Cabinet Wood Repair, Old Growth Redwood and Cedar, Clear Grain, and a $50 piece of wood

I needed some pieces of cabinet wood. I took a piece to MacBeath lumber in Berkeley

I thought it was cedar, but the expert there said it was old growth redwood because it was too heavy to be cedar. "If you really want to match this, you need to go to the Lumber Baron in Albany." So it's old growth redwood, and that's hard to find and expensive. I decided to look at their cedar because if the only difference is weight, that won't matter when nailed to the wall. Plus this isn't meant to be a forever fix. In maybe 10 years I want to expand the kitchen and that's going to be super expensive and at that point I'll get some new cabinets made out of clear grain cedar or something for like 35K... Yikes

I looked through their boards and got the brownest one to match the oxidation of the old wood. I had to get "V.G. CLEAR" redwood which means clean, tight grain. At 1x6"x12', it was about $7.50 a board foot. (6" is half a foot so 6"x12' is equal to 1'x6' so 6 board feet). It was $50

$50 but it matches so well! 

I think I can darken it with a yellow stain

Matching the finish will be hard...

It's hard to see but there's a "Mary Kay" white type finish which is a milky finish. 

The milky finish is a closest match to "pickled oak"  which looks like this on pine

FUN FACT: The above finish was used on Fender guitars in the '50s and '60s over Ash under the name "Mary Kay White." 

Fender "Mary Kay White" Stratocaster '57 reissue

But our cabinets are actually a little purple

Back door is very purple. The picture doesn't show it but it looks more like blueberry ice cream

I had to shrink the cabinet up 3" to fit a modern fridge. 

Now I need to cut down the door. 

OK! I got the original cabinet trimmed up about 3" to fit a modern fridge. I'll figure out how to reproduce the milky pink stain in another post. 

Kitchen Sink drain repair and cleanout

The kitchen sink wasn't draining so I went looking for a cleanout - a plug in the drain line you can open to clean out a blockage. The tool used for this is called a snake and if you have a 88 year old house like me then you've probably had to use one. It's a cable that has a coil on the end and it works really well and is cheap. 

To use: Open the cleanout and stick it in as far as you can.  Then tighten down the finger bolt so you can rotate the drum and the spiral at the end will drill into the blockage. Usually this will fix a blocked drain.

Unfortunately, the sink didn't have a cleanout and now I will show you why that sucks so bad... because you can't snake it, you have to cut in a cleanout.

Drain is blocked and no way to clean it... THAT'S WHY YOU ALWAYS PUT IN A CLEANOUT

It was very hard to cut this out with the plumbing and electrical in there

T removed  

1/2" couplings  

I got it in there, opened the cleanout, snaked it, and it drained. Save yourself 4 hours and put in the cleanout to begin with. 

Snakin' it

I hooked up the other sink drain and now I'm done... I hope. 

Range Backsplash

I added a hood above the range. It originally had nothing and then a homemade vent hood and it was greasy and sucky.  

After adding a hood, I needed more backsplash tile up to the hood so that the grease from the cooking surface can be wiped down. I decided to make it match the bathroom tile I extended up when I raised the shower head. 

The tile was sticking out because it was done over the original backsplash which was a weird red painted cement thing

With the old backsplash removed, I can set the tile close to the wall

I put up two different thickness backerboard. 1/2" for the 6x6 because they are thin, about a 1/4". 1/4" hardibacker for the clay tiles since they are about 1/2" thick. This puts the tiles in the same plane.

I did the white tile first so it is parallel with the floor and hood.  

Clay tiles sitting in place for layout to match other side. 

I cut out tile for the wall light fixture because I decided to keep them as a theme like in the bathroom

Set first row. Tiling down is not the natural way

I had to carefully chip out the old mortar bed to reset the corner tiles since I moved the adjacent wall back

Got them all set. Also fixed the plaster.

Here it's grouted.

I used "natural grey" grout so hopefully it'll match the old stuff and look good behind the wedgewood.

Original Decorative Tile, '39 tile, '60s(?) tile

As you know if you have been following, there appears to have been three major phases of work:

1927-8: original construction, I'd guess 1200 square feet, 1 bedroom and the downstairs bathroom

1939: music room and breakfast nook added, changing room turned into master bath, probably crappy walk in master closet added (without permits and leaky) around this time (windows are single-light wood windows which would fit with this period). Garage seems to match the style of a Maybeck from this era (Wallen II house) and was probably added around this time as the rock fascia matches one put on the music room.

'50s and '60s: back bedrooms and upstairs bath ('50s I think), and linoleum in the kitchen and the last new roof '60s (last owner told me this). Also, I think the crappy master bedroom walk in closet probably had cabinets added because they cover the windows.

I have overlaid the permit records with the date of plumbing fixtures and rough estimates for stylistic features as well as information from the owner who grew up here whose parents bought it in 1960. He told me they did the roof at that time and added the linoleum in the kitchen. All the other work seems to line up with the three permits. 

Using the story I've put together, I can break the bathroom tile into three phases as well. 

1927: original downstairs bath tub and floor tile. In the notes it says the tiles are from Tunisia. 

LOVE these tiles. One of the features that sold me on the house  

I did an image search for Tunisian tiles and found this: 

Look at the little bird! 

credit: 

http://www.elleninturkey.com/2012/09/santa-barbara-sights/

The 1929 Santa Barbara Courthouse has one of the same tiles! It's not the exact same tile, but so similar. I think it's like Mexican crafts sold on the street - everyone makes their own clone of the same hand-painted maracas or more recently NFL themed day of the dead masks.

It appears that these Tunisian tiles were popular during the late '20s. 

Tunisian and Moroccan tiles are more the "Arabian" style of hand-painted decorative tiles than the hand-painted decorative Mexican tiles known as Talavera tiles. I was looking at both and though decorative tiles and terracotta tiles are common in both cultures, they have a notably different "feel." My house has North African style and therefore I should use that type when tiling the master bath.

For reference, these are more Mexican looking tiles at Import Tile in Berkeley

1939-40: These tiles may have been added later as they don't totally match the originals:

Here the circa '40 tile is next to a 4&1/4" square Dal-Tile spa tile. 

It seems odd the decorative tiles match ONLY above the floor. The clay tiles also seem a bit different color than the floor. This and other reasons make me think this base tile was part of a bathroom overhaul in '39

These tiles, and the 6x6" red clay quarry tiles (terracotta), were added to:​

-original bath as base tiles (like a baseboard)​ and around the tub which  may have had a low shower head added at this time

-behind the range as a backsplash​

-laundry sink backsplash​

It's possible that they are original but it seems odd the same accent tiles wouldn't be used throughout the original lower bath. 

I had to repair the range backsplash so I had to take off some tiles. The red clay quarry tiles were labeled "CARLYLE MADE IN U.S.A." and are very similar to the Red Blaze Quarry Tile made by Dal-Tile today. They probably used to be the same color too but they're porous and darken with age.

Lighter tiles are new Dal-Tile quarry tiles

'50s/'60s: some effort was put in to match the original bathroom tiles in the upstairs bathroom. But they are yet a third type of 6x6 clay tiles and accent tiles

Decorative tile is "hmmmm..."

They used Italian thin clay tiles and probably Dal-Tile trim pieces to match original but the accent tiles seem... off. 

I know these are a third type of tile because I found extras. The clay tiles are the thinner, more modern kind from Italy. 

Modern Italian clay tiles are thinner than the old clay tiles which are very thick  

Finally, the mid-century mosaic tiles. 

The wall tile looks '40 but the floor tile looks '60 as well as the shower door

This marble linoleum tile was added at some point. It's over 1/4" ply which may be on top of wood or... 

Here is the mid-century bath.  The tile is made to match the lower bath but the trim is definitely mid-century

The door and shower pan match the master bath and both seem wrong for the house 

So there you have it! 3 phases of work, three sets of tiles, and some other crap thrown in too! I'm doing this research to help develop my design for the master bath tile and upper bath shower repair. I am looking for consistency here! I need to unify the design of the house. A big part of my job when working on old houses is to peel back the dated, halfbaked "improvements" and to remodel and restore the house by using the original style as a guide as much as possible. I think Maybeck had a hand in the '39 addition so I will respect those features as well. I have decided to make the master bathroom look '27 even though it was originally a changing room. I'm looking forward to that!

The tub I want to add to the master bath from VintageTub.com