Ask This Old House

Kevin

Today on "Ask This Old House"...

Tom

A stock screen door won't fit this opening. I'll show you how to build a custom one that will fit. So now, when we put it in the hole, it's easier to line up one, then the other, and then the other. Slide it down. Okay.

Richard

I'll walk you through the care and feeding of your washing machine. So, people don't realize that there are leveling legs right here, and it works way better than a shingle or a piece of cardboard.

Mauro

And I'll show you the correct way to paint wood trim that has been varnished. We'll get a good adhesion to it, and it is gonna give us great coverage.

Kevin

Hey,

Ross. Ross

Hey, Kev. Well, it's a little early for mood lighting, isn't it?

Kevin

I'm getting a lot of questions about smart lighting. What I typically recommend for most people is upgrading their existing switches

to a smart switch like this. Ross

Mm-hmm.

Kevin

What's great about that, it gives you on-off, local control, dimming capability. It works with your app or smart speaker to control it for a schedule, for example, and it also works with just about any light bulb that's on the market.

Ross

So once you put the switch in, all the bulbs pretty much work.

Kevin

Yep, but you do need to get an electrician involved, 'cause you're getting involved with the power wiring.

Ross

Right, which is why if people don't want to get into the wiring, they reach for a smart light bulb.

Kevin

Right. It's super DIY-friendly and has Wi-Fi built in, so it works with your phone. It works with your smart speakers. It gives you all the functions we talked about earlier. The downside, of course, is that they need a constant source of power to work, so if someone comes along and kills your light switch, you've killed power to the smart light bulb.

It's not gonna work. Ross

You're upstairs with the app, and nothing's gonna work.

Kevin

Your schedules aren't gonna work.

Nothing's gonna work. Yep. Ross

Alright.

Kevin

So, one solution is really a hybrid approach. It's a two-part piece here, has a backplate that mounts onto an existing light switch, and what's great about that is it leaves the light switch in the on position.

Ross

Oh,

yeah. Kevin

So you can't turn it off.

Right. Okay. Kevin

Alright? And then you install this wireless remote that clicks on, which is great because, look, I have local control on-off.

Ross

Walk into the room...

I get dimming capability. Ross

Oh, yeah!

Kevin

And because the light switch is on all the time, I still have access through my phone.

Ross

Very nice. I like that.

Kevin

Just keep in mind when you install this, the light switch is always on even if the light is off, so power is flowing to that light socket

even in this situation. Ross

Oh, okay. Well, still cool information and good to know about.

Thank you. Thanks. Kevin

Yep.

Tom

Hi, Laura.

Laura

Hi,

Tommy. Tom

How are you?

Good. Thanks for coming. Tom

My pleasure. So, I take it this is the door you wrote me about?

Laura

This is it. Yep.

It's a big one. Laura

Yes. It was built in 1890.

Tom

Yeah?

Laura

And it's huge. We tried finding a screen door to fit, and they don't make them this size.

Tom

Yeah. You're not gonna get one off the shelf.

That's for sure. Laura

Right. Exactly. So we've looked into ordering one custom, and it seemed like it was gonna be too expensive, and so then I thought I'd make one myself...

Tom

Oh, yeah?

Laura

...'cause I love doing woodwork.

Tom

Oh, you do?

Laura

Yeah. I've done a fair share of projects around our house.

Tom

Oh,

that's great. Laura

But I don't know how to do joinery, so that's something... That's why I wrote to you.

Tom

Well, if you've done some projects, you can build a door, and I can help you. We'll take some measurements, and we can get started.

Laura

Great. Thanks.

Tom

Alright, Laura. Here's the material we're gonna use for your door. This is actually called straight-grain fir. The grain is nice and tight, and you can see that it's really straight. And the good thing about this is it's strong and the door will stay true to itself over time,

which is always nice. Laura

Good.

Tom

And we ordered S4S, "sanded all four sides."

Laura

Okay.

Tom

So dimensionally, the width is right, but we have to cut our lengths. Now, when building a door, I made a little mock-up out of some scrap plywood that I have that you can see here. Our stiles and our rails, and our rails are cut in between, and they're actually held together with mortise-and-tenon joints.

Laura

Mm,

nice. Tom

Alright? So there's a mortise in here and a tenon, and that gives us a lot more glue surface, and that actually lessens the chance of this door twisting over time. Now, I've added one thing here. I've actually added a half-lap joint right here, you can see, that's gonna sit on this shelf. That's called a rabbet. When you put them together like that, this right here gives us a lot more glue surface than if it was just butted together.

Laura

Oh,

cool. Yeah. Tom

So the door

will really stay together. Laura

Mm-hmm.

Tom

And we also create a shelf right here to mount the screen onto.

Cool. Tom

Alright. Now we're ready to start cutting the lengths for our rails that are gonna go between the two stiles. So, the first thing I want to do is measure the overall width of the door, which will be 42. We're gonna make it a little bit stronger. I'm gonna make 42 1/8. Now, I can't just cut these pieces 30 1/8 in between here, because I have to allow for the half-lap that's gonna sit on top of that rabbet. This rabbet joint here is gonna sit on a rabbet over here, so that would be an inch on each side. Alright, we've already squared up one end, so now all you have to do is put them on the saw, keep them tight to the fence, and cut the length. We've set our stop right here so all of our pieces will be exactly the same size. Pull the trigger. Push down. Go right through it.

Saw whirring

Cool. Tom

There you go. Alright. There's one. Three more to go.

Whirring continues

Cool. Tom

I could have cut all my rabbets using a router with a router table, but I'm using a table saw because I want to save the cutout. There are three different cuts and three different settings that I have to make with my table saw for the blade height and the rip-fence width. What I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna set up and make all of my cuts on all of the pieces for the first cut, change my settings, make all of my cuts for the second cut, change my settings, and make all of my cuts for the third cut. That saves a lot of time. Alright. Our door is all laid out. We've marked for all of our mortises on all of our pieces, and we're ready to mortise. So, you're gonna take the machine, you're gonna put it on top, and you're gonna push down hard all the way until it stops.

Whirring

Cool. Tom

Okay. Now slowly take it out. Now move it over to the next spot.

Whirring continues

Cool. Tom

Yeah. Just be careful you're not kicking up this way.

Laura

Yeah.

Tom

So, on the inside of this rabbet, we're gonna glue up all of this surface and put some glue in the hole. Nice. Alright. Now dump some down in each hole. And now I want to get my tenons in the glue in the hole. So we'll drive them down. I'll put one all the way down, one a little, and one up like that. So now when we put it in the hole, it's easier to line up one, then the other, and then the other. Slide it down.

Okay. Laura

Cool.

Tom

Now we're ready for the next one. Go ahead.

Banging

Tom

And now we just push it down. Okay. Let's get another one. And just try to get the top ones, and then we'll slide it down as we make sure that they're in the right hole, so gently go down. Make sure we get them all started.

Banging

Tom

Alright. Let's get this clamp on here. Spin that one around a little bit. Got it?

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Tom

Now we clamp this up.

Saw whirring

Tom

With the stiles and rails glued together, we can cut off the excess with a track saw. Alright. Our door is almost built. We have a couple of little things to put in. You ordered these brackets?

Laura

I did. I picked these up. I thought they would look nice on a Victorian door.

Tom

It'll really dress it up. Alright. So what we'll do is, we'll screw these in. That way, if you ever have to remove them when you paint the door, it'll be a lot easier to paint the back side. Re-drill that hole.

Drill whirring

Whirring continues

Tom

Very good.

Whirring continues

Tom

Perfect. Alright. So we've got our brackets on, and now we're ready to install the screen. Now, we could staple the screen at the top, and then you could pull some tension on it, and then I could staple it, but what I like to do is put a little bit of tension on the door, bowing it slightly so when you put tension on it and I staple it, that'll put more tension on the screen when I release the tension on the door.

Laura

Oh,

okay. Tom

Alright. So we pick it up and just put a little filler under here. We'll go halfway down the door and clamp the door, bringing it down, bowing it down slightly. Alright. We don't need a lot, so just bring it right down, nice and tight. Now we'll take our screening wire. I'm gonna pull just a little bit from you. I'm gonna put a staple in it here.

Staple gun clicks

okay. Tom

And now pull it just a little.

Clicking continues

okay. Tom

Now we're gonna unroll the screen all the way to the end of the door, and I want you to grab it now and just grab a little te-- Put your hands a little bit closer together there. So, I want to try to straighten this out or flatten it out, so put some tension there in the middle. That looks better. You got it there?

Laura

Yep.

Staple gun clicks

Clicking continues

Very nice. Laura

Great.

Tom

Alright, now we'll just cut away the excess. Nice. Very nice.

Laura

Alright.

Tom

Alright, so now for the bottom two sections, we don't need to bow the door. We can actually just put tension on it, and I want you to pull a little tension on it, like, right in the middle there.

Laura

Okay.

Tom

Okay. Just hold it there. I'm gonna... Not too tight, now. Little bit more. Make sure it's flat. Yep.

Staple gun clicking

Tom

And this one, just a little. Alright. That's perfect. Our screen wire is in. Now, remember those cutoffs that we took out of the rabbet and we saved them?

Laura

Yes.

Tom

We mitered the ends, and they fit right in there, and they hide all of the staples.

That's perfect. Tom

They go in there.

Nail gun whirring, clicking

That's perfect. Tom

Alright, Laura. Here's your door. Now, I oversized the door a little bit, both width and height, because it's an old house and you don't know if it's settled just a little bit and if the opening is racked at all. So what we're gonna do first is, I'm gonna take and put it up, and I'm gonna put it tight to the opening on this side, and then I can fit it. When I fit it, I'm gonna mark a little bit to cut some off of that side or maybe all bit off of this side. Once it's fit that way, then I put it back into the opening and cut it off the bottom and the top so it fits to that if there's any angle.

Okay. Tom

Alright? What do you think?

Laura

I love it.

Tom

Alright. Let's make it fit. We tip the saw about 3 or 4 degrees so when you rip the door down, it'll be beveled, and that inside edge won't hit the casing as it closes. Now we're ready for the hardware, and old screen doors had pretty simple hardware. So, you want to use a knob like this that you've saved from an old door, which is really gonna be nice, but we're not gonna use a latch. And the hinges on the doors were usually surface-mounted, and they were pretty lightweight because the doors were pretty lightweight. But this is a big door. It's heavy, so I want to use some more surface-mounted hardware, but I want to use a heavy-duty one. We're gonna install the compressor. The compressor is gonna allow the door to close slow, but it's also gonna hold the door shut, because we don't have a latch. Alright, Laura. There's your new screen door. What do you think?

Laura

Wow. I love it.

It's exactly what we wanted. Tom

Well, that's good. And that soft close, closing the door -- hopefully, your kids won't pinch their fingers.

Laura

Great. I love just knowing what's inside of it. It helps me appreciate all the hard work that goes into it.

Tom

Well, all those little things inside there is what's gonna hold this door together, and it'll last a long time.

Laura

Great. Thank you so much, Tommy.

Tom

My pleasure. And thanks for all your help.

Laura

Thanks.

Kevin

Hey,

Richard. Richard

Hey, Kev.

Kevin

Talking washing machines today?

Richard

Yeah, I thought we'd talk about the care and feeding of washing machines. You know, many people have them, and they're great devices, but there are some things to pay attention to. The first one is probably to make sure they are level. You walk into a house and you hear -- sounds like some rumble going on upstairs. It's because the washing machine is not level. It's got a cylinder, and it's gonna spin this way, or this way for front loaders. So, people don't realize that there are leveling legs right here. So, you take a pair of pliers, and you would put a level right here on the front and lift it up and put it down, and it works way better than a shingle or a piece of cardboard.

Kevin

The newer models are spinning very fast, and this thing could literally walk out of a space.

Richard

That's right. So, the other thing is to think about the water supply to this. You know, at the back of the washing machine, there are connections for hoses, and there's filters inside here, inside, that you've got to be careful of. If, say, a washer broke off on a shutoff downstream, it could come up and clog the back side here. And then you wouldn't have hot or cold.

Okay. Richard

Now, these hoses -- this is what most people have. They're rubber hoses. These happen to be red and blue, but many times, they're black. These are simple rubber hoses, but they sit under full pressure all the time.

Kevin

Doesn't matter if this is on or not.

Correct. Kevin

Pressure to the hoses.

Richard

Right, right. So, this is what it looks like in a cutaway. You can see it's got a pretty thick side wall, but what you're worried about is that rubber getting tired over time and wearing out and causing, actually, allowing an aneurysm or a bubble, a split on the side. So what I always recommend strongly is this stainless steel braided hose. It still has a high level of rubber inside. It's got reinforcement, and then it has a stainless steel casing or sheathing on the outside to reduce the chance of a burst. So this is always my recommended...

Cheap upgrade. Richard

Absolutely.

Kevin

They really don't cost much more.

Richard

Right, but it's not just the hoses. These things sit under full pressure, so it's connected to some sort of shut-off device. So, many times, you just see a pair of these down here where the washing machine hose is connected. Nobody ever turns them on or off, but they should. An innovation that was pretty terrific was this. This was a breakthrough. You put the washing machine hoses onto here, and then when you're doing a wash, you turn it on, and then it pressurizes it then. When you were done with the wash, you'd turn it off, and it would depressurize the hoses, so you could go away and not worry about these hoses, but guess what.

No one ever did it. Richard

No one ever did. The only time they did it was the morning after the burst.

Yeah. Yeah. Richard

Okay? Now, another option came out which was an electronic device, and you connect the hoses here, plug this in, and then the washing machine plugged into right here. It would feel the amp draw of that washer coming on. Then and only then would the hoses be pressurized. And that worked terrific, and it does work terrific.

Kevin

Machine's not running,

it closes these valves. Richard

That's right.

Kevin

Only opens them when the machine is running.

Richard

That's right. It has a little leak sensor you can put on the floor as an added feature, too, so that's pretty good.

Kevin

So if it ever senses water, again, valves shut.

You're protected. Richard

Yep. Absolutely. So this was great, and then this is electronic, and that's beautiful. This is beautiful and simple. This has a spring-loaded lever that says... I want to do my wash. I come over here, and I pull it to the side, and that leaves the water pressure to the hoses for 2 1/2 hours.

Mm. Richard

So when you're done, you don't have to wait for the wash to be done. You know it'll be off, safe.

Kevin

No electronics to fail on you, and unlike this one, it defaults to the off position.

Richard

Correct. Correct. It defaults safe, so I like this a lot.

Kevin

That's great. Alright. Well, thank you,

Richard. Richard

Alright.

Mauro

Hey, Pam.

Pam

Hey, Mauro. Thanks for coming.

Mauro

No problem. Thanks for having me here.

Pam

So, we've lived in this house for four years. It was built in the 1960s, and we've been doing a ton of projects, a lot of painting, and there's one particular room that I think I could really use your help.

Mauro

Alright. Let's take a look at it.

Pam

Alright. Let's go. Alright, Mauro. So, this is our office.

Mauro

Nice. I notice you have a lot of trim with some, probably, varnish on it. That's very common in a 1960s house. And then I also notice a door that's been painted white.

Pam

Right, so we did try to paint the door, as well as the trim. We started with just, like, a basic wall primer, latex.

Mauro

A latex primer?

Pam

Yep.

Okay. Pam

And then two coats of paint, and as you can see, it just -- it didn't cover quite as well as we had hoped. Some chipping here and here. So before we tackle the rest of the room, we just wanted to make sure we were gonna do it the right way and we had the right technique.

Mauro

Got it. We can do better than that, yes, and I'll show you a couple great techniques. Let's start by taking the closet doors off the tracks. Okay, Pam. I know you already have this drop cloth, but I want to put this to protect the floor. This is my first pro tip for you. Alright?

Pam

Okay.

Mauro

We're gonna use this masking tape to protect the floors. I don't want to use a drop cloth too close to the baseboard, because it's thick, and this tape is very thin. It will protect the floor and will give us a nice cutting line. Yes. Mm-hmm. Now we're gonna overlap this corner just like that. Alright?

Pam

Okay.

Mauro

Oh, good. Alright, Pam. It's time for us to do some sanding. This is a 220-grit sandpaper that we're using.

Pam

We actually didn't do any sanding in this room before, so that was probably one of the mistakes we made.

Mauro

That's right. This is one very important step before you do anything to it.

Pam

Okay.

Mauro

We're just gonna lightly sand to take off any imperfections that we see and also to break the sheen a little bit in order for the primer to get a good adhesion to it. It's always good to use a respirator when you're sanding because we're gonna create a little bit of dust, and you should be protected.

Vacuum whirring

Mauro

Okay, now that sanding is all done, we're gonna hit every surface with the HEPA vac. And not forget -- You'll want to come right behind me with a tack cloth because we don't want to paint any surface with any dust left on it. In general, for regular painting projects, a water-based or latex primer will be just fine. But when we get the finish like this, I like to use a bonding primer. We'll get a good adhesion to it, and it's gonna give us great coverage, also. So, we're gonna start by cutting the edges. I'm gonna give you this 3-inches angle-cut brush. Usually, I would protect the walls, but since you're gonna be painting the walls, we don't need to do that. There we go. Look good, Pam. Start from the top and come with a long stroke. I'm gonna start by cutting around the ceiling. Once the primer is dry, I can fill all the nail holes with some wood filler. Well, the wood filler is dry. We can wipe off the excess with a wet rag. We're ready for the first coat, and the color you chose is extra white.

Yes. Mauro

Semi-gloss finish?

Pam

Yep. That's what we have in the rest of the house.

Wow. Mauro

Well, Pam. Paint is dry. What do you think?

Pam

It looks fantastic in here.

It's so much brighter. Mauro

Okay. I know you're gonna paint the walls. When are you planning painting the walls?

Tomorrow. Mauro

Tomorrow? Okay. We're gonna leave the drop cloths here for you.

Pam

Great.

Mauro

And what color are you thinking doing the walls?

Pam

Sea Salt, which is a green gray.

Mauro

Oh, that's nice. That's gonna give you the beautiful contrast with the extra-white trim that we've done today.

Perfect. Mauro

But before you paint, there's some preparation that needs to be done. Make sure you filled in all the nail holes. Then, you get, like, a 220-grit sandpaper. Lightly sand, clean the walls, and you're gonna be ready to rock and roll.

Sounds good. Mauro

And one thing -- send me a picture when this is all done.

Pam

Oh, I definitely will.

Thank you for all your help. Mauro

Thank you.

Kevin

Next time on "Ask This Old House"... This fireplace screams 1980s, but simply switching out the doors will make a big difference. Maker Jenn Largesse is back to show us how to make a perfect circle with a router.

Jennifer

This type of technique is always gonna give you a much better cut.

Heath

If you live in an old house, you may have some ungrounded outlets. I'll explain what that means and show you how to fix them.

Mauro

And I'll share some good techniques for using a paint roller.