Tile Project

Without any Interior Design skills, I have decided after looking at many pics online to mimic this one.  I like this color, it is pretty neutral and is canonical with the kitchen's colors.  I'll post pics and videos of the project soon. 

Uncle Tom

Current Challenges

Currently, I've been struggling to get my highly figured boards dead flat like I want it.   I currently do not own a wide belt sander to do that.  So I will be using the planing sled method to do this.  I will update this process as soon as all the parts come in to build the planing sled. 

For this week, I will just knock out some odds and ends in this house to move towards the finish line.  I'll take some pics on how it is turning out in a couple days.  Thanks!

Uncle Tom

The Autocad render of the bathroom, only partial to get some perspective of how the millwork will fit.  Details:  The "glass" like thing is supposed be the window, the framed member in the middle of the room is the outermost showerwall, and behind it is the showerbed.  The shelves above the toilet and window trim is still to be determined.  Theres quite a few of challenges:

1.  The bathroom is only 70 sq ft

2.  There's a Window right in the middle of the wall, next to the vanity cabinet as shown in the rendering

So to achieve a bathroom that can allow ergonomic usage and beauty at the same time, full custom millwork was a must.  The bathroom in 1920 originally used a cast iron clawfoot tub right in front of the window.  Of course, because of the lack of waterproofing it caused much dryrot in the substrate.  This time, I made sure I used a liquid membrane to waterproof the whole floor, and the built up shower used a PVC membrane to hold the water.  To achieve the amount of storage to serve up to 4 people, the cabinets and shelving must be custom and built upward as high as possible to the 9 foot ceilings. 

Here are some pics of the real thing:

 Corner where the main vanity goes.

 Corner where the toilet goes

 Eye level picture of the toilet corner

 Eye level picture of the Main Vanity corner

 Shower Wall

 Shower

 Shower Pan

 Above Door Frame.  CHALLENGE:  Transitioning tiled wall to jamb.

 Top of shower wall



Using a bench dog Crown Molding cutting jig, I use it to stand up the crown molding at the correct 52 degree angle, and cut the crown with the miter saw set at 45 degrees.  I used a Makita 1216L 12" miter saw to make the cut.

I used a EasyCoper coping jig paired with a Jigsaw.  First, darken the profile, cause when the dust gets flying, you'll lose the line.   

Take a jigsaw and cut about 1/16 shy of the line

 More progress..., and file down to line.  This part is like Kung Fu, you have to use your best judgement over many many tries... you'll eventually feel the Zen of this process.  It will become faster and cleaner as you do more of it.  Especially with hardwoods, which is the hardest to do.  Also, make sure your files are some high quality ones that's never touched metal before.  Else you'll be pushing and pulling much more than you want.

 Not too bad, could use some work... Back to the sawhorse.  A couple more tries... you'll get it.  Don't be ashamed of going back and forth a little extra.  There's nothing shameful about practice making perfect.

Corner Vanity Phase 2

1/4" backerboard on top of slat, taped with Flexbond thinset.

Tiles set today, pretty straightforward.  The corners were a little challenge to comb the thinset evenly.  Had to butter up a bit to get a nice set.  But it all went well.  Celebrated by eating at my favorite late night restaurant.

1910 Door Restore

Extend it left and right by just glueing strips of poplar on each side.  since you can't run a whole door through a jointer, mostly likely you won't get a dead-joint fit.  But it's okay.  Maybe pretty close with a railsaw.

Extend it up and down.  Make sure you use biscuits or dominos as endgrain on the stiles don't have any strength in the glue-starved joints.

Bondo it smooth.  Try to do it outside of possible, the voc's are insane here.

After some sanding, and painting with oil-based Sherwin Williams paint, she's ready.

I have my reasons on why it's swinging this way and the deadbolt.

Taper Plane

Haven't seen one of these in my life, my buddy got me this in Milwaukee.   Perhaps its to adjust and taper cabinet doors for fitting?

Sometimes doing it with one man is better than two

Using a 2 x 4 and two T-shaped plywood brackets clamped together, I can slowly creep this think up and align the vent pipes together.  I am using rigid pipes, so it's a little more of a challenge to get them straight.  It was all worth it though, since it's much quieter and less loss of cfm.

A little higher.

Checkmate.

I sometimes like to work by myself when I can because with someone else on the clock, he might not be as productive as you like... which causes me to rush, thus, also causing low quality results. 

Beaded Window Casing and Joining methods

Producing the 5/8 bead on a Grizzly G1026 Shaper.   Make sure your featherboards for vertical motion is super-tight, else your bead is ruined.  Depending on the wood, try to get the highest speed as possible to get a good smooth cut.  But of course this depends on the type of wood.  I had to go low speed with my quarter-sawn white oak though. 

Finished Product

 

 Using an MDF male and female mold to create this to make this joint for adjacent windows.  There are other ways.  I think Kreg has a beaded face-frame kit to get this result... but a little bit a scrap MDF will do just fine.  Just use a router to route out the edges using the mold to get consistency everytime.  Same concept as dovetail or box joint jigs work.  Except yours is a double-sided miter on the profiles on male and female sides.

 Not tight enough fit can be fixed with some chisel work. 

Crown Moldings anyone?

Just set up my new Makita model 1216L 12" Miter saw.  Seems like a nice upgrade to my Makita 10"  So far, the tests have shown that it's dead-accurate.  Super smart controls.  I couldn't say the same about the Ridgid miter stand though(model AC9945).  The low quality of Chinese manufacturing shows in the product, but with a good tap set and some know-how, I was able to make it perform the way it should.  I'll you all posted when I finally cut some oak crowns with this bad boy. 

Corner Vanity Phase 1

Today I'm starting to do the wall tiles on the corner vanity in the project.  We'll see how it turns out.  So far so good.  Hope it stays that way, keeping my fingers crossed, who knows what kind of curve balls old houses throw at you..