To save money, we will stain and the finish the oak trim and the pine ceiling planks. We'll do this in the driveway of our current house, storing the 5,000 pounds of lumber in a rented 16-foot storage box.
Note: These updates are arranged with the most-recent at the top of the page. Scroll down to see the early work.
We hired a two carpenters to install the door and window casing, rosettes, baseboard, and shoe moulding. Later daughters Michelle and Miranda stained and finished with tung oil the doors and door frames. Finishing the windows will wait for warmer weather.
Ater the doors were finished, Mike installed the handles.
We began preparations for final trim-out. Louise filled nail holes in the basement door and window frames, while Mike glued mullions to the center of the double windows.
Mike installed baseboard and shoe moulding in the three bathrooms and the laundry room so we won't have to do it after the toilets and washer/dryer are installed next week. This is the laundry room.
Jeff finished installing most of the interior doors, and nearly finished the handrails.
Jeff, the trim carpenter, and Tina, a helper, began installing the interior doors.
The oak interior doors were delivered today.
Jeff, the trim carpenter, made good progress fabricating one stairway railing (started yesterday), and installed it. Lots of compound angles!
Slightly-warmer and dry weather allowed us to spray varnish on the new ceiling planks. Tomorrow we'll deliver them to the house site so the carpenters can finish the kitchen bay ceiling.
The carpenters ran out of ceiling planks, so we ordered 30 more 8' lengths. They arrived today and we sprayed stain on them &ndash outside with snow on the ground and the temperature a chilly 38°F. With any luck they will dry sufficiently for varnishing tomorrow.
We installed baseboard and shoe moulding in the mechanical room. The Grex pin nailer did a great job securing these.
We finished the shoe moulding today, so all of the trim and ceiling planks (finished in July) are ready to be installed. Here is the shoe moulding drying on our utility trailer.
We finished the 244 rosettes. Only the shoe moulding remains, and that will be done tomorrow.
We bought a Grex P645 23-gauge pin nailer to install the trim. This wonderful tool shoots headless pins that disappear into the wood, leaving only tiny holes that don't require filling afterward.
We sprayed tung oil on the 80 lengths of oak baseboard and hand-wiped each one afterward. Most of the baseboards are 16' long, but at least they're all finished. Shoe moulding and rosettes are all that remain.
Today we sprayed tung oil on the window and door casing, and hand-wiped each piece. Next up: The baseboard, shoe moulding, and rosettes. Fortunately, the weather forecast calls for moderate temperatures and no rain for the next five days – just about the time we'll need to finish.
We stained 244 rosettes today. We placed each rosette on a turntable rotating at about 20 RPM, and sprayed stain on it. Next we moved the stained rosette to a nearby utility trailer where we later wiped them all and left them to dry.
After a 3-month break, we spent over a week staining and wiping the oak trim. The baseboard is done, and the window and door casing is well underway. Here is today's batch of casing. Most of these are 16' long, but only 8-foot lengths remain – about 35 of 'em. After staining, we'll apply a coat of tung oil to all the trim. But before that, we have 244 oak rosettes to stain.
Ceiling planks, day 8. All of the ceiling planks are stained and varnished, and stacked in the storage box. We shifted some of the oak trim to the right side of the box so all of it would be more stable during two moves to the new house. This photo also shows the braces we added to stabilize the stack of trim on the left. It's interesting that the quantity of planks now seems less imposing with most of them stored on shelves instead of stacked on the floor.
Ceiling planks, day 7. We missed nearly a week due to rainy weather, but today we finished 28 planks. We're making good progress. All that's left to do are about 32 more planks.
Ceiling planks, day 6. 28 more planks finished. It looks like we'll be done with the ceiling planks in three more work sessions.
Ceiling planks, day 5. We finished another 26 planks.
Ceiling planks, day 4. We're finishing about 28 pine planks each day we work on them. Only about six more sessions remain, and then we can start on the oak trim. Here the finished ceiling planks are stacked on shelves, with the remaining unfinished planks on the floor.
Ceiling planks, day 3. Here a batch of stained planks are drying until mid-afternoon, when they will be varnished.
Ceiling planks, day 2. After staining, the planks were hand-wiped to even the coloration. In the afternoon we sprayed water-based gloss varnish, let the planks dry for a couple of hours, then we put them back into the storage box.
We began staining the ceiling planks. First we laid two dozen planks on sawhorses, and Louise sanded to smooth rough spots and remove smudges.
The oak casing and baseboard arrived. We spent much of that day and several hours the following day measuring individual pieces and cutting them to needed lengths.
2,800 pounds of 8" pine ceiling planking is stacked on the right, and the oak trim is on the left. We built the shelves in the storage box to store the lumber after it has been finished.
We also bought 244 oak rosettes to use on the corners of window and door casing.
