Tuesday

I thought I would start out working 0n the french doors tonight and maybe get some of the windows taped off before I started the stripping process. The first picture is of the door before I started messing around. So I started my messing around. I pulled the hardware off and really marvelled at the detail of the mortises. I don't want to take anything away from today's carpenters or finish carpenters, but you have to admit whoever did these sure did a great job and took their time. I mean the brass was in there tight. Pretty cool huh?




In the last picture you can see where I ran out of tape to finish off the window panes. Think about it 3 panes across, 4 high, both sides and 2 doors. That is 48 panes that need to be taped off. Really I probably don't need to tape everything off but I am a masochist when it comes to some things. But as I ran out of tape I was standing there looking at the cobwebs in the overhead joists and thought of the cool little heat gun that I bought a few weeks ago and never really used yet. I was also thinking of some of the other things you could use a heat gun for.
Like:
Making toast! everyone likes toast even Elwood Blues.
Defrosting a freezer
Ok, here is one! You only eat half a Ding Dong (I know, a stretch) but say your in a hurry and need to reseal the package to keep your chocolate jewel fresh for next time?
What if you wear Lee Press on nails? ( I don't) but you could heat it up a bit, and reform that plastic back to your finger.
How about creating a bunch of smoke from the melted paint, thinking your pretty smug about melting the paint off and the furnace kicks in and fills the whole house with that great smell? Now that is more of a reality than defrosting a freezer.

But I digress. Picture 5 is where I am happily melting paint and I hear a strange sound. Now there are tons of weird sounds that come from an old house and I really just thought it was one of my poltergeist (I don't care what you say, I have one, and maybe two that like to play pranks, knock things over etc.One I call Joe, the other? just "Knock it off") But anyhow what I was really hearing was the glass making a low cracking sound. I looked down and sure enough, crack! Ok, note to self, don't put the heat gun "on" the glass to get close to the mullions and fry the paint off. So fall back, regroup, assess the situation.

What I did do was take off all the paint around the door and far enough from the glass so as not to humor the gods with my stupidity.

It is kind of cool the way it peels up and then when the paint cools on the scraper it just crumbles off. Alot less mess than using chemical stripper. But I still need to use some stripper to clean up the mullions.

My visit with the OCL

I had a treat tonight (no not another story of Ding Dongs, although I did treat myself to a couple this evening) I was able to visit with a fellow re-habber that bought an old church and parish house. Very cool place, I wasn't thinking and did not take any pictures. I was so enamored by the whole project (well ok I got to talking to much) and lost track of time. Not only did they buy the church and parish house but the church came with a working pipe organ and a baby grand looking piano. Pretty neat. I wish I knew how to play, it would have been great to play Phantom of the Opera, or a baseball song.
There is a turbine under the pipes that air up a bellow and then somehow by pressing the keys it allows the air to come out. I didn't really climb around in the pipe room but you could hear the turbine whirring below. On the wall behind the pipes written in pencil was a list of dates and names of the guys who came and tuned the organ. I think the earliest was around 1923 and the latest was 1948. Again I have say pretty cool.
The entire inside ceiling of the chapel is all tin ceiling (steel actually) and in remarkable shape. So can you imagine being in a "house" with 20 + foot ceilings and a pipe organ cranking out tunes?!

They have almost finished the parish house and should be able to move and make things livable in the next few months. Or maybe I am just being optimistic for them and being overly hopeful.
I almost forgot, what is OCL??? The original Church lady of course! If you live in a church you have to be a church lady right? There is just no getting away from that.