Spring Break Part 2: Bathroom

A Functional Bathroom!

 The bathroom sink and stand are finished, except for drawer fronts and handles.

 Making the drawers was rather time consuming, but makes the space much more accessible and adds lots of bathroom storage. The molding around the top and the wall beside the sink aren't finished in this picture.

 and there's a larger drawer under the washer/dryer to hold bigger stuff.

This shows the beginnings of the box to cover the pipes.

These two pictures show the box finished, sink stand side done, and door for the hot water heater space completed.

I just used plywood between the toilet space and the washer/dryer/hot water heater. I'm thinking of adding some colour and painting it.

Special mention is given to the molding boards around the tub because they taxed my somewhat limited ingenuity with all of their angles, dados, insets, kerfs and confounding complications. They didn't turn out perfectly, but they'll do the job.

On a related note, I can happily say that I have now had a shower in the shower (no photos provided) :-) and it works. I was worried about the on demand hot water heater. It took a bit of practice to learn how to adjust the temperature. However, once I got the hang of it I had quite an extended warm, comfortable and luxurious shower. I told Precision Temp that if it worked I'd put in a plug for them. So here it is - it works!  :-)

I don't have the shower curtain up yet. I learned an interesting thing about bending copper (or other thin walled) pipe however. Fill it with sand first and cap the ends. Then it won't collapse when you bend it. I'm going to use a 3/4 inch copper pipe for the shower curtain rod. I was able to put a nice 90 degree bend in it, so just have to drill some holes to hold it now.

This shows the closet framed in with the separating wall in place. I had to leave a 3 foot space for the electrical boxes that is supposed to be dedicated to them.

 This door comes with much thanks to my father for building it. It does double duty as a door to the electrical room and a bathroom door. Mostly, I won't need a bathroom door, but when there are more people around it can open to close the bathroom and look like this:

...and this is what it looks like from the kitchen direction.

This picture doesn't show the finished space, but this will be my clothes closet. I'm planning to use a sliding/folding door to close the space. A dresser for clothes will sit about where the heater is in this space, under the window.

Spring Break Progress Part 1: Curtains and Siding

After months of slowly puttering along the two weeks of spring break provided an opportunity to put some focus back into my house project and to build a bit of momentum again. Here's what's happened lately:

Curtains:
My friend Deirdre stopped by again for a few days. This time on her way to a bike trip through Europe. She does get around! However, she brought her sewing machine with her and managed to fabricate blinds or curtains for most of my windows before she went. Pretty handy with a sewing machine that lady!  :-) She successfully (and somewhat forcefully) avoided the camera, so I don't have any pictures of the seamstress at work.

Here's the bathroom window, with funky fabric Deirdre brought back from a trip to Africa a while ago.

and here's what it looks like when closed.

Some kind of dark pictures of the big windows. These blinds are made from a couple of curtains I got at Jysk. Materials for eight blinds and curtains came in under $100, so I thought that was pretty good. :-)

 South (to be) window, blind down.

North and West Windows. I quite like the African fabric contrast.

...and curtains for upstairs. They are all done, but I've only got one of them up so far. They will pull back and tie with a string on the ends.

Finally finished the siding

 The last few pieces of white at the top that have been bothering me all winter are finally covered.

 and the top row on this side of the house - the one with so many cut-outs in it.

..and around the door and in the gable above the porch roof. I still have to make the deck railing though.

...and around the upstairs windows. I was quite concerned that I wouldn't have enough siding. Fortunately I did - with two pieces to spare!  :-)

My father refusing to look at the camera. I wouldn't have gotten nearly as much done without his help!

Me in my "spring" clothing. It seemed that siding days all turned out to contain snow, rain, sleet, hail, cold, wind, or a combination of the above. This last bit mostly had just cold and wind - but one session was curtailed due to rain mixed with snow pellets. Funny how it always came out that way.

First Finished Floor, and done with the windows

Wow, it's March already! I've been away a few weekends, sick for nearly a week, and lacking in enthusiasm for quite a lot of the time since the last post. In spite of it all, progress does continue to happen occasionally. Here's what's been up:

The Windows are done finally!

The task of making the window frames and then fitting them has been a really big job. It's a relief to say that it is done - though I still have to put Osmo sealant on several of them.

 Upstairs end windows.

 Bathroom side window, "before" view.

 Due to a variety of issues with differences between planned wall materials and actual wall materials, as well as some initial lack of knowing what I was doing, none of the windows actually turned out to be the same thickness as the walls. Most of the windows were "innies" - a bit thinner than the wall - so I cut a kerf from the outside of the moulding boards to make up for the difference. The bathroom windows, however, were "outies" sticking out beyond the edge of the wall about 3/8 of an inch. The picture above shows strips attached to one side and the ends of the moulding board so that it would cover the window edges correctly.

 Finished bathroom windows.

Cupboard Doors

 Thanks to my father, lower cupboard doors are now in place. There's still a corner door challenge, but it's nice to have these in place.

And the floor in the bedroom loft...

 The first rows of cork flooring going down. It snaps together pretty nicely.

 Front facing view. Looks pretty shiny!

Wow - it looks a lot bigger now!

Working on the media cupboard. This will hold a TV screen/monitor. DVD's or small books can be stored on the left, and there is space for some books underneath. I had a few design challenges with this cupboard in trying to maximize the space for a bigger screen, get the desk high enough off the floor to fit my legs under it, and not take up too much of the window. I'm not sure I hit the best balance, but it will have to do I guess. A 28" screen will fit for sure, 32" is possible, but iffy. 28's enough anyway I guess. I've been talking a lot about getting kids to have less screen time lately - I ought to practice what I preach and not make the screen a big central issue!

The wide shelf acts as a desk - have to sit cross legged, but a useful extra work space. When not in use, it folds up and acts as a cover for the screen so I won't have to look at it all the time. I don't have the magnets attached yet, so it won't stay up to see what it looks like closed. More to come...

Little Steps

I've been finding these dark winter months to be a bit of a cooling influence on my incentive to build things. The last couple of months have therefore seen progress comparable to the proverbial molasses in January. It is January though, so maybe there is some measure of justification.

In any case, here is what has happened since the last installment:

This is the frame for the refrigerator compartment. The refrigerator that I ordered over six months ago hasn't arrived and I'm afraid may be destined never to do so. It's frustratingly difficult to find a fridge of the size I need, so I'm a bit unsure of what will actually go in this compartment now. It might end up being a bar fridge and some extra storage.

 There's space for a drawer underneath. There is actually a drawer there now, but I don't have a picture of it handy. Anyway, it's a drawer. Use your imagination. :-)

And the fridge compartment is now acting as a handy tool storage shelf. Good thing I don't need to keep veggies cold yet.

 I bought a pine desk at Jysk and modified it to fit the space. Not quite in keeping with my "build everything myself" moto up to this point, but it seems to work reasonably well.

 Looking out from the bathroom. I've had some problems with the stove actually, though it looks pretty rambunctious in this picture. I had the naive impression, when I bought it, that "hey, it's a stove. Hook up the gas and turn it on". Turns out things are a bit more complex than that. I asked the gasfitter who did the gas lines to install it, since he was here anyway. Then it started to go out and not start again, which is rather a problem when the temperature outside is 20 below zero. The company I bought it from didn't want to help very badly because they didn't install it, and the other guys don't know the stove and would probably say it wasn't their fault anyway. A tech was finally sent out with new parts and hopefully it will work now - but it cost almost $500.00 for him to drive out here, spend an hour or so, and leave again. Ouch!  The moral of this story, I think, is that if you buy a gas stove, have it installed by the people you buy it from.

On a happier note, I put an old glider rocker in. It has caused a further reduction in work incentive, however, because it is so relaxing to just sit in it and watch the fire.

Thanks to help from my friend Deirdre, cork flooring has been jigsaw puzzled onto the wheel-well under the desk and bookshelf. There are metal edge plates still to put on the edges though. This is the flooring that will eventually be covering the rest of the floor as well.

Also thanks to Deirdre, rather a large number of things that formerly did not have sealant on them have now been covered with Diamond coat finish (like all of these drawers, inside and out).

Or with Osmo polyx, like this bookshelf.

The last piece of the upper kitchen cabinets is done and installed, and both LED bar lights are in place under the cabinets. One small cabinet door is done. Several others of various sizes aren't.
Also, the crack that appeared in the counter top has been fixed. I was able to fill it with glue and force it closed by setting an anvil on it. When the glue dried Deirdre sanded it down and then put another coat of Osmo on the whole counter top. Deirdre doesn't come often, but she sure gets stuff done when she does!

Also, I've been working on door and window mouldings. As with everything, it's rather slow since I'm making all of the molding boards from scratch. Of course, neither the door nor any of the windows are actually flush with the walls, so I have to cut kerfs in the back of the boards to adjust for the different levels. The door turned out pretty well though. Now I need to paint it something other than white...

Incipient moulding boards for the windows.

Finished mouldings

 More mouldings...

Snowing outside, but moulding boards inside!

 Yep, it's January!