Blank Canvas

I finally have two rooms decorated and with doors and trims.  It is beginning to feel real at last.

my work room

Elizabeth was lucky enough to still have the original Georgian (built-in) linen cupboard in what was once the housekeeper's room.  She has kept this as storage for all the 'stuff' she has for her dolls house hobby.  The old walls have been made good and a new floor and trims put in.  The trims were a 'close call' but the drawers and cupboards will still (just about) open past them.

the rec room

This room has had many incarnations.  It was originally the kitchen of the Georgian house but the large chimney breast and range had been removed in the seventies, long before Elizabeth bought the house.  It was a glorious play room for the children when they were small but has recently been re-done as their (teenage) rec room to hang out in with friends when they don't want to share the space with grown-ups in the family room upstairs. That room is not visible to us as it is behind the two rooms that we can see on the ground floor.

Elizabeth was married to an American and spent a lot of years in the States and some things like the phrase 'rec room' seem like a useful 'borrow'.

Both rooms need the spot lights fitted in the ceiling so I will be spending the next few days figuring that out.  Join me shortly in the cursing.

Knobs and handles

I am certain no-one but me could have made such a fuss over door knobs and handles!

Finally, and by sheer fluke, I found what I wanted.  I was happily trawling through ELF's site, as I do now and then, and I came across these:

two styles

Having escaped the constraints of the Georgian period I can now have what I like and I like these chrome finish ones.  The handles are for the basement and loft rooms and the knobs are for the posher public areas on the ground and first floors.  I haven't used the knobs yet but know I will like them and they make much more sense than brass.

three down, seven more to go

Incidentally door knobs or handles are usually thirty-nine inches from the floor.  They do vary with the period though, so it need's checking if you want to get it 'just so'.

Fitting door trims

I you want to see how I put a door in I have made a video of it: How to fit a door 

The link to the whole channel is over on the left.

When I just watched it I realised I hadn't gone on to show you how to fit the trims on the other side; so here we go.

getting ready to go in place

Put a small amount of glue in the inside corner and then spread carefully over the two edges.  Take care not to overload or take it right to the very edge of the trim so you don't get any excess glue squeezing out on the wall.

Put the door in place.  As I said, if you want to see that in detail go to the video.

back of the door needing trims

For you, gentle reader, I did two methods of applying the trim.

one trim in place, two to go

I imagine this is the most usual (picture above), but not the one I would do.  

You have three pieces of trim so you can choose whichever piece you like to start with.  Probably best to start with a side piece rather than the top to be sure you have got enough height left (or not too much) to get the 'legs' in later.

Here I applied a small amount of glue, spread it with my finger and pressed the trim in place.  It should only just cover the gap between the interior wall trim and the wall.  I made sure I had put it in vertically with a little right-angle ruler.  You can use anything with a good right angle - piece of paper or card, or not at all, just use your eye.

I then fixed the top section making sure it was level and then glued in the third side.

Here is the finished result.

slightly off

If you look very carefully you will see it is slightly 'off'.  I have left more space on the left between the trim and the door edge than I have on the right.  this is why I don't do it this way.  Here's how I trim doors.

I make up the door frame first before wrapping it around the door.

ever useful jig

I love this little right angle jig; I could, maybe do with a larger one now I am back on 1/12ths.

Apply a little glue to the diagonal joint, superglue will do.  Square it up on a jig if you can but, basically if you have the join right it should pretty much do it for itself.

t'other corner

Here it is flipped over with the other corner 'setting up'.  I now have a finished door frame.  All that's left to do is apply glue to the back and take it to the doorway and centre it nicely over the space and press it in place.

I think that this way it gets centered better over the space, you know how much room you need for the three pieces and you get better corner joins.  It is also much quicker.

Cutting coving for corners

I haven't written anything about cutting picture rail, skirting or dado rail because I reckon if you read the two coving posts the others will be obvious - if not - shout and I'll add instructions for them.

OK - this post is really hard to write.  Explaining on paper when I need you here so I can show you is a pain......I will do my best.

I find shaped bits of trim a real challenge.  Don't be put off by that - the level of difficulty will be determined by your own degree of spatial awareness.  I have none!  I have no sense of direction - often get lost just exiting a bathroom in a restaurant!  No kidding. 

I find it impossible to visualise something in three dimensions and always need to 'build' a mock-up to understand the issues.  For example, I thought I wanted to change the rooms and interior walls in my first dolls house so I drew floor plans but then I had no way of being able to figure out how a dog-leg staircase would fit into the plan, or even how they 'worked'.  I literally built a giant cardboard mock up of the whole house and staircase.  I was horrified to discover the sorts of issues my 'design' had created in terms of windows and doors and access and lighting, none of which I was able to visualise on a plan layout.

So, if any of that sounds like you, then you will find shaped trims a bit challenging - not actually difficult, but needing to be thought about.

Here's how I cut a strip of narrow coving which was going to the back ceiling/wall of a room.

Firstly you need to measure the precise width you will need.  I have tried all kinds of ways of doing this.  You can generally get a six inch ruler in the space and make marks as you go and then tot up the measurements to get the width.  You can do reasonably OK with a fabric measuring tape but that is not so precise as the rigid ruler.  

What you must not do is assume that the nice easy to measure front of the room space will do because the front must be the same as the back.  Even the floor at the back, which is also easier to measure than the ceiling line, will not do as there is no guarantee that it precisely matches the ceiling above.

The measurement needs to be along the actual ceiling edge and from wall to wall.  

Here's what I use:

strip of magazine paper

I pull out the centre page of a magazine and stretch it across the space, one edge against one wall and make a crease where it meets the other.  I now have a 'template' for the strip.  No measuring  with fiddly rules and no messing around transferring the odd 1/32"th of an inch or whatever measurement you end up with.

I then physically take the piece of wood to the room and look at the space and write on it which part of it will glue to the ceiling and which part of it will glue to the wall.  If you have a fancy(ish) piece of coving this will matter as the top and back sections won't be the same width or routing.  I then imagine what the cut on each of those 'planes'  need to be like.  

The wall one needs to have a straight vertical edge to run down the wall in the corner.  I draw a line to remind me of that.  These are not lines you will cut on at this stage just a reminder of how you want the strip of wood to end up after you've cut it.

imagine the line drawn rather than already cut

The ceiling face needs to have a forty-five degree cut in it which has to face inwards ready for another piece to join up to it.  I draw a line again  to remind me.  Apologies again for showing you a finished cut rather than the pencil line .

45 degrees facing inwards

I then go to the mitre box and match the cut up to the cutting guides and cut the wood.

You can probably just see the line I drew to remind me of the direction of the angle of the cut.  The wood is in the box with the wall plane to the back of the wall of the box and the ceiling plane looking at me on the top.

can be done better

This is where you can do better.  My husband, who was taking the pictures for me, said "Why are you holding it like that, balanced on the thin edge?  Just flip it and put the wood down with support underneath and at its back".  He can 'see' this stuff, I can't.  He was right it can be flipped and cut in a better way but, sadly, I will probably continue like this because it works for me.

put your wall edge - the straight part - on the end of your template

go down to the other end and mark up with a pencil where you will make the other cut

You then do a similar process with the other two pieces (right side and left side of the room) which will join up to the first one like this:

When they are glued in place this is how they will look on the ceiling:

ignore the tacky wax oozing out of the join - this is just a demo piece

After I had typed this I roamed the web to see if someone had done some simple and definitive instructions - these seem like a good set to have:  Cutting cornice

Don't worry about it - I have made it sound worse than it is - do have a go. 

These are internal cuts as they are on the inside of the walls.  If you are wrapping a trim round a chimney breast for example they become external cuts.  

If you use the diagrams I have given you a link for, it should be hunky dory.  Otherwise, use my primitive and bordering on pathetic method of:  taking stuff to the object, having a bit of a think about how it should end up and making marks to show that, before trotting off to the saw and mitre block.

Cutting coving - right angles

 I am fitting narrow coving to tidy the ceiling joins in the basement rooms.

almost always imperfect ceiling and wall joins.

Take the piece and put in place ......

push tightly in place

........   and, with a fine pencil, mark where you need to cut off the excess:

Transfer the mark to the top edge and put the wood in the mitre block with the mark lined up very carefully with the right angle guide.

Put the saw through the front and back slits, making sure it is as vertical as you can and saw through making one (near) perfect right angled cut.

one neatened join

Cutting trims - the tools

This is for the newbies ....

I really don't think you can cut a trim such as skirting or coving without some sort of minimum tool kit.

There must be a zillion power tools on the market for cutting angles but I suspect they come at a premium.  I know a lot of people use a large (ish) pair of shears that are made for making mitre-cuts through strips of wood.  I chose the more conventional (and cheaper) route.

Having said cheaper, I can't remember what I paid for my mitre block and saw and G-clamp but none of them would have cost much or I wouldn't have them!  I had a quick look on line and the prices vary hugely, so I think it is just a case of shopping around.

You will need:

mitre block

A mitre block can be made in all sorts of materials, wood, plastic, metal....  It has slits which are accurately cut out at ninety and forty-five degrees.

clamped to the table

They can be like mine with a sort of guide edge you can run along the worktop to keep it nicely lined up when you clamp it down; others are just plain blocks that stand on a surface.

I think people probably do saw without clamping the block down but I don't have terrific wrist strength and would prefer stability.  This is a woman who struggles with a coffee jar!

G-clamp

Imagine this the other way round and you'll see why it is called a G-clamp - I guess any clamp will do.  Again, for me, I favour this as it is easy to tighten using its little lever.  I suppose you can use it either way up ?  I just remember my dad having it this way with the screw part at the bottom.

razor saw and handle

This is my razor saw.  It comes with a removable handle so you can replace it when it is blunt or, indeed, use the handle for other tools.  Basically any very fine tooth saw would probably do.

ready for work.

Current favourites

In two earlier blogs I showed you these two items - just wanted to show you that they are currently my favourite things for denibbing all the painting I am doing.

I am still not convinced about the fibre pen but I bought cheaply maybe there are better ones.  That said it acts as a stiff enough (non-damaging) brush to work out a little paint in cracks where you don't want it.

The thing being used on the larger flat areas is the Norton Expert plaster sanding pad.