Installing Pre-hung Doors with Rick

A few months I had new stairs installed. I asked Rick, the carpenter if he do my doors. He said he would but he's always busy and I'd have to get on his schedule. Then a few weeks later just before he was to install them, we got flooded, along with most Denver and north. Unfortunately we had our doors in the basement and they got damaged. The doors would have been fine but they put a masonite veneer over the doors and that bubbled when it got wet.

So I had to reorder the doors. I was a bit steamed since I ordered solid wood doors (primed) and they neglected to inform me about the masonite veneer. The doors were only wet for an hour or so and the jambs (wood) were fine. After a long delay the doors arrived just before the end of the year. Rick was busier than before so we didn't get on his schedule for another 1 1/2 months. I worked with Rick over the weekend to speed the job and learn something in the process. Here are my notes and some of the tricks I observed.

First pop out hinges and remove door from frame

Measure the gap between the bottom of the door and the bottom of the jamb. Determine what gap you want. I aimed for 5/8" for bedrooms and 1/2" for bathrooms/laundry where heat/cool air flow is not as important.

If necessary trim the bottom of the jamb to achieve the desired gap. Keep in mind you may need to shift legs up or down to achieve a right angle, and or conform to door irregularities. If you have a transition from tile to floor where there is a height difference, notch jamb so it sits flush on the tile and subfloor.

Check if the hinge side of the door opening is plumb. If it's perfect you can nail the frame to the studs without shims, although I prefer not to do this because if you ever need to reset the door, it's much more difficult to remove if there are no shims. So if there is enough room, shim on both sides.

Be sure to check the level on the inside of the door opening and the face. (ie it could be vertical but leaning out toward the drywall, in which case the door will dip and could dig into floor.

When hinge side of door frame is in an shimmed and plumb (both angles), use shims to correct any bow in frame. 

Nail through shims and put door on hinges and check the gap between top of door and frame. Even though you're right angle may indicate it's a perfect 90, the door may not be square, which you'll see when the door is in the hinges.

You may need to shift the jamb (opposite the hinge) up or down a bit to get a consistent gap across the top of the door. A pry bar is useful for raising lowering. This is much, much easier if setting before the flooring since the jamb will get cut flush for flooring. If setting on finished floor you may need to cut the jamb or worse pull the door frame out and cut the jamb on hinge side.

Tip: you can fire a few finish nails through the door frame (no shims) to keep the door frame from falling out but still have flexibility to adjust it.

Check where the door hits the nosing. You may need to move the frame towards or away from the drywall to get it flush. Once you're satisfied, start shimming the non hinge side to get a consistent gap between door and frame (I aimed for about 1/8"). The non hinge side doesn't need to be exactly plumb -- it only needs to conform to how the door closes.

About 3 shims per side. Fire several nails through the shims for strength.

Working with my carpenter it took about 30-45 minutes per door, depending on how much finagling is required to get it all plumb. Closets took an hour or more, mostly because we had to wrestle with manufacturing irregularities of the doors (Orepac).

Door bottom may need to be cut if not level, or too low. Remember you can go up but not down without starting over.

If you screwed up, cut out the shims with reciprocating saw, remove nails or pound in, and start over

The closet doors are the most difficult since you have to get the doors to meet at the middle with a uniform gap and at the same height.

As you might expect hammering a shim on a top or bottom hinge will raise or lower the door

Tools:

6 foot level

Square

Nail gun

Trim saw (notch jamb, flush cut shims)

Reciprocating saw (cutting out old frame). Cutting out new frame if screwed up.

Awl to remove door pins

pry bar/chisel for removing carpet tacks, adjusting legs

Sealing Fake Teak Patio Furniture with Fake Watco Teak Oil

I purchased a hardwood patio furniture set from World Market a few years ago. The furniture is not teak, but instead a tropical hardwood of unknown species. According to a tag underneath the table it was manufactured in Indonesia. I paid about $600 and change, which seemed like a decent deal for a table, four chairs and a bench.

The first week I had it I applied Thomsons water sealer to provide some protection (later I learned this is not a good sealer). This Spring I noticed some cracks starting to form in the wood so I decided it was time to seal again. This time around I did more research on sealers. What I found out is there are basically two basic recommended choices for sealing: a penetrating oil, or a marine/spar vanish. Oil based sealers soak into the wood and give it a rich appearance. They seal out the water and some sealers provide some UV protection, but it's not a hard protective shell like a spar varnish. Oil based sealers also need to be reapplied more often (every 6 months, depending on climate) but they are easier to reapply than a varnish. Unlike oil sealers, varnishes form a hard barrier on top of the wood and better protect the wood against scratches, and dings (provided it doesn't go through the varnish layer) and grease stains, which oil sealers do not protect well against. Varnishes can crack over time, especially when exposed to direct sun. Varnishes also require more work to reseal: sanding/stripping.

I decided to use an oil based sealer since I felt I would need to clean the wood extremely well and sand before applying varnish, since it's longer seal, and I didn't have the time for that. I went to the hardware store thinking I'd get a Tung oil, since I read it's food grade safe. The hardware store only carried pure Tung oil but I was advised it was only recommended for indoor furniture. The salesperson first steered me to a deck sealer, but when I asked about Teak oil he showed me the Teak oil options, which was really just one: Watco Teak Oil. This is basically teak oil linseed oil plus some additives to preserve the wood and provide some UV protection. It's not super cheap at $38 (gallon) and I used about 3/4 of the container, much more than I expected. Doing some after-the-fact reading on the Rustoleum website, which manufactures Watco "Teak Oil", I found the Material Data Saftey Sheet. This sheet indicates the top 5 ingredients, NONE OF WHICH INCLUDE TEAK OIL. The top five, disclosed under the New Jersey Right-to-Know, include: Raw Linseed Oil, Resin, Zinc Borate. The Pennsylvania Right-to-Know section shows the non-hazardous ingredients at greater than 3%, which include: Raw Linseed Oil and Resin. Again Teak oil is no where to be found, and its reasonable to assume teak oil is non-hazardous. So, Watco Teak oil is completely misleading. It should be labeled Oil For Teak or other hardwoods.

In preparation for sealing I cleaned the top of the table with a laundry detergent mix and scotch brite pad and it did a good job removing some grease stains and accumulated dirt. It really lightened up the wood. I also sanded with 220 to soften up some rough spots. I left the table alone for a couple days to fully dry out. The directions don't mention cleaning is necessary but the data sheet does.

After shaking the can for about 20 seconds, I put on some nitrile gloves and went to work applying the oil with a cheap paint brush. This stuff has a consistency slightly more viscous than maple syrup. It seems like the job would go fast, but considering the four-sides to every piece of wood, and the hard to get to places, it takes longer than I imagined. I was going at a good clip and it took about 3 hours to complete the set (6 pieces), not including cleanup. One thing I forgot to do was shake the can ever so often.

I wore a respirator since the vapor is nasty. I also wore eye protection, which came in handy since the oil was splashing off the brush here and there. After 30 minutes you're supposed to wipe off excess oil. It's nearly impossible to time this as it takes 10-25 minutes to apply. So depending on where you started, it could vary from 0-25 minutes of dry time. I left it on longer than 30 minutes on some of the pieces and it got gummy when wiping off. Hopefully this is a short term issue. I applied the second coat, recommended by directions on the table top only, since I decided that's just too much work.

 The cleanup did not go as smoothly as I expected. It says easy cleanup using mineral spirits, but I found that this is actually not easy. I gave up on the brushes and tossed them. BTW, I found a 2" brush to work the best. I did the job over an old cracked patio, so I didn't care much about the oil stains.

Ikea Curtains = Ironing Hell

I really would like to write a review of these IKEA curtains. Interestingly, IKEA doesn't have customer reviews on their site. In fact, trying to find any information on these curtains was next to impossible.

These are cotton, much like the feel of some khaki pants. The first question is are you going to wash them first. If you wash them you're in for ironing hell. If you don't wash they look nice but they will shrink a bit when you eventually do have to wash and then they might hang too high. But the worse aspect of these curtains is they shrink inconsistently. After drying together, the length differed by as much as 2 inches. Of course this is very noticeable when they hang next to each other.

I ironed them damp since once dry it was impossible to get the wrinkles out, even with my fancy Rowenta iron (I suck at ironing too). I aimed to get the curtains looking decent but I have neither the patience or the time to get them perfect. How to iron is another thing altogether as they are big. I draped them over a couch and feed them over the ironing board slowly. This is slow and tedious. There much be a better way.

In hindsight I would have purchased a polyester curtain. One that could be pulled from the dryer and hung wrinkle free. However I could not find any polyester curtains in white.