Retirement Project--New Interior Trim

[kirkpoore1]

Before I retired a couple of years ago, I considered buying some land and building a new house, or maybe buying an older house and renovating it. However, I decided that I didn't a large plot of land to take care of, nor did I want to live out in the sticks with a long drive to town, nor did I want to build a new shop and move my multi-ton hoard of woodworking machinery. So I decided to renovate my plain Jane 1994 suburban house by adding interior trim, ripping out the carpets and putting in oak floors, and adding interesting features. I'd always liked the post-Victorian Craftsman-style interiors which are quite common in some St Louis neighborhoods, so decided to go with that as my target style. I also have a leg up on the average homeowner since I have a fully equipped shop, a friend who does old house restorations and who owns a molding machine and enough knives to outfit a planing mill, and most of all my girlfriend Lisa, who has a degree in architecture and great experience in rehabbing old houses.

The initial plan was to go room-by-room on the upper floor of my house, trimming out each room and getting it all finished before moving to the next to limit the size of the construction zone. (So much for good intentions.) Upper floor trim would all be painted poplar, main floor will be a clear finished hardwood, probably red or white oak. I'd been given a circa-1920 millwork catalog from a Chicago lumber company and used it for my initial inspiration:

The trim style we picked to start with was this:

The intial victi--er, test location was a spare bedroom with a single untrimmed window:

I also wanted to put in transom windows over the doors because my upstairs hallway was always very dark. Lisa and I knocked a hole in the wall above the door to see what kind of header or other structure was there. The answer was almost nothing:

A wood frame with a couple of blocks, nothing load bearing at all.

First step was to make a trim mockup out of pine to refine the design. I added some relevant shaper (spindle molder) cutters to my collection then produced this:

Which after some refinements and painting came out like this:

This was in January of 2024, and that's where things sat for a while--many other things took up my time, attention, and money for the next 10 months or so (new puppy, new stove, car repairs, new car, puppy repairs etc).

So it was a start. This adventure will take a while, but I promise not as long as Mike's renovations.

Kirk

 

[kirkpoore1]

Part 2: Milling, demolition, and nailing stuff to the walls

My friend Eric, who owns the molder (or sash sticker if you prefer), was available in late November. I'd had a 300 board foot stack of poplar sitting in my dining room for the last year, and it was easily dry enough for use. I dragged it out to my shop and jointed, ripped, and planed it into blanks to feed the needed profiles. We got together near the end of the month and got to work:

It took about 4 hours to run several hundred feet of trim, including changing the knives out several times for new profiles. (And yes, it's a flat belt machine from the early 20th century, which means almost no guards. Exciting!) After that I took everything home and got to work sanding and priming it in my shop and garage. Needless to say, this was a lot of work.

After this I started on the bedroom, ripping off all the old trim, the venetian blinds from the window, and tearing out the window returns and stool for replacement. Lisa and I decided that the old closet was too small to be useful, so we figured that a computer alcove would be better. Therefore we ripped the drywall off the front closet wall and pulled off the framing. Somebody had gotten pretty excited with a nail gun and I needed wedges to pull one board off the ceiling. It was an awesome Friday night date night.


During the next week I patched the drywall holes, and Lisa came over the next Saturday and worked her magic to texture the walls to match the original texture.

I moved on to making the sash for the transom. I'd never done this before, but with a little testing it looked like the opening would look best with a three light arrangement. I ran the sash parts on my shaper and tenoner, but hand chopped the mortises since my mortiser doesn't do well with 1/4" mortising chisel & bit sets. Clearing out the blocking and drywall let me do a test fit just before Christmas.


OK, it's getting late. More tomorrow, including adding the first real trim.

Kirk

 

[NickM]

It looks like you're having fun doing this. I love the old machinery!

 

[AndyP]

Transom windows are such a good idea. Surprises sometimes that more houses are not built with them.

 

[wallace]

Transom windows are such a good idea. Surprises sometimes that more houses are not built with them.

Our 1950 council house has them.

 

[Windows]

Looking good. You must be pleased with the window you’ve trimmed. These mouldings are nice - very similar to the trim we had on our PNW house (built ~1910). I’ve just come across a video channel by Brent Hull who is very interested in restoring & applying mouldings to enhance the aesthetics of old and new homes. You might find it interesting:

https://youtube.com/@brenthull

 

[Cabinetman]

Hi, that’s all a lot of hard but good work Kirk, I worked on Pam’s sons house in Pittsburgh, not that far from you, it was of the age you are re-creating so it is all looking very familiar indeed!
Ian
Edit sorry my mistake, not that close to you, (9 hours) distances in America catch me out all the time.

 

[duke]

The transom is a good addition as you said for light. The trim work is one of my favourite , looking good.

 

[kirkpoore1]

On to actual trim work:

I found when priming the trim that it needed some smoothing. There was no way to spray because it was too cold outside. I had to use a brush and roller, which left a rougher surface than I wanted. My belt sander gummed up quickly. It turned out, though, that my card scraper worked really quickly and left a good surface for the next coat of paint. I used a block plane to knock down the sharp exterior corners.


I didn't get good in-progress pics of trimming the window, but got some of doing the door. We initially clamped the trim in place to get a good feel of the reveals needed at the door frame, then cut to size and nailed in place with the air nailer. (This worked great, but Lisa's compressor is REALLY REALLY LOUD when it starts in a little bedroom six feet from where you're working.)

The unpainted square blocks at the ends of the were needed because the trim catalog didn't have any examples of transoms in their illustrations, and I realized I needed a way to terminate the intermediate rail. But then I realized they were actually an opportunity for customization, and so came up with a carving and experimented with some paint schemes (though we ended using yellow instead of light green):

We finished up the room by painting the old closet and the new trim. At this point I was waiting for the old carpet to be replaced with hardwood, so I left off the plinth blocks and baseboards.


It was on to the yellow room next.

Kirk

 

[kirkpoore1]

Next up was the yellow room. Trying to minimize the mess, I sawed out most of the drywall. Then it was back out to the shop to do the sash. This was done partly on the shaper and partly on the tenoner, with the mortises hand-chopped and bevels hand cut & shaved using a 45 degree jig.

Here it is in place, with the jambs in place and painted:

For this room, we pre-painted the approximate amount of trim needed before starting to put it up. When in place, the transformation was pretty dramatic:


The other window, door. and closet came out well too:


At this point I decided to get ahead of the game and carve & paint the joining blocks for both the yellow and blue rooms at the same time:


Next, the blue room.

Kirk

 

[Cabinetman]

Wow you two are cracking on with it! And it’s looking really good indeed.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Wow you two are cracking on with it! And it’s looking really good indeed.

This was back in December and January, so not nearly as quick as it looks. But thanks!

Kirk

 

[kirkpoore1]

In late January, I moved on to the blue room. Once again it was transom first, then on to the trim itself.


Since my son uses the blue room when he's here, I also had to come up with some curtains. Lisa and I went shopping for linen fabric and she made curtains for all three rooms. All will get painted with appropriate designs, but so far I've only done the ones in the yellow room.

I like the design but the orange lines may need to be repainted.

Once the blue room trim and curtains were in place, I arranged for the flooring guy to come in and give me red oak floors in all three bedrooms.


I was running low on dried poplar for the baseboards, so I started in the blue room with what I had since my son would be using it. The other rooms are still unfinished since I have had to move onto other project right now. They'll get baseboards by the end of this month. Anyway, the baseboards are 7" tall with an ogee top edge. I think the improvement is pretty dramatic.

Before:

After:


Tall baseboards really cut better on a radial arm saw instead of a compound miter saw. Lisa's 12" CMS simply isn't big enough to make this cut:


That's it for now, until I can get back to more baseboards in a couple of weeks. Lisa and I are brainstorming ideas for the master bedroom, I still need to make transoms for that bedroom plus two bathrooms, and I need to make trim for both the bedroom and the hallway.

Kirk

 

[kirkpoore1]

It's been over a month, in which I dealt with a pipe leak (fixed, but waiting for the new kitchen tile so the floor is still ripped up) and made a bunch of furniture for sale. And I was off doing medieval reenactment for a week, and came back to a house that had been machine-gunned by hail (insurance adjuster comes tomorrow on that).

30 year old vinyl siding doesn't hold up well to 20 mm hail when that hail is being pushed by a 60 mph wind. There are at least 35 holes in this picture.

But back to it. Before I left I ordered and received a stock feeder. I've never used one before, so when I got back I read what I could find here (and elsewhere) on them and drilled holes in my Delta HD shaper (spindle molder) and my Oliver 232 table saw to accommodate it. Since I couldn't drill these on the DP, I used the hole pattern template provided to drill holes through an oak block, then clamped it to the tables and used it as a drill guide.

I used it first to rip down some poplar for baseboards, and found out that you really need to ramp down on all the joints. The price of that knowledge was a grooved feed wheel, but there's enough left to work and no other damage done. After planing the baseboard blanks to thickness, I ran them through the shaper using the feeder to hold them against the fence and table. I wasn't planning on doing this way originally, but a thread on OWWM from a few years ago showed the technique and it looked more practical than what I was going to try.

Cutting an ogee on the baseboards

Next it was back to the table saw to relieve the backside of the baseboards so they will sit better against the wall. Even with a dado stack, this ended up taking six passes per board. Good results from using the feeder though.

Relieving the back of the baseboards

Took six passes, but done

After emptying out the dust collector can, it was back to sanding. And sanding. Just this side of watching-paint-dry excitement.

Yet more sanding

Oh, and look! Drying paint! I started priming the boards tonight before using up this can of paint.

Watching paint dry

I'll finish priming tomorrow and then start painting enough yellow boards for the yellow room and the kitchen. Lisa and I decided that since the floor in the kitchen is getting replaced, I'd redo the baseboards and add plinth blocks in there for now. The full kitchen remodel is years away, however.

Kirk



Top

 

[RogerS]

I'm enjoying this thread very much. Great WIP and photos.

 

[kirkpoore1]

A full week in the trim mines (well, except the 55 miles of bike riding):

Sweeping and furniture movement required, but the baseboards are in. I'm glad I'm not a professional trim carpenter, because there are some spots the client would not be satisfied with. I'm probably going to have to put shoe mold in due to uneven floor. Either that or just make a lot of wedges to fill the gaps. Anyway, on with the show.

First off, more painting. I scraped the primer on the baseboards with a card scraper since the roller left them kind of bumpy. After that, since each piece needed two coats, I painted the yellow boards first then carried them upstairs and started painting the first coat of green for the next room before starting to install in the yellow room.


Getting into the yellow room trim, I had boards that almost perfectly fit the long sides and back wall. They went in easily. But then I had to do the 45 degree angles in the bump out, and took a bit to understand that yes, I had to cut both pieces to 22-1/2 degrees instead of one at 45 degrees and the other left at 90 degrees. Fortunately the coping at the 90 degree corners went reasonably well.


The next step in this room was to putty the nail holes and caulk the (way to numerous) gaps. Thank goodness for roofer's knee pads. I let those spots dry while working in the green room, then came back to paint the details. The pics above are after painting.

On to the green room. The yellow room plus green painting took a whole day, so this morning I started by dragging the boards upstairs. No 45 degree angles in this room, but I still had to take pieces down to the shop for coping. Everything went smoothly except along the window wall, when I discovered that it had a hump in the floor which caused one end of the baseboard to rise a half inch by they time I reached the end of it. I pushed it down and nailed it the best I could. This was the longest wall, so I had to match the end with the second baseboard piece, then angle it down to the corner. I wound up planing that section flat-ish using a rabbet plane. Ugh. I followed this up with the usual filling and caulking, then painted. Other than the gap under the baseboard on the outside wall, this came out reasonably well.



On the left wall of the alcove, behind the chopsaw roller, the wall bulged in a double bump where the former closet wall had been. I marked it on the trim piece and then used a round-bottom plane to hollow out the trim back in those two areas, simplifying the installation.

I hate to say it, but I'm going to have to put in shoe mold. The floors in these rooms are just too uneven. And not only that, I'm going to get cheap pine stuff from one of the big box stores to do it. At least it will come primed so it won't take too long to paint. I'm all but out of the yellow trim paint, but have to buy a new can of it anyway to help with baseboards in the kitchen after the new tile goes in.

One last pic: This is how much green baseboard I had left after finishing the install:

Maybe 4". (I do have some other leftovers I could have painted if I ran short.)

Kirk

 

[Lurker]

Interesting project, I’m enjoying the WIPs

 

[Cabinetman]

A job I hate, so well done.

 

[Mike G]

It took me a while to work it out, but it turns out "baseboard" means skirting. I like the borrowed lights, Kirk. The carved stop blocks are quirky, but show that the job has been done by someone skilled and motivated.

 

[duke]

A full week in the trim mines (well, except the 55 miles of bike riding):

Sweeping and furniture movement required, but the baseboards are in. I'm glad I'm not a professional trim carpenter, because there are some spots the client would not be satisfied with. I'm probably going to have to put shoe mold in due to uneven floor. Either that or just make a lot of wedges to fill the gaps. Anyway, on with the show.

First off, more painting. I scraped the primer on the baseboards with a card scraper since the roller left them kind of bumpy. After that, since each piece needed two coats, I painted the yellow boards first then carried them upstairs and started painting the first coat of green for the next room before starting to install in the yellow room.
View attachment 32659View attachment 32660

Getting into the yellow room trim, I had boards that almost perfectly fit the long sides and back wall. They went in easily. But then I had to do the 45 degree angles in the bump out, and took a bit to understand that yes, I had to cut both pieces to 22-1/2 degrees instead of one at 45 degrees and the other left at 90 degrees. Fortunately the coping at the 90 degree corners went reasonably well.
View attachment 32661View attachment 32662View attachment 32663

The next step in this room was to putty the nail holes and caulk the (way to numerous) gaps. Thank goodness for roofer's knee pads. I let those spots dry while working in the green room, then came back to paint the details. The pics above are after painting.

On to the green room. The yellow room plus green painting took a whole day, so this morning I started by dragging the boards upstairs. No 45 degree angles in this room, but I still had to take pieces down to the shop for coping. Everything went smoothly except along the window wall, when I discovered that it had a hump in the floor which caused one end of the baseboard to rise a half inch by they time I reached the end of it. I pushed it down and nailed it the best I could. This was the longest wall, so I had to match the end with the second baseboard piece, then angle it down to the corner. I wound up planing that section flat-ish using a rabbet plane. Ugh. I followed this up with the usual filling and caulking, then painted. Other than the gap under the baseboard on the outside wall, this came out reasonably well.
View attachment 32664View attachment 32665
View attachment 32666

On the left wall of the alcove, behind the chopsaw roller, the wall bulged in a double bump where the former closet wall had been. I marked it on the trim piece and then used a round-bottom plane to hollow out the trim back in those two areas, simplifying the installation.

I hate to say it, but I'm going to have to put in shoe mold. The floors in these rooms are just too uneven. And not only that, I'm going to get cheap pine stuff from one of the big box stores to do it. At least it will come primed so it won't take too long to paint. I'm all but out of the yellow trim paint, but have to buy a new can of it anyway to help with baseboards in the kitchen after the new tile goes in.

One last pic: This is how much green baseboard I had left after finishing the install:
View attachment 32667
Maybe 4". (I do have some other leftovers I could have painted if I ran short.)

Kirk

I like that your dog is checking in on the progress.

 

[kirkpoore1]

It took me a while to work it out, but it turns out "baseboard" means skirting. I like the borrowed lights, Kirk. The carved stop blocks are quirky, but show that the job has been done by someone skilled and motivated.

Thanks, Mike. I, in turn, had to look up “borrowed lights”.

Kirk

 

[TomTrees]

New term to me also, very nice work Kirk.

Tom

 

[Windows]

I had to go back to see how Kirk had referred to them and the answer was “transom”. In conversations with Americans, these have also been referred to as “relights” or “relites”. Are they ever called “relights” here?

 

[kirkpoore1]

I looked up "relite windows" and I think they're a more general term for windows from one room to another. "Transom windows" are usually used specifically for a window above a door, and can be external or internal.

But on to the next step, shoe mold:

I went to one of the local big box stores and found that they had 1/2" x 3/4" shoe molding, primed, in bundles of twelve 12' sticks for only $68 (inc tax). This quickly made it's way into my truck with a good 4' hanging out the back after tying it down. First thing to do was paint it, of course, so I guesstimated my needs and painted 4 green, 3 yellow, 3 blue, and one half blue and half yellow.

Painting sticks
Starting on the green room yesterday, things went very smoothly. I coped the inside corners for a decent fit on the bandsaw and OSS--I dislike coping saws enough that I didn't mind the extra trips down to the shop. After plugging the nail holes and adding a little caulk, I painted and got this today:

Green room with helper


Green alcove
The blue room was easier (fewer corners) though I did have a misfire on the last nail and wound up breaking the mold piece while getting the nail out. It all went back together fine though.

Blue corner
The yellow 45 degree corners caused my only miscut, but it was on the smallest piece so was easily replaced.

Yellow left corner


Yellow right corner
Here's the yellow corners before the shoe mold:

Left before mold


Right before mold
The difference is subtle but I do think it really helps, and both the cost and time were minimal.

So these rooms are done for now. Lisa and I will likely add some picture or even plate rail later, but we need to move on to the master bedroom redesign and the hallway, including three more transoms.

Kirk

 

[fiveeyes]

Hi Kirk..do you ,or will caulk the wall joint ?

Nice work.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Hi Kirk..do you ,or will caulk the wall joint ?

Nice work.

Thanks. I've caulked it in the worst spots. I left it alone where the gap was small. Painting the small caulked lines hasn't gone that smoothly so I've been trying to avoid it.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Now that it's winter, I'm returning to this trim project. I did three bedrooms last winter. This time, it's the upstairs hallway and master bedroom. I updated my measurements on my spreadsheet to calculate what pieces of trim and amounts will be needed. I started digging out wood from my stacks and running it through my table saw and planer. Not a lot really done, but still a good start.

Next step will be building three more transom sashes. One will have glass (like the previous transom sashes) but the other two are for the bathrooms and will have a lattice of fumed white oak. I still haven't put glass in the original sashes, so I'll be tackling that too.

Kirk

 

[Mike G]

An oak lattice.....I look forward to that.

 

[kirkpoore1]

I started on the sashes on Sunday. Fortunately, I had long skinny strips left over in abundance after last winter's work. I ripped these to size. then notched one corner to hold the glass, bevel one edge, and crosscut the pieces to length. After that, I mortised the stiles and tenoned the rails on the appropriate machines.



After that, I had to cut the tenons down to size, and then hand fit everything. Not perfect, but seeing as these are interior sashes and will have trim on both sides, they'll be good enough with a little tweaking and filling.

Next up will be to add the muntins (or vertical bars) to the bedroom door sash. More mortises and a little trimming. The other two sashes are for the bathroom doors. They will get the oak lattices so I need to add a groove on the inside to hold the lattice pieces. Right now I'm planning for 1/2" wide slats spaced to allow 1/2" square holes, but the good thing is that I can make the holes bigger if I need to. The interesting part will be trying to cut a whole bunch of 1/8" thick (or thinner) slats. The table saw will do it but will waste a lot of wood. The band saw will do it, but the parts will need more sanding.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Got the muntins in this morning. In this case, I drilled and hand chopped the rail mortises. I cut the tenons on the band saw and did final sizing with a #92 plane. I wound up putting the a little too far from the rail faces, but I’m confident that some sanding and painting will hide the problem.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Continuing this afternoon, I used my plow plane to cut a groove around the inside of one of the bathroom transom sashes to accommodate the lattice pieces. I had to use the plow because I didn't have a narrow enough slotting cutter for my shaper. Unfortunately, I had to use a wider iron in the Ulmia plow since it turned out my narrow iron (3mm) is actually slightly narrower than the plow's rail that the plane slide on. The 5mm iron worked fine once I got the depth of cut set properly.


Next up was to make the slats of the lattice. I selected a piece of white oak, ripped it to about 3-1/2" wide, planed it down to 1/2" in thickness, and then started ripping narrow slats on the band saw. These slats were less than 1/8" thick and got even thinner when I sanded the saw marks off.


After cutting the slats to length I started assembling the lattice. I inserted the long strips first, then put in the first few short slats woven between the long ones. This started ok until I slid the second short slat into place and found that I couldn't get it close to the first one, and when I pushed to hard I broke one long slat. At this point I figured "OK, let's see what rectangular openings look like" and added more short slats. This caused two more breaks, so clearly I need to re-evaluate. Perhaps bigger slats with a wider spacing, or soak slats in water before assembly, or a different weave pattern--much to explore.

One thing I did do was to look back to where I'd seen this kind of lattice on a transom window. This was at Cupples House, a late Victorian mansion on the grounds of St Louis University in St Louis. Here's the transom:

However, when I looked closely I discovered a key difference--this lattice is made of copper strips. I didn't notice this in person, but my Iphone has a camera that works well in low light.

Anyway, this was enough work on this for today. Tomorrow is cooking for Christmas, so I probably will get back to this on Friday or Saturday. It's supposed to be a nearly unheard of 72F/22C on Friday so I may ride my bike instead. I just passed my yearly goal of 2000 miles last week, so I might try to get to 2025 miles in 2025.

Kirk

 

[Cabinetman]

Interesting problem Kirk, I like the copper lattice a lot, to do that in wood (as you found) either the wood has to be thinner or more pliable, if it were me I think I would steam them and place over thin bits of wood to simulate the final shape, more thin bits then another steamed slat etc etc, then either cramp or weights to hold them till cool.
Obviously a bit of experimenting to be done!

 

[kirkpoore1]

Boiled oak experiment: These are two of the short slats I’m using for the lattice. The first one is bent dry & room temperature to the point where it felt like it could break at any time. The second one has been boiling a little while in water. Clearly this is improved.
.

 

[duke]

I guess a long box or tube steamer is in the works?

 

[Cabinetman]

Boiled oak experiment: These are two of the short slats I’m using for the lattice. The first one is bent dry & room temperature to the point where it felt like it could break antcany time. The second one has been boiling a little while in water. Clearly this is improved.
. View attachment 37840View attachment 37841

Big improvement, you just need to make something to hold them in shape till they cool now.

 

[kirkpoore1]

I guess a long box or tube steamer is in the works?

Something. The short vertical can just go in a pot of water. The long ones may go in a pipe with one end stuck in a pan of boiling water. The long ones have different problem because there's no easy way to keep them heated during assembly into the sash. I may have to lay the sash across a couple of steaming pots on top of the stove as I assemble it piece by piece. We shall see.

Big improvement, you just need to make something to hold them in shape till they cool now.

Once inserted into the weave, each piece should hold it's shape--I think. Again, the tough part will be keeping the long slats warm while the short slats are slid into place.

 

[kirkpoore1]

After soaking all the slats and heating the short slats, I started a test weave. It’s not perfect (the weave is off in a few places) but the proof of concept is sound. Next up is to try to fume the slats. I have some concentrated ammonia and will give it a shot this afternoon.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Ok, here’s the fuming experiment. The clear bag has a few oak slats in it along with a small bowl holding a little ammonia. The black bag partially visible to the right has all the rest of my slats in it plus a bowl with more ammonia. This is a 28% concentration of ammonia, which is nasty stuff. I was wearing a mask and heavy rubber gloves when handling it, and I’m doing this outside.
The big issue is that it’s only 52F/11C outside and this is about as warm as it will get until March. There’s no way I’m doing this inside. If this fails I will go with stain.

So now it’s time to wait. The clear bag will let me see whether there is any progress.

 

[GaryR]

Something. The short vertical can just go in a pot of water. The long ones may go in a pipe with one end stuck in a pan of boiling water. The long ones have different problem because there's no easy way to keep them heated during assembly into the sash. I may have to lay the sash across a couple of steaming pots on top of the stove as I assemble it piece by piece. We shall see.


Once inserted into the weave, each piece should hold it's shape--I think. Again, the tough part will be keeping the long slats warm while the short slats are slid into place.

Could you try a forming jig? I'm imagining a set of weave poles like they use for dog agility trials. Just dowels set vertically into a board at the proper spacing. As a long strip comes out of the steam, form it around the weave poles and let it set until dry.

 

[Cabinetman]

Could you try a forming jig? I'm imagining a set of weave poles like they use for dog agility trials. Just dowels set vertically into a board at the proper spacing. As a long strip comes out of the steam, form it around the weave poles and let it set until dry.

That’s a much better jig than I was imagining.
Very easy to make a steam box Kirk, doesn’t have to be fancy and thin bits like those will need very little time in the box, the best and easiest way to produce the steam is to use a wallpaper stripper, just push the hose into a hole in a ply? box, there will be lots of demonstrations online.
Ian