Storm Window Reuse: Cold Frame

Check out this beautiful cold frame built by my brother Simeon using an old wooden storm window from my 1912 Arts and Crafts/Prairie style house. The design is simple, and pretty self explanatory.  Recently I've also used a large storm window over our strawberry box to help the new plants through the cold snap at the beginning of the month (April 2016).

Mortise Lock Repair 101

Now the the big renovation is complete, I've been able to find some time to get to the finer details of owning a 92 year old home. A few weeks ago we installed a rice paper window film to the bathroom door off our kitchen. The previous owners had used a curtain to provide the necessary privacy but we wanted something a bit more modern. It looks great! One problem: the heavy solid wood and glass door naturally hangs about halfway open. Since it took about an hour of shimming, adjusting, and cursing to get the door to close at all, I wasn't about to try anything fancy. Another problem: the latch on the door was not working and I haven't yet been able to find the correct Corbin key for the mortise lock. If you haven't seen an antique mortise lock up close, see below. They are truly amazing little gadgets:

They just don't make stuff like this anymore. The lock that I am holding is close to 5 lbs. of probably brass. But something is missing... Can you find it?

The spring, which causes the latch to rebound after the door knob is released had broken. In the picture, you can see most of the spring attached to the stationary peg while a small part is still attached to the hook and lever controlling the  lock. Where could I find a replacement? Lowes had a few springs, the smallest of which was the correct diameter but more than twice the needed length.

The picture is fuzzy, but what you're looking at is the spring from Lowes, snipped in half and re-bent on the end to make a loop.

I slid the mortise lock back into the door, re-installed the door knobs and face plates, and...

Voila! The Bathroom door stays shut! You can see the privacy film clearly in this picture, although not really the rice paper pattern.

Demolition Update: Before and Now...and after?

Demolition Day got us off to a great start with the remodeling of our 1912 Arts and Crafts house in York, PA. But so much has happened since then!

The kitchen walls have gone from yellow faux-brick wall board, to the mounting lathe beneath it, to bare plaster.

We've pealed back the walls around the back stairs in preparation for their removal and expansion of our kitchen.

 (These are the basement stairs, in their place will

be the fridge, stove, and countertop.)

The dining room closet is ready to be converted to the new basement stairs.

 (We're hoping to recycle the wood flooring we

carefully pulled up in the closet by using it to repair

flooring in a second floor bedroom!)

And most recently, and perhaps most exciting: the kitchen floor has gone from three layers of linoleum (one for every three decades I suppose) to bare wood. Thank to Jon Allen for his assistance in getting the floors to this point!

(While we sanded a lot of lines, stains, and old adhesive off the floors,

another mystery line appeared. It appears to be some sort of cut made when

installing previous flooring but even more interestingly, it seems to have dyed the

wood around it!)

We can't wait for the final product. Then we'll have true before and after photos!