i.need.a.holiday...[part.three]

[monday | day.three]

so monday morning i was a bit groggy as i awoke to the sound of the sander going... i looked at the time and it was only 7:50, so its not like i slept in, but obviously the folks had to be leaving for the airport early and were ready to get to work. so i quickly got dressed and staggered downstairs to review the situation. karen was working on sanding the trim we'd gotten finished on the shelves the day before while allan was getting read to start cutting more trim and anne was already working on more crown touchup. maybe i had overslept...

anyway, i jumped into the action and soon allan and i had gotten back into our routine for measuring, cutting, and attaching the shelf trim. by this time we were getting pretty comfortable working side by side, holding boards for each other to hammer or screw in, anticipating what the other would need next... [this will come back into play later in the story... thanks for that mom.] well the day seemed to go by pretty fast in general. i dont know how long we were working on the shelves but it certainly seemed to fly by and before we knew it we'd finsihed the remaining trim and decided to get started on the doors. the more important being the backdoor in the shop. so we got all of our materials and tools together and made our way up to the shop to get started. first we had to remove the plywood covering the opening and then the much more difficult task of removing all the existing trim and door surround that was starting to rot in some places and was going to have to come out either way if we were going to fit the new pre-hung door into the opening. well after double checking we discovered that the masonry opening was only an 1/8 of an inch larger than the new door assembly so we took a sigh of relief and got started on the demo.

first we attempted to remove the door frame on either side of the door, but were having some difficulty getting it out. soon we realized the threshold was locking it in place, so we removed it first. the threshold came up with no effort at all - im still not entirely sure how it was even attached, i think we found one nail in the whole thing... after getting it out of the way we were able to pry the frame out on either side much more easily, however we were still running into some issues with the frame header locking them in place at the top. after trying a few different approaches we were able to pry them out on either side however we started running into some snags. as we pulled the door frame away from the masonry opening, the brick and mortar behind it was starting to just crumble away. apparently the door frame wasnt the only part of that opening that had gotten some damage over time...well there wasnt too much we could do, but we attempted to minimize the amount of brick we were loosing from the wall as best we could. by the time we got the frame out on either side we'd started a nice little pile of rubble, but the majority of the opening was still intact. however, at this point a new problem had arisen... how exactly were we going to mount the new door in this opening?? im still not entirely sure how the existing frame was attached on either side, again i saw no nails to speak of as we were prying it off, its almost as if the whole thing was just wedged in place. how secure... anyway, there were a few places in the opening where we found that there were blocks of wood set into the brick and mortar but they were randomly placed and pretty limited in size, not to mention about 3-4 inches inset from the edge of the opening as it were. those blocks of wood were our only real option as far as we could tell for mounting this thing, so we'd just have to figure out how to make it work later. at the moment though, we still had the header of the frame to remove and it wa being a royal pain in the ass.

it turns out after we started looking at this thing from the outside that this was definitely not the original door. in-fact, we could now clearly see that the original lintel for the door was much higher than where the frame stopped... someone had "shrunk" the opening at some point along the line and the actual opening was 8ft tall! we could have bought the cheaper/taller door at home emporium after all! grr... well we debated the option of returning the one for the other at this point, but decided that time had past, and we needed to get this door in place as fast as we could. well soon the girls emerged from whatever it was they were doing downstairs and announced that they were going to home depot to return the vent cover [it hadnt quite fit the opening once we got it up there] and asked if we needed anything. by this time after a lot of effort and some creative circular saw tricks by allan, we'd managed to tear out most of the header mess of the door and were getting the girls input on whether or not to remove another piece of wood that was creating the old doors actual structural header. after a little discussion we decided to remove it and told the girls we didnt need anything and they were off on their way. well, as they started downstairs i second guessed myself and remeasured the masonry opening - and its a good thing i did! we were now at about a half an inch wider than the new door assembly after removing the old frame and we were going to need something to shim the gap. well we had some door shims, but even a shim on either side of the door was going to leave a lot of empty space so i raced downstairs and caught them just as they were leaving. i asked if theyd get us some 1/4" hardboard to put on either side of the opening to shim it up and also give us a much cleaner surface to work with and gave them all the measurements for the cuts id need them to get. they agreed and were on their way as i returned up stairs and allan and i started to remove the remaining member and cut the lathe and plaster on the interior of the wall that was covering the top of the opening.

after a couple of attempts we got that done well enough, and had a fairly clean masonry opening to work with. so after collecting our thoughts and assessing the situation with the wood blocking we decided our best option was going to be cutting down some 2x4's to fit and then shimming them with whatever plywood we had available so that they would fill the depth and be flush with the opening edge. well.. after a couple of tries we found a method that seemed to work well enough and got 2 of the new blockings in place... and this is where things went a little awry... the 2x4's we were using were basically crap scrap that was laying around and they were very knotty and rough. also we were using both scrap 1x3 and some 3/4"mdf scrap that we had lying around the shop to fill the gap. well we'd figured out a method of pre-drilling so as not to split the 1x3's and then i had some 3.5" galvanized deck screws we were securing each layer of blocking back to the wall with. well on multiple occasions this assembly method had been giving us some problems... as i said the wood was knotty and crap and the screws didnt want to go in nicely... we had to force them. well, as we were working on the 3rd board allan was holding this time round while i was trying to drive the screw and for either the screw being obstinate or us hitting a knot, the stupid drill jumped on me and went smack onto my father-in-laws finger.... ef. it got him right in the cuticle between the nail and the flesh, so im sure it hurt like hell, but he didnt make much of a fuss other than obviously wincing when it happened... so anyway, he went to clean the wound while i dug out our band aids and ointments and then he dressed his wound. it didnt look too bad, but im sure it didnt feel great [hence my mother-in-laws comment about the finger splint in post No. 1... i sure hope its nothing serious!]. either way, we quickly got back to work, hoping to finish up the blocking before the girls got back. and as it turned out we did. but only a couple of minutes passed before they showed up with our hardboard and we got right back to work.

about 5 minutes went by and we got the first piece of hardboard screwed in place when the girls came and stole my drill to screw in the new vent cover. so allan and i relaxed for a few minutes and then a few more and decided to see what was taking so long. well, they were having some issues so i stepped in to help them finish up and get us back to work. a couple of minutes later we had the vent in and allan and i started screwing the other piece of hardboard in. soon after that we were ready to try putting the door in place and moved it into position and started removing all the packaging. now id like to say that the door went in with no problems at all, but if youve been following this story, im sure you know thats never the case... well we were able to fit the door in the opening, but the hardboard on both sides was wedging it and it wasnt going to open like that. so we quickly removed the hardboard from one side and tried again. well it wasnt wedging anymore, but there was still a sizable gap and the door was quite wiggly. soon the girls showed up to investigate - having finished whatever it was they were busying themselves with - and to make us aware of the time. it was getting dangerously close to time for them to be getting ready to leave so we better hurry it up. well with their assistance [possibly a few too many hands?] we eventually got the door into a "good enough" place and put a couple of screws into it. after a lot more messing with the thing and the shims and what have you, we managed to get it securely in place and opening smoothly. its still a little skewed, but its in better shape than i would have expected [better than our other doors, haha!] and while we will have to drill out the lock holes in the frame a tiny bit, its in pretty damn great shape! =]

satisfied with the door situation they were leaving us in, the in-laws quickly got themselves ready and gathered their things and before i knew it we were hugging and goodbye-ing. at this point i also discovered what else the girls had been up to that day. they had finished all the molding and then had moved on to the shelves as well. they had sanded, filled, and even painted all the face trim and they were just drying now - and looking pretty awesome! outside, theyd also picked up a bag of mulch at the depot and had prettied up the bottom tier of the planter with the flowers as well... ah those girls. ;]

well everything looked great, and while the in-laws seemed to think we didnt get as much done as we should have over the weekend, karen and i saw that 3 and a half huge projects on our list had been finished and we were greatly enthused and very thankful! [not to mention run ragged at this point as well...] so as we waved goodbye to the car we discussed how we were going to finish the door - which neither of us wanted to do right then. we were "too pooped to poop" as my mother says, and really didnt want to do anything the rest of the day. however there was still a gaping hole above the new door and tons of open space around the frame as well so we were going to have to address it in some way before the day was over... but not necessarily right away. i was pretty hungry and it was definitely lunch time, so we had lunch and watched a movie while we relaxed a little and got recharged to finish the door in some way.

after the movie we trudged back upstairs to assess the situation and soon after we arrived it started lightly raining... okay, its definitely time to do something. karen was really anxious to play with the special window & door expanding foam the girls had bought so she started filling the cracks while i thought about the big hole at the top where the transom will eventually go. after karen got to play with the foam for a while i decided it looked like fun and i needed a turn so she shared and i got to fill some cracks as well - and i think we both got enough of it on our hands to discover that this crap doesnt come off for anything... [it actually did come off two days later in the shower after the oils in my skin finally did their thing and loosened it up enough to scrape it off...] after foaming sufficiently and watching it grow the rain was starting to come down a little harder and i decided to just cut some mdf to cover the gap in the door and then screw in some plywood to cover the opening. well it didnt go exactly as planned - but close enough, and we covered up all the remaining gaps with some plastic and painters tape to try and seal it all up as best we could. after that we were definitely done with project-time and were ready to do as much relaxing as we could for the rest of the night in preparation for the week ahead. so we watched some tv, snacked a little, and passed out early.

--fini--

and thats the story!

hope you enjoyed it, and i hope you enjoy the pictures im posting on the album site as well!

click here to see them.