San Francisco Victorian

About a year ago we had the house seismically retrofitted by covering the brick foundation in concrete and adding steel support beams (seen here); however, recently we were getting ready to build a new wine cellar and found old support beams and headers. Since we already had the foundation 70 percent retrofitted we decided to finish the rest. This time they dug another trench and filled with concrete and rebar to support another steel i-beam connected to an engineered wooden beam.

Now we have a wide open garage with very few supporting beams anywhere in the middle. The only two we have are covered by drywall which is soon to become the wine cellar. But we’ll go into more on that. For now, check out the pictures of the work here.

The only thing a shop needs more than tools is a place to put them. There is nothing more frustrating than working on a project and not being able to find your tools. Not only that, but you also need a place to clean them and yourself after a hard days work. That’s why with the projects pending and backing up I decided to organize to make them go smoother.

Last week I bought the big red Craftsman cabinet that you see in the picture above. Although it cost $250 dollars it was well worth it considering the amount of time it has already saved me. Putting it together was little more complicated than I would have liked but hey, its done now.

The other thing I invested in was a utility sink. Brian and I had gone way too long without having a place to clean our brushes and our hands when we are done working. Finally no more cleaning brushes in the house. Thanks again to our plumber Paul Stefas from Plumbing Solutions for always coming through when we need him.

All in all, these minor improvements make a huge difference in the shop. Its easier to find tools when you need them, there is more floor space, and we now have a place to clean up when we are finished. Next shop project, knock down a few walls to get more space. More on that in the coming months.

After a few weeks of dust, multiple different contractors, and some of our own elbow grease, the fireplaces are all done. I’d like to thank Joe from Warm Solutions and Paul Stefas from Plumbing Solutions for all their hard work. They all turned out great, look very period, and generate a lot of heat.

For those who are curious, the fireplaces are made by Valor. The two downstairs are pilotless systems that require no power to operate. The flame is ignited via battery. The remote on these can be set to sense the room temperature and adjust the flame accordingly. Very nice for energy savings by just heating one room. Perfect for a bedroom.

The one upstairs is your standard insert with a pilot light and a remote but if you have been following this project you’ll notice that the whole mantle is new as well. The old craftsman style brick was torn out and replaced with a more period Carrera marble unit.

Older posts regarding the fireplaces:

• Top Parlor Gets A New Fireplace
• Gas Inserts For The Old Fireplaces

I found this great 70’s silk-screened type oil painting at The Other Shop down on Divisadero. I dont know what this room would be without this painting and I couldn’t be happier. Most things they sell are very pricey but some things like this piece were not. Even if you’re not out to buy its a great place to get ideas. Sometimes you can find similar things on eBay but other times its the little stores like this one that hide the greatest treasures.

The dust has hardly settled from the work that Joe and his crew from Warm Solutions did today but I had to re-assemble the room anyway. I have had this party planned for a while and there was no turning back. Luckily Joe made sure everything was in on time. The unfortunate part is, I have to take everything back out after the inspection so we can plaster and sand. At this point, we can assemble and disassemble this room in 20 mintues considering we’ve done it nearly 6 times already. I’m just glad to have my living room back even if its only for a few days.

Older posts regarding the fireplaces:

• Gas Inserts For The Old Fireplaces

We all love the look of a nice sleek flat panel TV on the wall but no one likes the look of the wires just dangling there. Hiding them is actually quite simple it just takes a little thought a few tools. My job was little more complicated because I had to figure out how to keep them away from the chimney but the principal is the same anywhere. This is a great thing to try on your own as its a pretty simple job. Worse comes to worse, you pay someone to finish the job if you cant complete it yourself.

Really all you have to do is make holes around the studs so that you can pass wires over them. If your walls are lath and plaster like mine its a little hard to use an electronic stud finder but its still possible. I just knock and listen like the old timers do. Once I find the studs, I knock out rectangles over them so I can run my wiring there. I also like to notch out the studs and then put nail guards over them so a future owner wont put a picture frame nail through them. You could also drill through the studs but HDMI cable heads are kinda big, as well as all the other wires you gotta pass through there.

Make sure that you properly pin down the wires so that they dont get yanked out accidentally. You can use a nail guard like I did or staples. Just be sure not to crimp the wires! I would hate to have to do that twice. Now that the hard part is done, its time to get out the plaster and close up the holes that you made.

I also went the extra step and ran power to the TV so that I could use my power conditioner. I highly recommend using a nice conditioner like a Furman or Panamax to protect your equipment. Being paranoid and not liking to do things twice, I ran this power separately from the other video cables so as not introduce any interference. Again, I hate doing things twice.

Behind the TV I installed a two-gang junction box and a special flat panel TV box that is recessed to give you more room. I picked both of these things up at the Home Depot for a few dollars. Be sure to check out the back of your TV and decide where the box should go. Some places have more room than others and every TV is made differently.

Now if you want to get really fancy like I did, I installed nice wall plates behind my stereo setup for a professional finished look. You can easily just dangle them out from behind the drywall but who wants to do that? If you’ve come this far you may as well go the whole way.

I picked up wall plates for my component video, HDMI, and speaker cable from hififorless.com, one of my favorite cheap equipment suppliers. They didnt cost much and the installation is self explanatory. When it said it done, it looks quite nice. To the right is the component video and HDMI plate I installed from SCP Wire company.

All in all, this is pretty simple task that the average do-it-yourselfer can handle. As I said before, its a great one to try for your first time as its simple to repair if you make a mistake. I would hate to throw away a few hundreds dollars when this job can easily be tackled. A flat panel TV costs enough, save your money!

For more picture visit this flickr set.

This was posted on my personal blog here and later on Apartment Therapy here.

When my housemate and I moved into our new place we weren’t thrilled with the victorian-style knockoff chandelier that was in our living room. Our friend recommended we paint it and see if we still wanted to throw it out. So, I took the idea and ran with it. Needless to say, it’s definitely not getting thrown out any time soon. Here is a picture of the finished product.

This was a pretty simple project and started out with a beat up old chandelier. I took it down and cleaned it off as best I could with soap and water. Then I sprayed it with some white primer before hitting it with two coats of high gloss orange. That was the easy part and didnt take too long.

Next I had to track down some small lamp shade covers. I came across a nice set of 8 at lampsplus.com. First thing I did when I got them was template. This was crucial in cutting out 5 copies from the fabric. I simply wrapped a big enough piece of paper around the lamp shade and taped it. Then I trimmed up all the excess and unwrapped it. Voila template.

After all of the fabric was cut out it was time to warm up the glue gun. Make sure to try and line up the fabric seam with the seam thats already on the lamp shade. First I glued one side down where I wanted it, then I would take out all the slack and wrinkles and fold the over the other side. Dont worry about making this perfect. Once you fold over the top and button around the lamp shade rim you can deal with the rest of the slack.

And thats it! There’s not much to it and it didnt take long. I was able to save an old chandelier from the dump and go something completely original in return. There are more pictures up on Flickr including one of the completed room.

Although there is much more work to do on the top parlor, we have finally decided on color choices. I think it has turned out quite well, sans the brown molding. We chose Behr’s ‘Garden Path’ for the top portion and Benjamin Moore’s ‘Weston Flax’ for rest. A lot more updates are on the way including swatches, furniture, and painting the hideous brown colored molding. For now this will have to do. Oh yea, and don’t mind those holes either. That’s where we are wiring up our sound system and television.

To see all the pictures for this project click here.

When we moved in, we immediately started figuring out our order operations; what was most important to us. It turned out to be a nice living area, a place to eat, and a kitchen. That being said, our kitchen was done, we had a temporary living room downstairs, so it was off to the dining room. My housemate loves to cook and I love to entertain so the dining room seemed to be a logical choice.

What a choice that turned out to be! At first glance, we thought we may keep the wood as is, just sand and refinish. Upon further inspection, the wood was cheap plywood and it had been glazed over numerous times. Even if we wanted to refinish it, that cheap plywood would still show through. So, we decided to paint.

After days and days of sanding and scraping off the old glaze it was finally time for a primer. We went with an oil based primer to bond with the oil based glaze that we had scuffed and sanded to create mechanical bond. That in itself was a daunting task. The stuff goes on thick but it was worth it. After a thick coat of primer applied a latex final coat of white. Well, three coats to be exact. We really wanted a deep rich white and that’s what it takes. Many many coats.

The same holds true for the wall color that we chose. It is Behr’s “Old Flame”. It came out beautifully but took numerous coats. If out anyone knows anything about painting red it can be a royal pain. If you’re going to embark on this journey, don’t lie to yourself. It will take a minimum of three coats end of story. Brace yourself. In our case, it took four! But as you can from the results, its totally worth it.

Although this house has stood proudly on the hill for over 120 years in a seismically active part of the world, its still in our best interest to shore up the foundation. Luckily for us, this house held up through the big 1906 earthquake as well as the one in 1989 due to the fact that is built on solid bedrock. Its quite remarkable considering the foundation is made of brick and mortar and the house is held to it with gravity alone. After all is said and done, this house should stand for at least a hundred more years.

In order to update our aging foundation, we are doing what the experts call a “cap and raise”. That means they are going to raise the sill plate that currently sits on the brick, drill holes for large bolts to attach to the sill, epoxy rebar into drilled holes in the bricks, and encase the whole thing in high strength concrete. If you click on the picture to your right, you should be able to see a closeup of what is actually going on here. In addition, we are having two large steel girders put in to help support the front of the house in place of an old wood beam and turnbuckle system. How this house held up so long is quite incredible.

For more photos on this project click here.