Doors and Hanging a Light

No major work in the room to do this weekend so it’s continuing work on the doors and a small project in the attic. For the doors, I bought some antique hinges that matched the look of the other hinges in the house. The main door lost their original hinges so I didn’t want to hang it back up with basic, more modern hinges. Luckily I was able to find matches on Etsy but they were unfinished. I use the Sculpt Nouveau degreaser and then metal dye to blacken the metal.

Dying the hinges.

All the hinges are dyed and will dry before clear coat.

I’ll let the hinges dry for a week before applying clear coat over them. The doors are next up with taking a look at the stained door. The door is looking OK but my homemade stain doesn’t dry evenly. I feel like this type of stain needs to be constantly watched and wiped down as it dries, otherwise it globs up a little bit. I smooth things out using 0000 steel wool dipped in mineral spirits to even and level out the stain finish.

Door with some blotching on the stain.

The closet door is further along and gets a coat of standard Waterlox applied with t-shirt material. I like how Waterlox goes on because it’s more forgiving than shellac.

Applying Waterlox.

While I have Karen down, we revisit hanging a light in the attic. We attempted this a few weeks ago, but was nervous because when using a current tester, it kept coming back as hot. I didn’t trust the electricity was fully off, although those types of current testers can give a false positive. This time we try a different tester and then also use a multimeter to check for current. Those come up negative so Karen moves forward with the new light. I got another porcelain fixture off Etsy to match what we hung in the other attic bedroom.

Making sure the electricity is off.

Karen taking a picture of her handiwork.

Like all of the work in an old house, once we take the old fixture off there’s some massaging needed to get the new fixture to fit. The long screw that holds the fixture to the ceiling should go through the electrical box, but it doesn’t match up with existing holes in the ceiling. Rather than drilling new holes, we just recenter the box to go over an existing hole. Once we do that, the rest goes easy with Karen wiring things up.

Hanging the light.

Decorative bulbs.

Back to the door is smoothing out the stain with lots of sanding with steel wool and mineral spirits. I get one side buffed to a pretty nice finish.

Buffing out the stain.

The closet door gets a coat of Waterlox on the other side and that goes on without any issues.

Waterlox coat on the other side.

Last up is another coat of stain on the door. I put this down and then give it some wipe downs as the stain sweats and beads up. Before I head out, I try moving the door to sit vertically instead of laying on the table because I’m nervous of dust settling on the horizontal door.

Staining the other side.

Leaving to dry.