Almost Done!

I am so close to finishing the butler’s pantry I can taste it. I got the glass installed and re-hung the upper doors Friday and Saturday, and then installed the last of the hardware today.



Putting the glass in was nerve-wracking and time consuming. Because there is the possibility that the glass could break someday, it must either be installed with wooden stays that can be removed or with the more traditional glazing putting. I had wanted to do wooden stays, because it would take less time. Because of the way I made the doors though, there wasn’t enough room. I made the bevel on the front too deep and it did not leave enough room for piece of quarter round for the stay.

So I had to do glazing putty on the eight panels of glass. It seemed to take forever and I was afraid I would break the glass. And that glass ain’t cheap. Once it dries I will paint the putty with burn sienna oil paint to match the wood.

As with a lot of my cabinet making projects, they look good in pictures, but when you get up close it is obvious I’m not a trained cabinet maker. The upper doors are especially wonky. Most of the wonkyness is because of the hinges. As I said in an earlier post, every time I’ve ever mortised hinges and hung doors I’ve worked with loose pin hinges that could be separated. It was really difficult for me to hang these doors without being able to separate the two hinge parts.

I’ve learned a valuable lesson though. The hinges for the dinging room side are antique cast bronze hinges that don’t come apart either. So for the that side I’ve made jig to router out the hinge mortises. I’ve already done on pair of doors – or at least one stile from each door.

On the butler’s pantry side I completed the doors and then went to hang them. This time, I’m taking one board from each door and the first thing I did was mortise the hinges and hung that board as if it was a complete door. I now know that the hinge stile board is the proper height and the matching hinge mortises on the stile and face-fame match perfectly. Now I can make the rest of the door and only need to worry about getting the width correct. I hope the dining room side doors will go much more smoothly.

On the butler’s pantry side, the only thing left to do is a little touch-up painting and make the small door for the middle section. That door will need to wait until I do some more work on the dining room side, though. So for now, I’m going to stick a fork in this baby and call it done.

Thank God!