Laundry Shelf

 

I've put up a wide shelf high up in our laundry, in an attempt to fight off — or redirect — the Creeping Cruft a bit.

It's not exactly fine joinery, but I'm happy enough with it considering how badly the pine boards were cupped and winded.

Even a simple job like this is ten times more difficult single-handed, and having increasingly decrepit limbs is not helpful.

Coat Hangers

 

Today I have increased our coat-hanging capabilities.

The hangers themselves are matai, the baseboard is rimu, and the mushrooms that hide the mounting screws are oak.

I suppose I could have just gone down to Bunnings and bought some metal coat hooks, but where's the fun in that?

Door Work, Part Two

 

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had a home maintenance job awaiting my attention, and today being warm and fine, I thought I might as well get on with it. I'm scraping the old varnish off one of our doors, from between the kitchen and the living room.

How old the existing varnish is I have no idea. There's a pretty good chance that it's the varnish that went on in 1920 when the house was built.

I'm not sure yet what sort of finish I'm going to put on afterwards, but on the kitchen side at least it had probably better be something pretty tough and moisture-resistant. 

Scraping complete, first coat of polyurethane applied.

The depressing thing about this sort of job is that it's a whole lot of work with entirely unspectacular results. 

People will look at the door when it's done, and they will think "Oh, a door."

"Oh, a door."

New (Old) Door Handles

 

I replaced the old knob-style door handles on the door between our kitchen and lounge with these brass lever-style handles.

I wanted levers so that I could open the door with my elbow, when my hands are laden with plates or whatever.

I think, though I'm not sure, that the handles are reproduction, not genuine antique. However, they're solid brass, not plated, and if they are reproductions they're good ones.

Unfortunately, the lock-plates from the old handles had marked the varnish and wood enough that I had to scrape them away. And that means that some time soon I'm going to have to dismount the door, scrape down the whole thing, and re-varnish it.

And so goes the creep of renovation.

Long Overdue Beautification

Before

After

When we got our last clothes dryer, a long, long time ago, maybe fifteen years or more, (it just crapped out and has been replaced) I cut a hole in the wall of our house to run a vent through.

I fully intended to make it look a bit less shitty, but somehow I just never got around to it. Out of sight, out of mind.

We just got a new dryer, and I had to run a new vent duct. That put the full horror of the old half-arsed job right in my face, so this time I actually got off my arse and made this vent shroud to make it look a bit less like random vandalism.

It will eventually have a grille across the front as well as the bottom, to let the warm, moist air escape while also keeping rats and things out. I know that keeping rats out of a house is a futile dream, but that's no reason to make it easy for the little bastards.

If I can find some, I'll stuff the cavity around the ducting with insulation fluff, so minimise the chance of any of that wet, wet air coming back inside.