First Impressions

When we first purchased this historic house, we knew the front entrance (into the sun room) needed work but other, more pressing issues had to be dealt with first... so for 3 years we endured snow blowing into the sun room and swarms of flies and ladybugs!  In the Spring of 2017 we finally found the people, the time and the finances to rejuvenate the house's main entrance.  From neglected to magnificent!

The entire rejuvenation consisted of four projects:  new steps, a new front door with frame and surrounding panels, scraping/reglazing/repainting the outside of the whole sun room and finally a wired doorbell (the wireless was completely unreliable). 

Project #1:  The Steps.  Our old steps were narrow and there was no landing outside the door, making it very awkward to stand, luggage in hand, and ring the bell.   

So this was the old door and stairs....  

And here are the new steps:

Each step is significantly wider, especially the top landing.  It's Sienna treated planks and hopefully will be easy care.

So once the steps were installed, the door project began!

We were fortunate enough to find a carpenter up to the task!  Rob Dupree took this part of the renovation in hand and masterfully replaced our old door and the plywood panels that framed it.  

Notice the lovely lever handle:  no more scrapping your knuckles on the door frame!

A major issue for us was the desire to keep the concrete sill that runs all around the sun room.  Most of the workmen who came to give us estimates wanted to cut these off, flush with the door opening.  While we were willing to change the door, we were not willing to alter the concrete, especially as this "permanent" feature of the home is in photos of school children from the 1940s (click here to see one).  As you can see in the photo, the sun room at that time was not enclosed, with no door at all.

While the door was being installed, Natalie Simpson and her crew worked on the stripping, reglazing and painting.

Obviously, this part of our home had been neglected for some time and was in dire need of protection!  Especially as this was the front of the house, it desperately needed to be taken care of properly and Natalie did a wonderful job of reglazing the windows and applying protective paint.

And project #4:  the new doorbell!  

When Rob rebuilt the door framing, our electrician Brock from Fergus Electric had already drilled into the basement and left us an electrical line to run all along the outside of the room and hide behind the quarter rounds.  Rob therefore had everything he needed to include the doorbell in his part of the project, with Brock finishing this detail. 

And finally, it was all done!  

And Willow loves being able to see outside!  

Thanks to all our great professionals:  Rob Dupree, Natalie Simpson and her crew and Brock Richardson from Fergus Electric!  If you want contact information, simply send me an email and I'd be very happy to share.

Shiny and bright!

Winter affords us the time to tackle small, niggley things like doors that don't close properly and wobble, and painted-over hardware.  This time we took on our parlour, entry, basement and bedroom doors... 

As you can see in the picture below, taking off a strike plate can reveal a surprise: a chewed out hole that needs wood filler. (Yes, the frame is pretty banged up too.)  Once the hole was cut clean and any loose wood glued in place, the position of the strike plate was checked and corrected and reattached... after a good cleaning, that is!  

Sadly, a lot of the hardware in this house was painted over.  Steel wool could only do so much, so paint remover had to be used.  This turned out to be quite exciting, for as the paint came off in chunks the decoration on the brass plates was revealed!  Wow!  

When you're here, take a moment to notice these lovely, little details!

Next up:  the parlour door!

Tuning up

Sorry for the over-long silence: we've been very busy with renovations!  Since January 4th, we've been hip dip in the tool box doing all sorts of repairs and fixes, everything from re-gluing peeling wallpaper to having new windows installed.  More details later, but for now here's one of the little jobs that took quite a bit of effort: 

Our Little Creek door had a very broken strike plate, in fact as we removed it we discovered it was actually in two pieces!

Ouch!  The space that had been carved out of the door frame was also a mess, so we took the brass strike plate from the linen closet door (which strangely has no latch anyway), checked its location with the latch (using a smear of mustard!), measured what it needed and filled the rest of the carved out space with wood filler.  Sanded smooth, all it needs now is a coat of paint or two and then we can screw the plate on securely.  

So many new things to learn!  

Below, the door terminology image is from http://www.hardwaredetailed.com/.