Odds and Ends

Karen is unable to come down to help with wallpaper so this weekend I take care of a few random things. First, I try to repair the two leaky faucets in the bathroom. When I had the sink installed the plumbers noted the faucets were leaking but they were so old they didn’t want to deal with them. I read up on some techniques to repair an old faucet and tried to disassemble the faucets to get to the innards for repair. I couldn’t budge some of the nuts and gave up. This weekend I come back with some more liquid wrench to see if I can get the faucet disassembled enough to try and replace the worn out washers in the faucet. I’m able to get one of the nuts off that exposes some of the old string valve packing.

String valve packing.

This approach was an older technique so it’s possible these faucets haven’t been touched for decades, which makes sense because now trying to remove the second nut, there’s no budging that. I need to get the second nut off to get to the faucet stem so I can replace the washers. But after a good amount of struggling, I give up and resign myself to buying new faucets to replace these antique ones.

Next up is revisiting the door with the sanded repairs. I re-apply stain to the bare areas and I’ll let that dry before sanding the new stain to try and match the existing stain.

Applying new stain.

On the closet door, there is also an area that is missing stain. I tried fixing this with glaze that didn’t really adhere, so while I have the stain out, I apply that to the closet door repair.

Another stain repair.

Last up is repairing some holes in the attic that were left from the HVAC changes. There were originally four holes. The first two repairs were larger holes that I repaired making a panel. The panel fits over the hole and I used the fake beadboard I was originally working with. Since I have some already stained and finished scraps of the real beadboard from the bathroom, I decide to use that to plug two holes in the attic.

Remaining holes along with the panel repair below.

I start by rough cutting some pieces of beadboard and holding them up to the hole so I can draw a template of the cuts I’ll need to make. I then sister in some wood pieces to the nearby studs so I’ll have something to nail the repairs into.

Sistering wood to the stud.

Another sistered piece of wood so I’ll have something to nail the repair to.

I cut out the wood using a jigsaw and a coping saw. After that I use a rasp and some sandpaper to knock down some of the areas that prevent a clean fit.

Coping saw.

Patched hole.

Another hole to patch.

Second patch.