The rail's in, the paint's done, off to Erin's place...

It rained most of the weekend at Deepcreek, so was a good time to to work on the place without feeling guilty for not spinning up the boat. Cherie took on painting the guest bathroom, and I tackled the iron pickets and railing. We spent most of the day Saturday getting paint and running errands and Sunday was wall to wall work.

The interesting thing about the place is that none of the measurements are the same anywhere. The distance between the support 4x4 were 36, 37, 38, and 42 inches wide. I swear the builders were drinking Iron City throughout the job! But it was my job to make it work. Everything went as plan and the install was fairly easy until the very end.

I decided to use two different types of end shoes for the pickets - a plastic shoe for the top of the picket and an iron shoe for the floor. Good idea because the plastic shoe is much lighter than the iron shoe and is a little less likely to give over time. Now the issue... the anchor screw in each of the shoes has an odd "star" opening - but I had my star bits so I was still in business - but over 50% of them were totally welded in on the iron ones and painted in on the plastic shoes. SO trying to tighten them only stripped them. Since they were already on the picket, and the pickets were already epoxy'd in, it's not like I can return them or anything, so I decided to epoxy them on. They are permanent now - but since the pickets are also epoxy'd in, I guess it's no different epoxying the shoes too. Here's a couple of pics of how things turned out...





... the next time we are up there I'll stain and poly them to match the floor.

Cherie, on the other hand, did a great job on the guest bedroom - it looks fantastic! We used Walmart (yes, Walmart) paint. Their "brand" is Kilz, and it's actually a very good paint at a very affordable price. I like it better than Home Depot's Behr which spreads like Elmers glue and is tons cheaper than Lowes Valspar - which is my second fav brand. Kilz is alot like Dutch Boy in how it covers and it probably is the best for the money.

Now that we've finished the painting, just about done with the railings, and waiting for the remaining kitchen pieces to arrive, we're off to the College Park condo this weekend to get it ready for the comming school year.

Let's try Iron Railings...

We finally finished painting the kitchen and family room this week and now have a couple of days of downtime while we are waiting on the final shipments to arrive. All that remains before I can start the before/after photoshoot is the pecan counter, sliding glass door, the basement door, counter stools, the correct doors for the cabinet above the beverage center, and the hardware for the ceiling light. Those should be trickling in over the next month - so we should be wrapping up in September.

In the mean time, my Deepcreek railing project is underway. When the floors were replaced last year, the 4x4 load bearing beams got a little torn up in the process. I basically had two options... 1. replace the beams, or 2. wrap the beams to create a fresh outward appearance. Since the beams are tied into the structure itself, that chore seemed like a little more than I wanted to bite off with the kitchen going on and all. So I decided to wrap them.

The picture below has a montage of before and how I did the wrap. The leftmost image is what I started with - some pretty old 4x4s with rips and holes all over it. The second image reviews how I did the wrap... I used a 4x8 sheet of 1/4 thick red oak plywood, cut 4"x8" strips with the edges at a 45 degree angle, then used PL375 as the adhesive. The far right image is how I attached the wrap - just a bunch of painter's tape using elmers wood glue for the 45 degree cuts to make a seemless edge.




The images below are the taped up job on the left and the final product on the right...



What I did was actually create what appears to be 4x4 solid oak support beams. The PL375 when mooshed against the original 4x4 created the solid feel when you tap against the wood.

Now that the support beams are complete, I'm going to do the oak railing and iron pickets using a style like this...


Iron railings will be a first for me, but you have to start somewhere!!!