I'm headed to Tampa next week to film a television segment for "Daytime" on WFLA-TV. The topic is "Furnishing That First Apartment - Using Craig's List." Yesterday I hit my local used furniture stores, scooping up props for this segment. I'll be refurbishing a small chest of drawers, cleaning a cabinet door and using old wooden beer crates for bookcases.
I'm also scraping and repainting a wooden window from a 1924 bungalow I have as a rental property in Asheville. The window had two broken panes and several coats of pealing paint when I lifted it off its hinges last week (perched nervously atop a twenty-foot ladder). I tapped out the cracked panes with the rubber handle of a screwdriver, then started chipping out the old, dried glazing used to hold the glass in place.
After about twenty minutes with a chisel and hammer, it finally dawned on me: use my router and an old straight-sided bit. Safety glasses were mandatory, as the bit ground up the old glazing, but it made quick work of it and left me with a clean groove for the new glass.
I didn't have any double-strength glass on hand, so I dropped the window off at one of my local glass shops, picked it back up yesterday and put the first coat of primer on it today.
Yes, I know - everyone hates the thought of paying for primer in addition to paint, but remember this: paint sticks better to primer than it does to raw wood.
And I would rather brush on a coat of primer than have to take this window down next year to deal with more pealing paint.
Thanks for stopping by!
Bruce Johnson
|