John Highstreet's Carpentry

This was a wonderful project, that from start to finish provided unusual surprises and many challenges.

So, before I can get started, I had to set-up with dust walls and a

negative air-flow system to vent out dust etc..

From the inside the hallway you can see where I hang my jacket, a shelf for the music thingy (or podcasts) and a couple shelves for various sundries. 

The last shot before the craziness begins...

Okay, let's tear this place apart!!

WEE!! Tons of dead mice and other goodies! 

Tearing it all down to the studs, plaster, lath, and sub-framing.

Look at these monster tiles (actually pavers).

I had no idea that this was the product...

I had to re-build most of the pocket panels for the sash weights, which was time consuming, but wicked fun. All 12 of the sash weights were stuck in spray foam insulation from the sill, which answered the question of why none of the windows worked...

Here I re-framed the ceiling from a "tray" to a flat ceiling, bumping out the perimeter for a fancy crown molding detail.

Insulate everything, like everything...

And now to clean up 12 of these guys...

What fun.

With the windows in and working (upper sashes too! They were painted in around 1896 and the pulleys were still shiny!)

I cleaned up the pulleys and changed the sash cords, plus milled out new stops, replaced some damaged jambs and well, a bunch of other stuff, but, let's move on...

New sill, new window trim and finished crown molding detail.

Time for some tiling! Yeah, I did that too...

Is that a cozy workstation or what?

And now for the final product:

I was really hoping to get some pictures with furniture and art stuff, but the owners were not going to be there for a bit, so here is what you git.

Ta da! 

I gotta stop saying that...

The owners were the most awesome couple ever, super understanding and patient as the work was a bit beyond the scope of the original intent. This is restoration carpentry, you never really know what you're going to run into, so I thank them for their patience and appreciation. 

Until next time...