Building An Arch...a Step by Step Guide!

OOOPS...the pantry door I built in the kitchen of the old house is too short...my wife cannot access the top of the pantry (and she's NOT happy)!!

 

An "elegant" solution:  build an Arch on top!

I started by drilling a sheetrock screw in the center over the lintel...and attaching a string and pencil

Then,  I drew an round arc and cut along the line with a sharp blade

Followed by a handsaw...

I removed the wallboard...but it broke in pieces!

One side done!

It would be easier just to place the removed sheetrock on the opposite wall and trace...but since it broke in small pieces, I had to lean my carpenter's pencil against the cut wall and traced around the inside wall...the hard way!

Finally,  both sides of my arch are exposed...

To remove the studs,  I used a reciprocating saw to cut a pilot line horizontally...

and then down following the edge of the sheetrock.

Here's the arch cut out on both sides!

You can get a kit to finish your arch...but the local home improvment warehouse didn't have one...so I used a thin piece of plywood cut against the grain instead...

And secured with sheetrock screws at each of the three studs.

Finally,  I took fiberglass sheetrock tape and cut little triangles so it would fold around the edges...

and impregnated it with joint compound, just like cast material used in a hospital

 

Here's the almost finished arch with the first coat of "mud,"  ready for more sanding and compounding.

My wife now has access for two more shelves in the eighteen or so inches above the arch and it adds a little more character to the kitchen in our old house!

Excuses and Philosophical Observations!

 Wow...has it been a month already? No excuses here...except for working some overtime and my carpenter having a tornado in his backyard and having to do my helper's sheetrock "mudding" over and I'll think of more if you give me a minute.

                                                                                     

We're getting there  Gary the Carpenter, Ron the Plumber and me...that's about all I can say. Here's some shots of the new laundry room in progress in the upstairs hallway...we cut the wall out of one end of the roof eaves and our "retired" plumber Ron did some complicated roughing in of the pipes.

 

In their spare time,  the boys hung the kitchen cabinets;

A LOT less cabinet space then we have right now!!. The indentation on the right of the second photo is for a spice rack...and Joyce wants Concrete Countertops!

Concrete countertops???????

Meanwhile,  I took on what I thought was) an easier task: turning the back door around so there is better access to the kitchen. What I didn't know was that the jam was cockeyed and the door had been cut to fit the cockeyedness....so in turning it around...it was now doubly cockeyed!  (but it works...big gap on both ends...but it works.)

 
OUCH! =>>>>      

We also added a coat closet to the downstairs "right" parlor (as opposed to the "left" parlor)...and found folding doors for it at the Habitat Restore;

BUT NOW I GET PHILOSOPHICAL.....   

The Mystery of the Dying Rhododendron

You will recall this plant from an earlier blog entry in April.  We planted it in the front yard,  under the big trees, with the appropriate acid-rich soil and treated it with the proper, expensive fertilizer...and it was fun in April and May but began to fade about July and by the end of August was dead and returned to the garden center.  Gary, the carpenter, suggested that trimming of the trees out front had changed the environment from shade to partial shade and had killed it.  Others said the summer was too dry, even though it was watered regularly.  A third suggestion was that misery loves company so we should have planted several of them at once.  The best suggestion of all:  shit happens. 

The thing that bothers me...about the dead plant...is that I prayed about it and over it;  stopping short of anointing it with holy water.  It was not a big prayer;  it was not for world peace or to find a cure for cancer or even for the Cincinnati Reds to win the pennant this year.  I guess it has something to do with natural law;  you violate it...even if you don't know what you did...and you receive the consequences.  SOMETIMES,  there is divine intervention when you pray, and sometimes, even if you don't.  Those times are called Miracles and they do happen but not in Arlington Heights,  not in our front yard, at least not this time.

Maybe the Reds will have better luck. 

The old house is shaping up...next week, I start the flooring in the kitchen and dining room and the boys pour a base for the shower upstairs and finish the downstairs bathroom.  I promise to be more responsible in reporting what is going on in the Old House.  

Tanks for your patience!   Deano