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Wainscotting Project
Over a few months, we rebuilt a cabinet and covered the whole stairway with fir wainscotting

Chapters:
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September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
Wainscotting Project
January 2007, and another Snowstorm
February and March 2007
Land use / Parking / Right-of-way Analysis
Remodelling drawings
Porters' trip to Costa Rica
April 2007
May

Wainscotting project, step 1: rip off a strip of sheetrock, and install an 8-foot piece of hemlock "brickmold." This took several hours, all the measurements, forming the ends etc. needing to be precise and anticipate all the future steps.

Step 2: Tear out all the wallboard below the brickmold.

This shows the troublesome mix of baseboard (white), the brickmold (finished in clear type stain), and stair stringer (brown stain). Sara thinks we should re-do the baseboard so it has an angled transition down to meet the brickmold, and aligned with the upward angle of the stringer. A difficult question.

Step 3: Nail-gun up the "T&G" so that no nails show. It turned out quite nice! Later, the plan is to extend this wainscotting throughout the whole stair landing area, rebuild the cabinet to the west of the stairs, and put a ceramic tile (with bullnose edging) on top of the cabinet.

This shows the beautiful clear graining of the T&G, which Sara's dad got from a lumbermill owner he works with. It's about 4 inches wide, and is quarter sawn, clear fir. Click the picture to blow it up where you can see the grain better.

A "project" scene, of the reframed cabinet beside the stairway. We are getting ready to finish up the wainscotting project (see previous month). In this picture, you witness the squared up and levelled new framing that is much stronger. The old one was very spindly and held together mainly by the plywood on top.

This picture shows the new super-strong top, and the nice hemlock and oak molding around the edges. Since it's unpainted, you have to do an extra careful job on the woodwork. We stained the woods to resist fingerprints. The oak is on the "wear points" where things might get banged into the corners mainly.

Another "project" picture, this one shows the wainscotting partly installed, and the rough layout of the ceramic tile (checkerboard pattern) that will be on top. The back row of tiles will be cut down a little bit. The colors chosen are a nice complement to the colors of the wood.

Wainscotting, finished on the walls, needs work on the tiles on top. The area behind the baseboard heater is the next target for work.

An overview, before the grout was applied.

The grout is in, it's a little bit darker brown than the darker of the two tile colors. Dave's first tile work--ever!

Now we're 3/4ths done, this wall behind the heater was completed, and the heater got a new coat of paint! Next step: wait for the new window to be installed, then finish up around that.

You can see the new vinyl window on the upper left, and partial T&G covering the wall to a little past the light switch. When done, the window will have full wood wrapping and a nice sill.

We wood-wrapped the new vinyl window, it has a nice sill and other trim. This picture shows the nail-holes before we finished sanding and staining, so the abraded surface and color will improve shortly.

Please send an E-mail if you have any comments or corrections, or know something we don't!