Stiff Susan and Start of the Pantry Cupboard

I thought I'd already posted pictures of these two little projects, but on looking back, apparently I haven't. It's a good thing I do this blog - it helps me feel like I'm accomplishing things a bit more. In any case, two other projects are:

The Lazy Susan
The lazy Susan is rather stiff to turn, so as suggested in the title of this post, it may have to be called "stiff Susan" or maybe "Susan working hard". However, it's in and it does turn, so that's a good thing at least.

The Pantry

I've just got the frame up for the pantry and have to make drawer shelves for it, but at least the space is defined now.

 The 2 x 2 frame for the pantry

 Plywood on one side of the wall.

Looking down from the top at a stool sitting in the bottom. There's quite a bit of storage space actually.

So that's it - I'm up to date.

There's a bit of snow drifting down in sparkling flakes and the sun looks a bit more cheery than this picture would suggest. Happy Sunday!  :-)

More Siding and Other Things

All of the siding boards have now been sanded and painted and quite a few more have been put up. Thank you very much to my mother and father and to Deirdre for spending a couple of days working on this!

Just a couple of angle cuts to go and the front will be finished.

Working up the other long side.

Nearly finished - just the slow and time consuming part cutting around the vents and along the top still to go.

The Ladder

 It seems that the ladder ought to look more impressive as it took quite a long time to make. Part of the issue was finding a drill bit to fit the doweling exactly, and then getting the holes drilled correctly. The doweling is 1.5 inch, so one would think that a 1.5 inch drill bit would work quite nicely. The first two bits were too big however, but the third was just right. They all said they were 1.5 inches, so go figure...  ??

It's a fairly simple design though. I cut two 2 x 4's down to make them 2 x 3's, then drilled 1.5 inch holes for the dowel using the drill press. Quite a lot of sanding, gluing and finishing later, I had a ladder. I extended the ladder above the level of the floor so that there is something to hold on to when stepping on and off. After a few trials, this still seems like it was quite a good idea.

Insulation under the floor
Preparation for this was actually quite time consuming. I had to make boxes to cover sensitive parts, as noted in the last post. I also had to cover all of the gas lines with tin to keep them somewhat separate from the foam, and make boxes around any joints in the lines so that they could still be reached and checked for leaks.

 You can see the gas line with its little tin roof running down the center here, and the foam insulation now blown in. It's nice to have this done!

More foam-scape.

Under cupboard light

 This wasn't a big job, but required attaching the light, connecting the wires, and putting a plug on the other end of the wire. I ran wires through the wall in preparation for this light and another that will go on the other side of the sink. The wires go to a plug under the sink and the plug is connected to the wall switch here. The light in the picture is an LED bar light that can direct wire to a regular AC plug.

I also cut, sanded and finished molding boards to go along the bottom of the cupboard. LED lights tend to be rather bright and these boards hide the light fixture and shield the eyes from the direct glare of the light. I don't have the wire stapled out of the way yet though, so it looks a little bit messy hanging down.

Issues with cold and freezing pipes
I made a mistake when I put in the water line from the fresh water tank to the rest of the system. The line runs along the wall, behind the tub, and over to the bathroom sink. This seemed like a good idea at the time, but it turns out that the back corner of the tub is a rather cold place. This is not helped by the fact that the under the floor foam guy missed a spot about one foot square exactly in this corner. In any case, the line froze the first time it went to -20 C and insisted on continuing to do so unless I blew heat around the tub with a heater and fan.

This obviously is not something I want to do all the time, so now I have to move the pipe.

Here's the beginning of the pipe changing process - a large hole in the inside of the bathroom sink cabinet through the two layers between the sink and the tub. Sigh... I guess it gives better ventilation at least.

Here's the pipe on its new path around the warmer side of the tub.

And here's a new T in the line with a valve and a pipe through the floor. This makes it easier to drain water from the lines. It's a bit of a pain taking up space on the floor as it does, but it will still be inside the closet at least.

A Few More Projects...

I have been finding lately that I don't work well with small amounts of time - at least not when it comes to projects that require tools, planning, and materials. The cold doesn't help very much either as it seems to add complications to everything. It generally seems to take half the time for any given project to get set up for it, one third of the time to clean up again, and whatever is left between the two often goes to trying to remember just exactly where I left off last time.

Anyway, now that I've done my wincing and wining about the difficulties of it all, here are some things that have actually been accomplished over the past month or so:

The Fresh Water Tank

I had originally thought I would put the water tank flat on the floor, but decide to stand it on edge instead. I still need to cut plywood to cover the top and front, but the support frame is built and all of the pipes are installed. This tank holds 54 gallons and is good for a backup water supply.

I decided to use a small RV style pump. This one runs on AC power. This picture also shows the pipe going out for a hose connection outside.

 This picture shows the fill pipe coming in from above and the air outlet and overflow pipe going out through the wall in the middle. Sure lots of holes in the wall!

 Yet another hole - this one in the floor for the drain pipe for the tank.

Here's the outside view of the fill spout, air and overflow pipe (it will be cut off shorter), and the hose connection and valve.

Hot Water Heater
The hot water heater has been installed for a while, but the gas lines are in now and it is fully functional.

 Here's a look at the inside. It was jostled around rather roughly in transport and the spark probe was slightly out of position. Tech support at the Precision Temp headquarters was very helpful though and now it's working very well.

Cold weather is an issue for RV style hot water heaters. This one is less affected than any others that I looked at, but it still does get cold inside because of the air intake and exhaust outlet, both of which go trough the floor. It turns itself on briefly when it gets down to a certain temperature. This is great as long as there is gas and electricity. It could be a problem if the power goes out for too long though.

 Here's the view from the front, with the cover on. I haven't had an opportunity to try it for any length of time, but it does put out hot water and seems to react quickly when the water is turned on.

Side view showing the gas lines coming in, and the AC/DC converter to power the heater's electronics.

This is what it looks like under the floor. I made a tin box to go around the air intake and used a larger pipe to provide space around the exhaust pipe. This is so that the space stays open and clear when the foam insulation is blown in.

I had to make several other tin boxes to cover and protect various things under the floor in preparation for the insulation. Here are the flat pieces of tin ready to fold.

...and here's the box with it's bottom lid. This is filled with fiberglass insulation and goes around the trap in the drain under the bathtub. I may have to use a heat tape on the trap as well. It's the place that seems most susceptible to problems from freezing, unfortunately.

Slow, but Quite Intermittant

Since getting back to work after the summer holiday (and a bit of added time due to the BC Teacher's strike) work on Todd's Tiny Home has slowed down considerably. There have been occasional small bursts of progress however, and the list of projects continues to slowly diminish. Here is what has happened over the past few weeks:

The drying rack/cupboard
I don't like drying dishes very much, and have considered it to be a somewhat un-useful thing to do as they will dry themselves quite nicely if one just leaves them alone long enough. However, this generally requires also leaving them hanging about on the counter and creating more clutter than one might want in a small space. The drying rack/cupboard is my first attempt at a solution to this little problem.

In the beginning, it looked like two of these:

Then, after a great deal of cutting, measuring, drilling, and sanding, it became this (I didn't make the dowels, but I did drill a heck of a lot of holes to fit them into):

Eventually, after more sanding, two coats of Osmo polyx and quite a lot of fitting together and attaching, it looked like this.

And finally, it ended up on the wall, looking like this;

The idea is that the dishes can be washed and then go directly onto the rack. A plastic sheet slides into the bottom to catch the water that may drip down and direct it toward the sink. There are still a couple of kinks to work out, but I think it will end up doing a job reasonably close to what I had envisioned.
This picture also shows the finished boxes inside the cabinet to cover the dryer vent (small square box on the bottom shelf), and the range hood vent (long box under the third shelf).

Stove and Fireplace

At long last the gas lines have been installed and the stove in the kitchen and the fireplace in the front room connected. This picture shows the kettle on the stove and the first cup of tea heated "in-house". You can also see the bottom of the window frame in this picture, which I mention because 1) it's the first one (only 12 to go) and 2) because it's finicky and requires cutting out kerfs in the back to fit uneven boards. Oh, the time consuming things that happen when one starts to finish...  :-)

And here is the gas fireplace/stove/heater. I was rather disappointed to discover that the outside chimney clearances required more space than was available if the stove continued to sit on the cool little stand and drawer that I had built. I had to take out the drawer and set the stove on the floor, which was a real bummer. On the bright side however, I didn't have to cut a hole in the roof or get a different stove.

Cutting the large hole in the wall for the stove pipe made me a bit nervous. It all went quite well though. The stove heats the house quickly, and it's very cozy and relaxing to watch the fire. This stove is called a Northfield, and I got it from Fraser Plumbing and Heating in Prince George.

The Kitchen Sink

Another hole that I was not excited about cutting was the hole in the counter for the kitchen sink. One really doesn't want to mess up when cutting this kind of hole!
Here it is though, thankfully the correct size and in the correct place.

And here is the sink, sitting nicely in it's new hole, hooked up and working!

The Siding

I've been kind of dreading the siding. I was concerned (and still am a bit concerned) that it was going to be too thick and too heavy. It turns out that it's not too thick, aesthetically at least, but the jury is still out on the overall weight of things.

The first step was to make the corner posts, which started as rough-cut fir 4 x 4's. I sliced a long rectangle out of the center of these on the table saw so that it could fit onto the corner of the house, leaving 1 1/2 inches of wood on each side for the siding to but up against.

Here is a 4 x 4 with the first cut made.

Here's the same 4 x 4, shaped to fit in it's new place of residence on one of the corners.

And here's the first corner, stained and in place:

The siding is bevel cut from rough fir 2 x 8 boards. Like the 4 x 4, it came from a neighbor with a small sawmill. It had to be stained on both sides to seal the wood - which turned out to be a somewhat difficult job due to the roughness of the wood. Thankfully, I had quite a bit of help over the Thanksgiving weekend. Here are some of the siding boards after staining. This is one coat only. I will have to put on another coat, but that can wait until after the siding is up.

It decided to be cold and rainy on this particular day, so we had the added challenge of being dripped upon and wind-chilled. Here is the siding going on:

One side finished (except for the loft)!

...and an end started. The door frame is also done.

And that's most of what has happened lately. Stay tuned for exciting things like the water tank, hot water heater repairs, finishing of upper cabinets, cabinet doors, pantry, toilet, more drawers, medicine cabinet, closet, desk, floor, window frames, moldings...    Oh dear, it's a long list.

People have been asking me when my move-in date will be. I think if I had two good weeks of work I could get pretty close to done. However, with fitting it in with work and all of the other things that come along, it's looking like I'll be lucky if I can finish by the end of the Christmas holidays. It has felt better since I let go of giving myself a deadline though. I definitely enjoy it more when the journey is more important than the time of arrival at the destination.

Upper Cabinets

At long last, the upper cabinets are starting to come together. The cabinets on the back wall also have to house the vent from the range hood and from the washer/dryer, which complicates things a bit. The only range hood that I was able to find in the right size turned out to have a rather large rectangular 10 by 3 inch vent outlet in the back of it, right where there was absolutely no space for even a small vent to live.

However, I think it's kind of fun, and satisfying in a strange sort of way, to come up against situations where something just doesn't work or doesn't fit and then realize that "Hey, I could change that". It took a suggestion from my father to get my brain out of its box in this case, but then I was off to the races, so to speak.

Here I am, happily applying the saber saw and metal cutting blade to the fan's duct inlet.

Here is a new vent-hole-in-the-making:

And here is the newly directed outlet. I covered the old hole with a piece of metal flashing, sealed it with high temperature caulking, just in case it gets hot, screwed it in place, put in a 3 inch 90 for the ducting and sealed it as well, and voila - no rear clearance necessary.

Next came the shelf to hold it. It seems that almost everything I do lately requires twice as much sanding time as anything else. This simple looking little box took most of a day by the time I figured out its size and shape, cut the pieces, sanded everything with two sanders, put it together, cut out the holes for venting, made the little box to cover the vent, and put Osmo finish on it twice. A speed carpenter I am not, it would seem.

Here it is on the wall. The fan works and blows like crazy out the vent, so the alteration doesn't seem to have caused any problems. I got an LED light-bulb for the light and that seems to work well too. I also made doors, but don't have them attached yet.

One more piece is in place here. The shelves aren't in because the dryer vent has to come through the wall and both vents have to then go outside.
More to come in this part of the story...

Counter Top and Window Seat Continued

The counter top is finally done! (kind of. I still need to cut a big hole in it for the sink, and to screw it down to the cabinets).
I'm pretty happy with how it turned out though!

Here's another picture with the stove inserted and the lights on:

The window seat is also coming together. The main part of the top is now hinged and attached. I haven't done the fold out to make it wider for a bed. That will come later, as it seems less of a priority at the moment. Or maybe the floor would be good for sleeping on...  :-)

The dark hole on the right hand side will have a door, but doesn't yet obviously. It will be for shoe/boot storage.