Living Room Cabinets Re-Finished

We are finally done re-finishing the built-in cabinets in our living room. It really was not a big project, but with a baby and work commitments, it seemed to take weeks. The original cabinets (shown below) were in good shape, but the back walls of the cabinets needed a refresh, we wanted to get rid of the orange tone of the stain, and we wanted to get rid of the wooden shelves.

We already told you how we re-stained the cabinets and the doors. We also removed the old wallpaper and painted the back walls of the cabinets. We then ordered glass shelves and installed them to replace the old wooden shelves. We then re-installed the re-finished doors.

I think the finished product looks great, and some day we will fill those shelves with nice things (I don't know if we have any? haha). We still need to install baseboards, re-paint the room, and re-face the brick fireplace, and then we can take a true "after photo" of the living room.

Staining the Cabinet Doors

We have been slowly making progress on refinishing the built-in cabinets in the living room. I decided to dis-assemble the doors to refinish them, as I did not want to accidentally break the leaded glass during sanding. It took about 10 minutes to dis-assemble the four doors.

I then sanded (60, 80 and 120 grit), stained (oil-based) and finished (oil-based semi-gloss polyurethane) the wood pieces, which took about five hours spread out over four nights. The sanding was a bit faster with everything disassembled, and I did not have to tape off the glass when applying the stain/polyurethane. Once everything was dry, I re-assembled the cabinets with 18 gauge 3/4" finish nails, and filled the nail holes with wood putty to match the stain. This re-assembly process took about one televised hockey game (translation: 2.5 hours), including cleaning both sides of the glass.

All four doors are now waiting patiently to be re-installed.

The Real Castlefield

We live on Castlefield Avenue, hence the clever name of our blog. I stumbled on a brief history of our street months ago, and did a little more research earlier this week, so I thought I would share.

James Hervey Price was one of the leading pioneers of North Toronto, opening up the first law offices in what is now Toronto. He owned two large tracts of land, including one that ran through from Yonge Street to Bathurst Street. Around 1830, he built a large estate on this land called "Castlefield" (see undated photo below). Price then loaned large sums of money to William Lyon Mackenzie (Toronto's first mayor) during the Upper Canada rebellion, forcing him to sell Castlefield in 1842. Castlefield was sold again for $16,000 in 1883, was torn down in 1918, and is now the site of Castlefield Community Church. There is quite a bit of Toronto history linked to Castlefield (e.g. Mackenzie actually hid from government troops in a large cradle in Castlefield, protected by a cook with a rolling pin daring the troops to "wake the baby"), but I won't get too long-winded as this isn't really a history blog. And that is how our street got its name!

The source for most of this information was Tales of North Toronto, Volumes 1 & 2, by Lyman B. Jackes. Photo courtesy of Toronto Public Library.

Crawling Baby & Dogs

With 2 big dogs and an avid 10 month old crawler, we're having some issues with where to keep our big water dish. It's a tempting mini-pool to Mackenzie... what to do what to do... help!

French Doors Installed

We spent some time over the last week hanging the doors on the first floor. The plan is to hang the doors as they are right now (not painted), install and paint the trim around the doors, and then paint the doors after the trim is done. Here is a photo of the two doors to the kitchen. The door on the left was easy to frame, as the door frame was not removed during the demolition, so I just had to re-shim one side so that it would close smoothly. The door on the right was a bit more complicated; the kitchen cabinets were about 1/4" too close to the door, so we had to cut 1/2" off of the door, which meant everything had to be re-framed.

I thought I might show the step-by-step process for hanging the french doors between the living room and dining room. Obviously the process is much different (i.e. easier) with new, pre-hung doors, but we are trying to keep as many original details as possible, so we bought some oak french doors through craigslist (for $30!) and have hung them to the existing door frame.

The first step was to identify the hardware to be used to hang the doors. The hardware that came with the door was smaller than the stuff used in the rest of the house, so I removed it and got replacement hardware from other doors/frames sitting around the house.

Next up I had to mount the eight hinges: four on the door frames and two on each of the doors. I decided to keep the hinge locations in tact on the door frames, so I just needed to screw those hinges in place. I then lined up the door frames to the doors and marked the locations of the new hinge locations on each door. A wood chisel was then used to remove the wood where that hinge would go.

The top hinge was then secured to the door with three screws, while the bottom hinge was secured loosely with just one screw. This gives you a little bit of play when first hanging the door to the frame. You can bolt the top hinges together and then play with the bottom hinge a bit to line up the bottom hinges and bolt together; once everything is in place, I then secured the bottom hinge with three screws as well.

To hang the first door, I put the door frame (which has been ripped down to the right width and cut to the right length) up against the wall. I drill a pilot hole into the frame beside the top and bottom hinge; the frame is then secured to the stud with two finish nails. These two finish nails should be sufficient to support the door temporarily, so I then hang the door on the hinges (see above for two part process for that). I then open and close the door to make sure the height and angle are correct with the floor. Because the floors and walls are not exactly level in our old house, this is a critical step. When I initially hung the door, it was fine when closed, but would hit the floor when opened past half way. To adjust the height, I would un-hinge the door, remove the door frame from the stud, move it up 1/2" or so (whatever is necessary), and then secure it with two finish nails again. Once the correct height is reached, the door would be secured with two 3" screws that each go through one hole in the door frame hinge. I sometimes add additional screws through the door frame itself.

One door is now hung. I then measure how much space will be needed for the other door and door frame, and then build out the studs and shim accordingly. In this case, I built out almost 4" since the new doors are obviously about 4" skinnier than the doors that used to be in our house.

The second door was then hung using the same basic process described above. However, in this case, extra care was taken to shim the door frame appropriately so that the doors are not too far apart or close together. When I initially hung this second door, it was almost 1" lower than the other door, so I had to remove it, move the door frame up 1", and then re-hang it -- this is why it wais important to hang with two finish nails first and then move onto screws only once you know everything is in place.

Now that both doors were hung, the top piece of the door frame was cut to size and installed with a few finish nails on each side. You can see the 4" of space to the side of the door frame in this photo; we will need to drywall and paint this area since some of it will not be covered by trim.

And presto - we have french doors! They are horribly dirty in these pics, but fit well in the space and do not get in the way at all (we only wanted to add doors onto the first floor if they did not crowd the space). I think these will look great when they are painted white and our original trim is added back onto the door frame.