Ask This Old House

Kevin

Today on "Ask This Old House"...

Tom

How do you hang crown molding on a cabinet like this? I have a solution. That little reveal at the top doesn't give us enough to take and nail our crown molding to. There's not enough meat there. All right?

Richard

If your toilet seat needs an upgrade, there are plenty of choices to consider.

So here it comes. Kevin

Oh, yeah, whoa. Hello!

Laughs

So here it comes. Kevin

It washes the floor.

Mauro

And I will tutor our friend Mary how to strip wallpaper safely. This is all we need to start removing this wallpaper. Hot water, vinegar, and some putty knives.

Mary

That's it?

Kevin

Hi there. I'm Kevin O'Connor, and welcome back to a brand-new episode of "Ask This Old House." As you're probably aware, we have an initiative that we call Generation Next, and it is our attempt to help recruit young people into the building trades. And as part of that initiative, we have been inviting young apprentices to the "This Old House" job sites over the past couple seasons. Well, we have two new apprentices who have arrived in Jamestown, Rhode Island -- Kevin Barker and Mary McGuire Smith, and they're working with our general contractor Jeff Sweenor. And we thought it'd be a good idea to get them involved in some "Ask This Old House" projects, as well. So, Mauro, any chance you got some projects for us?

Mauro

I heard you saying two new apprentice? Guess what -- We just got an e-mail. This homeowner wants to paint the dining room walls, but there is some wallpaper to be removed.

Kevin

Oh,

okay. -Mauro

And I think it's going to be a good chance for them to learn about how to remove wallpaper.

Kevin

Yeah, I think removing wallpaper is a great first project for a young apprentice. So there are a lot of different ideas on techniques for removing wallpaper. Some people say steam or chemicals or scraping.

Mauro

Chemicals and scraping. Only reality is about 10% technique and 90% elbow grease.

Kevin

Perfect. Well, I know that Kevin and Mary have got a lot of elbow grease to give, so why don't we call Jeff Sweenor, have him send us one, and you'll have yourself an apprentice.

Mauro

Sounds good to me.

All right. -Mauro

Thank you.

Brian

Hi, Tom. Thanks for coming out here today.

Tom

Thanks for having me. I like your house.

It's very nice. -Brian

Thanks. We've been here for about two years. We renovated the entire first floor. Painted the walls, put in new hardwood.

Tom

The walls look great, and I love the floors.

Brian

Thanks, and part of it was we renovated the entire kitchen.

Tom

Wow.

Brian

So the old kitchen layout was, there was a door right here to the backyard, and we filled it in with these two windows.

Tom

That's great because it gives you more countertop space and cabinet space.

Brian

Yeah, and my dad and I actually hung the cabinets.

Tom

That's great.

Brian

We're having some trouble with how to finish it and how to fasten crown molding to the top of this cabinet.

Tom

All right, well, I think we can solve that problem. Do you have the crown molding?

Brian

Yes, I do.

Tom

All right, so why don't we get some tools, and we can get the crown molding in.

Sounds great. -Tom

All right, Brian. Here is a sample of what your cabinets are right here. These are actually called full overlay doors, all right? So when I open the door, you can see that the opening, and the door is away from the opening. But it also gives you a little reveal on the top and on the sides, okay? So the problem with this is, that little reveal at the top doesn't give us enough to take an nail our crown molding to. There's not enough meat there. All right? And it also puts the crown molding deep in behind the door. I like to be out, proud, with the door like that. So to solve that problem, I've taken a piece of five-quarter material, and I cut a little rabbet in it right there. So when I place it on to of the cabinet like this, I now have the filler sitting flush with the edge of the door, and I've also created a small space above the door. Now when I take the crown molding, and I put it on the filler, keeping it even on the bottom, that puts the crown molding right where I like it to be, all right? We're going to do the same thing on the side. But the difference with the side is, we don't want the overhang, so we're going to mount it this way, and it'll be flush with he side.

Brian

Ahh,

okay. -Tom

All right? So now we'll just measure our cabinets and cut our pieces. I'll start by making my rabbet cuts for the front filler pieces. We'll paint the exposed sections of the filler with spray paint. Then I can cut the side filler pieces and mount everything to the cabinet. This gel glue will let me hold everything in place until the wood glue dries and gives it a permanent bond. All right, now we're ready to start installing the crown molding. The first thing I've done is I've cut three pieces for this cabinet, and I've cut them a little bit long. So I'm going to take the one for the side, and I'm going to hold it against the cabinet the way it goes. Push it tight to the wall. I want to make sure I hold it relatively square with the cabinet. So now with the molding into position, I'm going to take my pencil. I'm going to hold it flat or tight so the point is tight to the face and mark the back of the crown molding like that. I take it down, I'm going to mark right even with my marker that I placed here. I'm going to come up, and I'm going to go this way because that's the way I want my miter to go, all right? I'll do the same thing on that side. Now, the challenging part when cutting the crown molding is the orientation on how you hold it to the saw and holding it to the saw safely. First of all, let's look at the crown molding how it goes up. It goes this way. Tight to the ceiling. Tight to the wall. Actually, these two are 90 degrees to one another. Let me show you with my framing square. So if I hold it against the ceiling and against the wall, when they come together, that's 90 degrees. All right, so now, if I hold it against the table like that, I could cut it, but that's dangerous because I can't really hold it firmly. I won't get an accurate cut if it's not held at that right angle. So what I'm going to do is take this framing square, the ceiling and the wall, and I'm going to flip it upside down. So, here's the wall, and here's the ceiling. When I take my crown molding and flip that over and push it against the saw so it's tight to the wall and tight to the ceiling, now I can hold it firmly when making my cut, and the cut will be really accurate. Now, to make sure that I hold the crown molding in that correct orientation every time, I'm going to glue two blocks, one on each side of the saw blade. All right, so now I'm going to make my cut on this piece right here, and that's the mark that I made on the back, and this'll be the short of the miter because I have it going in that direction. I'm going to place it in the saw against the blocks against the fence in the back, and I'm going to turn my saw to 45 degrees. I'm going to position this mark to the edge of my blade, but I'm going to cut it a little bit long to make sure that I'm right in the back. Bring it down. Slide it over just a little bit. Hold it tight to the saw and make a cut. All right, so now I have to slide it to my left just a little bit. Hold it firm. Make a cut. All right, right on the mark, perfect. So now let me show you what we have with our sample cabinet right here. I take the molding and I put it on the end like it will go, that's a 45-degree. This makes up 90. Now we have to do the sister cut on our front piece that we've cut long, also. So that's going to go like that, and I know that the angle is going to be opposite. So I now turn my saw 90 degrees to the other 45. Lock it down and make a cut. And now we have the sister cut for our side piece. They go together just like that.

That looks amazing. -Tom

All right? So now what I want to do is nail this together, take it inside, and mark our length.

Saw whirring

That looks amazing. -Tom

All right, Brian. All of the crown molding that we've put up on your cabinets right now on this side of the kitchen and over the refrigerator and this side have all had what is called an outside miter.

Okay. -Tom

All right? Now this last two pieces of crown molding is going to go up over this cabinet and return here is going to have what is called an inside miter, all right?

Brian

Okay.

Tom

And this is what I've made up. I've made up this piece. It's gonna go up here, and first of all, on this end right here that's going to terminate at that wall, which means the crown molding's not going to come up. It's going to stop right there, so we're going to do a straight 90-degree cut.

Okay. -Tom

On this end right here, the crown molding's going to come down and come out. What we have to do is an inside miter. WE have to turn the saw so we cut the miter into itself at 45 degrees. On the short piece, it's going to come out, and we're going to turn the saw in on itself at 45 degrees, which now gives us a 90-degree inside corner.

Brian

Oh,

okay. -Tom

All right? And then we just have the outside corner that's gonna meet up with that. Now, this piece is cut the exact length from wall to wall. We're just gonna slide it up and nail it into position. The final step is to caulk around the top where the crown molding meets the ceiling and fill all the nail holes. All right, Brian. The crown molding is all up, and it's complete. What do you think?

Brian

It looks amazing.

Thank you so much. -Tom

My pleasure. I'm glad I could help.

Richard

We're going to talk about toilet seats, often considered the best seat in the house, right?

Right. -Richard

So, many times, people move into new houses, and they just want to have a new seat, you know? So I want to take you through some of the choices. There's not many standard things in the plumbing industry, but one is, there's either the round bowl toilet

right here. -Kevin

Yeah.

Richard

And that measures about 16 inches.

Kevin

Okay.

Richard

Or the elongated or pear-shaped, and that's another two inches deeper. You got to get the right size.

Kevin

Based on which one you have.

Richard

Right. So there is one thing which is standard, and that's the size between these bolts right here.

Kevin

So boom, 5 1/2 to the center.

Richard

Yeah, okay, and it could not be easier nowadays. Buy a new toilet seat. They've got it so that you can put it right into place. Sometimes there's a gasket right here, and that drops in. And these bolts -- they're now plastic. They used to always be brass. Now, this drops down inside. Look at this, all it is is a handhold that you go like this, and then with a screwdriver, you tighten these things down.

Kevin

They've got that handhold because that's a tight spot underneath.

Richard

This will squeeze up into that space. You don't even need a wrench at the bottom, okay? So you tighten them up. So that's pretty simple. Oftentimes, the hardest part of these jobs is how do you get the old toilet seat off?

Kevin

They do fail, and it is maddening.

Richard

They always were made out of brass right here, and it's a metal you had to use. You couldn't use a ferrous metal that could rust.

Kevin

That's brass?

Richard

That is brass, even though it's coated and got a seal. So you often would see down below a nut like this with a washer. Now, it's sitting in a pretty miserable place, so you could try with an open-end wrench or a box wrench. But this is a soft metal, and if you deform it, it's not going to come off. So best first attack is a socket that fits exactly so you can bite on all sides.

Kevin

I've worked on a bunch, and they seem to be always deformed, almost completely unbitable.

Richard

But more often than not, this is our attack.

Kevin

So you're just going to cut it off.

Richard

That's right. So what you want to do is protect the china. You often see, we come there, the homeowner says, "I tried to get it off." And you see the whole toilet all scratched up.

Kevin

It's interesting you're working up here as opposed to down here.

Richard

There's no real way to go down underneath there 'cause that's up inside a place you can't get to.

Kevin

All the more reason to be careful.

Richard

To protect the china, you'd use either a flat putty knife or a little bit of tape, and you go in right here. You don't care about cutting the plastic, but you're trying to get to that soft brass.

Kevin

So you can pop that thing off, put a clean one on, got it.

Richard

All right, so then there's choices. Choices, choices, choices.

Kevin

Come on, right? Sea horses and boardwalks. I guess these are for the beach house?

Richard

For the beach,

okay. -Kevin

Trippy.

Look at the trippy. -Kevin

Whoa, hello. Something that is a rose by any other name.

Richard

I'll just be a minute. Sorry. A padded toilet seat here, okay?

Kevin

Okay, make sense.

Richard

And then there's some toilet seats for different ends of the age spectrum. Here's a toilet seat, elongated. It looks conventional. It also has the drop down right here for the potty seat.

Kevin

Oh,

yeah. -Richard

When you're done, that thing can snap right out and away.

Kevin

So you're back to adulthood, right?

Richard

Also what's great about this is a self-closer.

Kevin

I think that's the greatest invention of toilets until you go to the house that doesn't have one, and you boom, slam it down.

Richard

For the graying of America, this is fairly handy. It fits onto the conventional toilet, gives you the grab bar for security, gets that toilet seat up high.

Kevin

Retrofit, that's terrific.

Richard

That's right. And then there's a toilet seat that can go onto any toilet. This is an add on to an existing toilet that turns the toilet into a bidet, has a dryer, has a heated seat, okay? And what it is, it's pretty straightforward. It's got a water connection right here that you intercede on the regular water connection. The only thing you do have to add is electricity, so you got to find a way to get it electrified.

Kevin

You said this is a retrofit to a standard toilet.

Richard

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I live with one. They're pretty awesome. So put your hand down. It won't come on unless you're sitting down.

Kevin

Look at you and I. Sharing a toilet seat here.

Richard

So here it comes.

Kevin

Oh, yeah. Whoa, hello.

Both laugh

Richard

It washes the floor.

Kevin

That's more exciting than the sea horses.

Mary

Thank you so much for letting me tag along today, Mauro. I'm new to the trades, and I'm really excited to learn as much as I can while I'm here with you guys.

Mauro

That's great. I'm happy that you're here, and this project, it's a good one for you to learn how to remove wallpaper.

Mary

Is that a difficult job?

Mauro

Well, there's a couple things we have to check. Whether this paper was applied to plaster or drywall and how many layers of paper we have to remove. If it's drywall, some of the backing paper, when we try to remove the paper, comes right off with the wallpaper, and that means a lot more patchings, and a lot more prep work to do.

Mary

Is there a way to check?

Mauro

Definitely. Let's try a corner right here. First with my utility knife, I'm going to look for a seam right there, and I'm going to try to get right behind the first layer of the wallpaper. And there, we're going to try to lift it up. Let's see how that comes. Check this out, Mary. And it's coming right off. Take a look at it. It looks like there's one layer of paper only, and it's plaster walls. This is going to be a good project for us. Let's get some drop cloths to protect the floor. Since we'll be working with water, we're going to use a plastic drop cloth and exterior painter's tape to catch the water. Just press it down. Now we're going to deal with the electrical plates. Those plates can actually protect the outlets from water. Instead of remove them, we're going to just cover it with the blue tape. Now I'm using my putty knife and my utility knife, and we're going to cut around. We'll remove all the wallpaper around, and we'll come back for this one last. Well, this is all we need to start removing this wallpaper. Hot water, vinegar, and some putty knives.

Mary

That's it?

Mauro

Well, the hot water and vinegar will help to deactivate the wallpaper paste, and the wallpaper paste

will come off really easy. -Mary

Okay. I thought it'd be more complicated than that, so no need to steam or use any chemicals?

Mauro

Steam is going to be really uncomfortable to work in. And also, chemical is not a good option because there's two small kids in the house. We're going to be as natural as possible. And there's only one layer of wallpaper to remove, so ready to go?

Mary

Ready.

Mauro

Before I start spraying, I want to remove the drywall paper as much as I can. Mary, why don't you go up on that ladder and start at that corner there? Now, we did what we could while it's dry. Now we're going to use this perforating tool. It has a rotating head and two spike wheels that will help us to score the wallpaper, but it won't actually penetrate the wall. Okay, let's spray the hot water and vinegar. 50/50. That's nice. Keep moving, Mary. Up and down, around, to the sides. Okay, we give it five minutes for the water and vinegar to soak in.

Let's see what happens. -Mary

All right. Okay, we still have a little bit of paper residue, the glue back on the wall. A little bit of hot water and vinegar on a sponge,

and we're going to clean it up. -Mary

All right.

Mauro

Now that we stopped using water, it's time to take care of the outlets. First thing what we're going to do, we're going to peel this blue tape off. Look, the wallpaper's coming right off.

Mary

Look at that. Looks like the tape took the paper right off.

Mauro

Isn't that great? Now we're going to take the plates off. This is not bad. We just have one little bit of paper here to get off. This is much easier than I thought. Okay, the walls are in pretty good shape. A couple holes to patch, and we'll be ready to prime and paint. What do you think?

Mary

Took a little elbow grease, but it looks good.

Mauro

Okay, question for you. Are you ready to become a painter?

Mary

I appreciate the lesson, but I think I'll stick to carpentry, if that's okay with you.

Mauro

That's fine with me, I agree. Stripping wallpaper is not fun, but I got to bring you to one of my real jobs, and you're gonna love it.

That would be great. -Mauro

All right. Let's clean this up and start to get some more work.

Mary

Let's do it.

Kevin

So, Mary was a good helper, but maybe she's not going to be a painter after all, huh?

Mauro

I don't think so, but I don't blame her. Removing wallpaper is not fun. And we started with the easiest way, hot water and vinegar, and working my way up. If we need to, we jump into chemicals, which is my second option.

Kevin

Right, I mean, because as you say, this was pretty straightforward, right? You had the right surface behind it. You only had one layer of wallpaper. There wasn't any paint, so the vinegar and hot water works. Chemicals might be the next layer up.

Mauro

It might be, if we need to, yes, but my number-one preference is start with the easy way of doing what we did there.

Kevin

Beautiful. All right, we appreciate the information, and we appreciate you guys sending us your questions. Make sure you keep 'em coming. So until next time, I'm Kevin O'Connor.

Mauro

And I'm Mauro Henrique.

Kevin

For "Ask This Old House." Next time on "Ask This Old House"... -Hey,

Tommy. -Tom

Hey, Kevin. How are you?

Kevin

All right. So building today. What are you thinking?

Tom

I'm thinking a real simple project. This is the little bench that you would put by the back door with some cubbies underneath it. A place to sit down and take your shoes off in the winter and a place to store 'em underneath.

Kevin

Sounds like a nice project.

Richard

And this shower gets cold when anybody uses the kitchen faucet. I'm heading to Seattle to figure out what's wrong and just how to fix it.

Woman

Still hot!

Richard

That's a good thing.