ListWise

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Knot An Issue Anymore

A few months back when I finished the laundry room I pretty much closed the door and haven’t set foot in the room since. There is a laundry room for the rental units next door that I’ve shared with my tenants for 6 years, so it hasn’t been a big deal. Its not like I’m going to the laundry mat or anything. The new laundry room is adjacent to the butler’s pantry, so I closed off the laundry room to try and contain the mess while I worked on the butler’s pantry. I had moderate success.

Anyway, there was one issue in the laundry room that I never dealt with. That was the missing knot in the beadboard. I installed floor to ceiling salvage beadboard in the room. After weeks of abuse from being ripped out of D&D Motors, and then stacked in the garage, and being scraped, sanded, cut, nailed, sanded some more, and finally painted – after all of that, when I was putting on the last coat of paint, one of 2 knots in all of that beadboard fell out and in to the wall.

I was bummed, but today I fixed it, or at least I covered it up. I had purchased an old 3 arm, swinging towel rack for the bathroom I did last year. I ended up not using it because it stuck out too much for such a small room. Well today, I installed it in the laundry room to cover the knot hole. It is about 6 and a half feet up on the wall right next to the dryer. It can be used to hang hangers on or things that need to drip dry.



It would have been nice if nature had centered the knot between two beads, but no matter. I think it’s a great solution. I was happy to be able to finally use this towel rack. It was probably one of the most expensive things I bought for the bathroom and I was bummed when it didn’t work out. I was afraid I would take a loss on it by selling it on Ebay.

I got a lot of little things done today. I hung the ceiling fixture and put on all of the face plates. I cleaned up and put away all of the tools to get ready for sanding the floor tomorrow. I also had some finishing touches on the paint job to take care of. And I installed a screen door handle that I bought on a whim a few years ago.



It is a very nice, almost complete set of cast iron Victorian screen door hardware. I made a low-ball bid on it, not thinking I would get it, and wouldn’t know I was the only bidder. It has two knobs, a locking, spring loaded lockset, and an exterior escution. The only thing it is missing is the catch that goes on the jamb, and I also needed screws. This set me on a journey around the house to all of my little piles of hardware.





























Some of it I bought and other items are leftovers. Sometimes a person on Ebay will be selling a collection of things and there may be one or 2 items I think I might need. I make a low-ball bid and sometimes I get it. I have a feeling someday I will be selling my own “collections” on Ebay. I also have a habit of dismantling things and then leaving piles of hardware in various places around the house. Sadly, there was no usable catch in the mess, but I did find all of the screws I needed, and that saved me a trip to the hardware store.



Here’s the room as it sits now. If I can get the floor sanded tomorrow and get the finish on mid-week, and, if the tin arrives next week, I think I can finish this baby up next weekend. That would be great.

10 comments:

Jayne said...

Good solution to the knothole problem! And the butler's pantry is really looking nice.

Diane Irvine Armitage said...

The room looks fabulous! I love the light fixture and what a creative use for the antique towel rack :-) I enjoyed seeing the pics of the hardware - I'm a hardware junkie too (or maybe just a junk junkie :-)

HPH said...

Excellent solution to the knot; don't let anyone tell you it snot.

Greg said...

Yes, the towel rack worked out well. When I finish this room I will have 6 rooms complete!

Rose said...

Bondo. One of my contractor friends' secret weapon is bondo.

mickmaguire said...

Hey - I see cast iron cupboard latches in that priority mail box - butler's pantry side of the cabinets?

Greg said...

Mick,

Good eye. There are some plain cast iron ones (no design) and some brass. Unfortunately, all of the cast iron ones are missing catches. Those came with one of the collections I bought. I attempted to find some catches for them but couldn't find anything.

ellipsisknits said...

Those piles of hardware look awfully familiar. Drawer full of half painted hinges? We got that. Switch plate on the window sill? Always a classic.

Good to know our organizational skills are par for the course.

I really like the light in the butlers pantry too. From the first set of pictures, I was a little disappointed you got rid of the squash color. But somehow the light pulls it together and it looks very nice now in a way I don't think it would have with the brighter color.

I was trying to post this under my house blog at http://plantingoaks.wordpress.com but I've no idea whether that openId thing worked or not. If it did and this is a duplicate, toss it please.

Greg said...

ellipsisknits,

I think they propagate in the night.

Hey! Wouldn't that be cool!

slateberry said...

Greg, you need ziploc bags. I baggie every hardware thing I get now, because I've lost so many screws. OK, not that many, but there were four very memorable ones that I'm still mad at myself for losing. Normally I think of ziplocs as wasteful disposable packaging, but for dealing with antique hardware, it's cheap organization and peace of mind.