooked in the room.

So after a few careful measurements I was able to put it on the ceiling. I whipped up a batch of runny plaster, which I would use as an adhesive. This is the way they did it back in the day. Back in the day, though, they had a fresh plaster ceiling and a fresh plaster medallion and some fresh plaster to stick the two together. My plaster ceiling is anything but fresh. I was going to need more.



The plaster would hold it in place, but was not a long term solution. The first thing was just to get it up there and make sure it is straight. I cut some half-inch wide strips of wood that were a little taller than the space between the scaffolding and the ceiling. This worked well to hold it up there while the plaster set. So I smeared fresh plaster on the back and stuck it on the ceiling. I held it with one hand while I maneuvered the sticks in to place.



Ultimately what is holding it in place is the original gas pipe that is still in the ceiling. In the diagram above, you can see the gas pipe running along the top of the ceiling joists. I screwed in a piece of pipe that would hang down a few inches from the ceiling. To that I attached a modern electrical box. I used the center knock-out of the box with a nut on both sides to hold it firm.

To this box a screwed on a modern 4-inch cross-bar. This is what a modern ceiling fixture would normally connect to. This is where the beauty of all of this comes in. Back in the 1890s when fixtures went from gas to electric, the original electric fixtures were little more than modified gas fixtures. This meant that all of the threads on the fittings used in electric fixtures were – and are – identical to gas pipe fittings. Even today you can mix and match like you want.

So I took another piece of gas pipe and screwed it in to the center hole of the 4-inch cross-bar on the box in the ceiling and fixed it with another nut. Now I could stick the medallion to the ceiling and the piece of pipe hung down a half-inch or so past the medallion. To this I mounted another, shallow electrical box with another 4-inch cross-bar. This is what the chandelier will be hung from.

So the chandelier is hanging from the original gas pipe and the ceiling and medallion are sandwiched in-between. Basically, the entire plaster ceiling could fail and fall to the floor during an earthquake, but the medallion and chandelier can withstand pretty much anything.

Island Adventure

I had the opportunity last night to spend The Forth on Indian Island. The island is roughly 240 acres of mostly uninhabited and undeveloped land in the middle of Humboldt Bay. A friend of mine owns one of 4 or 5 small lots on the island and held a Bar-B-Q out there to celebrate the birth of our nation. The island is really very beautiful.

Most of the islands sits barely above sea level and is little more than grass land. The small area with the houses is a densely wooded area of Wax Myrtle and what looks like some type of Bay tree. There are deer and a few people, but not much else. Even though The Samoa Bridge seems to stop on the island the only way to get to it is by boat because there are no roads.



The small red circle shows where we were on the island. The red box in the channel shows where the barge was set up for the fireworks display. I have never been closer to a fireworks display in my life. It was pretty spectacular. The green circle is Woodley Island and the green box is Eureka. The black box at the upper left is the Samoa Peninsula and beyond that, out of the picture, is the Pacific Ocean.





The island has a colorful and tragic past. The tragedy came in about 1870 when a group of about 70 Indians living on the island were massacred by the new locals from the main land. I guess that was the thing to do at the time. It is interesting how easy that sort of thing becomes once you dehumanize a group of people. Sadly, it still happens today all over the world.

At other times there were also 2 sawmills, a yacht club, some grand houses, and other activities. My friend who now owns the property gave me the long and very interesting story of the island, but the short version is that by the 1920s most of the fevered activity was over and the island settled into a long and relatively quite state for the next 80 years.

In about 1920 2 small house boats from San Francisco where beached on the island. Legend has it that house boats in SF were a popular retreat for the city-slickers but after the 1906 earthquake they became permanent housing for people who were left with nothing else. After a few decades – possibly around the time of the 1915 World’s Fair – the house boat community was asked to leave and two of them ended up on the part of the island that is now owned by my friend. He is in the process of restoring them.







It is all very interesting.

After dinner and before the fireworks a few of us took a long hike around the island. We followed the tree line on the north side. There are a lot of old remnants of old docks and other man-made devices that are slowly being reclaimed by the environment. The sky is dotted with Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Brown Pelicans, Sea Gulls, and a few other types of birds no one was sure of, and I actually saw one of the deer that live on the island. We stared at each other for a moment and then he bolted in to the woods.









There were these two square pools of nasty stagnant water with the remains of some sort of dock or fence in the middle. Gracie was bounding through the tall grass and found them unexpectedly when she suddenly disappeared off the horizon.





This is Gracie, wet and smelly seconds after extracting herself from the pool. We didn’t touch her much the rest of the night.

It was really a wonderful evening. There was cloud cover but the air was still and the clouds were high enough that they didn’t get in the way of the fireworks. We were minutes away from town but it felt like we were hours away. Oh, and as I said, the fireworks were spectacular at such close range. Unfortunately, my camera does not do them justice.

Skimmed

Yesterday I skim-coated the walls in the dining room and today I did the ceiling. It went well – I think {I hope}. It is kind of hard to tell. I painted on the Weld-Crete on Thursday and it is an odd shade of blue. After skim-coating, the blue color shows through a bit and gives the walls a very mottled look to them. It is very hard to see irregularities.





Normally, I would end up with a more uniform color to the walls and it is easy to spot and fix bad areas before the plaster sets. With these walls it was like plastering by Braille. I know there are a few areas that will need attention. The bay window was a tough area to skim-coat. Those little strips on either side of the window were especially difficult to get right. There is no question I will need to - GASP! – sand them down and go over them again.

The other problem area is where the plaster meets the wood. I had plastic covering the wood and it kept getting in the way of the trowel. There are areas where the plastic is stuck in the plaster a little bit. I also may need to go over a few areas where the walls meet the ceiling. I’m going to let the plaster set up and do all of this next weekend.

Tomorrow though, I get to install this charming little thing…



I bought this at Ohmega Salvage in The Bay Area about 4 years ago and it has been up in the attic ever since. It is real plaster, but it is a reproduction. The high relief areas on the 4 sides are of fruits and vegetables, so it seems fitting for the dining room. I figured since I have the scaffolding up and the plaster equipment out, I might as well install it.



It comes in 5 pieces and they get assembled on the ceiling and then the seams filled with plaster. I will be painting it a gloss white instead of an eye-popping color scheme. My research tells me that this was the more traditional way of finishing these medallions. When ever you look at old, period pictures, the medallions are always white unless they are installed in over-the-top Rococo Revival style interiors with other gilded or painted plaster work on the ceiling. This high style was usually reserved for large and impressive rooms in mansions.

I Wish I Were Taller

If I were ten feet tall it would be perfect. As it is, I come in at a relatively shrimpy six foot four. If I were ten feet tall I could plaster the ceiling without needing a ladder or scaffolding. When I did the kitchen several years back I used a ladder and it was very hard. Lots of up and down, not only to reload the trowel, but also just to work the plaster.

The ladder in question is an old wooden ladder – one of 2 ladders that came with the house. I found that I could straddle the ladder with one foot on the back-side brace and one foot on the 4th rung and the height was perfect for working on the ceiling.



I have spent countless hours on this ladder standing just like that. It worked, but like I said, lots of up and down. Now, I’m going to be working on the dining room which has the largest surface area of any room to date. Not only that, but next will come the foyer and then the 2 parlors, which are even bigger than he dining room. I needed something else.

I could rent a section or 2 of scaffolding, but that would put me too high. I need to be just three and a half feet higher. The ceilings are ten and a half feet so having my head at ten feet is perfect. So I decided to make my own scaffolding.



For about $60 worth of lumber, fasteners, and casters I get a 4X8 foot platform that is the perfect height and can roll around the room. This should work well, not only for the ceiling but for any part of the wall over 7-feet heigh. I’m actually looking forward to doing the plaster work now. Of course, I still need the trusty ladder to get up on the platform, but once I get myself and a big batch of plaster up there I won’t need to come down for a while.

Biohazard

Ok, so I panicked. I realize that now. Still, with everything in the news these days about The Swine Flu, you can’t be too cautious.

As I was walking through the dining room with my first cup of coffee of the morning I thought I spotted a Swine Flu virus on the floor. I quickly dumped out my coffee and slammed the cup down on top of it. I then preceded to isolate the room from the rest of the house.

After I sealed the room off and got plastic sheeting over everything, I donned my homemade biohazard suit and with a can of Lysol in hand I carefully lifted the coffee cup off of the “virus”.









Well, it turned out to be an ant. A very confused and angry ant at this point, but an ant none the less. No, there was no Swine Flu in my house and I was completely safe after all.

Boy, isn’t my face red.

It wasn’t a complete waste of time, though. Now that the dining room is sealed off from the rest of the house and all of the woodwork is covered in plastic, the stage is set for plaster wall repair. The plaster is largely intact and structurally sound. The first step will be to clean the walls and get rid of any remnants of wall paper. I stripped off the 7 or 8 layers of wallpaper years ago, so this should not be too difficult.

I will then patch the minor nail holes and small divots. Once that is done I will paint the entire surface with Weld-Crete. Weld-Crete is a masonry adhesive made by Larson Industries. Its purpose is to help the new skim coat adhere to the 100+ year old lime plaster. They also make a product called Plaster-Weld, which would be more appropriate for this application, but the local supplier only carries Weld-Crete. They are essentially the same thing, only Weld-Crete is designed for exterior, industrial applications.

After the Weld-Crete is applied and has had time to dry I will skim coat with Diamond Finish plaster. After that I will paint, which brings me to my most feared and hated job of all…

Picking Out Paint Colors

This hideous and disgusting process started today.

Because I already have the dado in the room I will be doing a traditional “tripartite” wall where the wall is divided horizontally in to three parts: The dado, field, and frieze. This is a style that was popular from about 1870 to about 1910 and was championed by critics of the time like Charles Eastlake and Clarence Cook. When selecting colors of paint or wallpaper it was suggested that the frieze should be light in color, with the field darker, and the dado the darkest. The ceiling will be the same color as the frieze.

I’m leaning towards a red field and a gold frieze with a picture rail where the two meet. The dado, of course, is the burl redwood raised paneled wainscoting that is original to the room. So far the first round of color selection includes Sherwin William’s Bolero (7600) for the field and Humble Gold (6380) for the frieze and ceiling. If history repeats itself I will decide I don’t like these colors only after I have painted the entire room.

Another hair-brained idea I have is to paint the ceiling sky-blue and sponge on large, fluffy white clouds. I think this would only work if I applied a heavy cornice where the frieze and ceiling meets and chose something else for the field and frieze. Given that I have 2 green rooms in the house and the exterior paint is a monochromatic green color scheme, any shade of green is out of the question.

Eighteen of Eighteen

For all intent and purpose I am done with these cabinets!!!! I finished and installed the 18th and final door this afternoon.

Door Goes Open


Door Goes Closed


There are still a few things to do, but the carpentry portion of this never ending project has finally come to an end. I need to putty a lot of holes and everything – and I do mean everything, not just the cabinets – is covered in sawdust. There is also a little painting left to do on the butler’s pantry side. I should be able to finish all of that up mid-week next week.

Oh, and then there’s this…



The shop is covered wall-to-wall in 3 to 8 inches of saw dust. I'm hoping to find a few lost tools under there.

Trim Marathon

I had a late invitation yesterday to a Bar-B-Q out in Freshwater. I had every intention of going, but it looked like rain in the morning, so I started in on the trim for the middle section. As it turned out, the clouds cleared around 1:00 and it turned out to be a spectacular day. By that time I was committed to the trim and there was no looking back.

The Bar-B-Q would have been nice, but now I’m glad I stuck with the trim. It took about 12 hours to get it all done, but it is done!







Before I could even start the trim I had to frame out the little door in the middle section. Then it was on to mind-numbing repetition of measure, cut, cut, router, router and install. Then the next piece. That’s if I got it right the first time. I rarely did.

Each piece took a minimum of 2 cuts on the saw and two passes on the router. If it is was off by as much as an 8th of an inch it was another cut on the saw and another pass on the router. There are 62 pieces of wood total. To make it even more interesting, I was afraid of running out. Below is all there is left from that big pile of trim I cut.





I also milled and installed the trim just under the marble. It is a two part bead and cove trim. When the fabricators came to make the template for the marble I suggested an inch and a half over-hang. I was planning on just doing a ¾-inch cove under the lip. The guy making the template told me that 2-inches is standard, so I said OK. God forbid I should not do what is standard.

For the next week after the marble was in place I cursed the 2-inch over-hang every time I saw. I was too much. It was sticking out so awkwardly. I decided he suggested 2-inches because most people do a laminate edge these days. That is were they take an additional piece of stone and glue it to the underside of the over-hang. They then finish that off and it looks like you have 4-cm thick stone when it is really only 2-cm.

In the end it worked out. I did the 2-part trim and it looks fine. All of those sleepless nights were for nothing. So now it is on to the little door in the middle section. I’m going to see if I can find the time to work on it this week and then install it next weekend. After that I will be officially done with this cabinet!

I looked back through the blog and found that I started them in September of 2008. Really, though, I first mentioned this project in November of 2005.

Three And A Half Years Ago!!!