News Archive: June 2020
26 June 2020
Ask and ye shall receive. A couple of friends were over for dinner last night, and afterwards I asked if they'd be willing to move the tool trailer out of the side yard and over next to the camper in the driveway. They were more than happy to oblige, and so now my side yard is looking just as I'd wanted it to for years. It's glorious.
See also the new Timelapse image added at the bottom of the page for the full effect.
23 June 2020
Took a break from cabinetry to start tiling around the tub.
16 June 2020
The cabinets are framed. Next stop: doors.
15 June 2020
All kitchen cabinet interiors are finished. Now I've got a bunch of doors to frame and hang...
14 June 2020
Two of the last four kitchen cabinet interiors got completed today.
In other news, I may have found floor tile for the living space. $1.07 sq/ft at Lowes. We'll see if I can work up the nerve to pull the trigger...
11 June 2020
After having installed the tub and used it, I saw room for a minor improvement: the step up to the tub could stand to be deeper. And so, while it was raining cats and dogs outside, I employed a good supply of free scrap plywood to extend the step three inches (before, below; after, bottom).
This had the added benefit of making the lines around the step a little cleaner, which should also improve the tiling. Now I'm unearthing all of the bathroom tile—last touched November 2019—to take inventory. The step will receive the pebble-style tile used for the shower floor (far left, above) to make it virtually slip-proof.
10 June 2020
Given my abbreviated life expectancy, and having cancelled a model train layout project that would otherwise have taken a decade at minimum to complete, I've decided to turn the studio into a spare bedroom. This will involve moving all of the outlets, rearranging the lighting, capping off what would have been a small utility sink, and even possibly installing a window next to the heat pump compressor. This isn't really necessary to do, but it would give me a sense of closure with the whole terminal disease thing going on with me. I've no idea who will ultimately be the new owner of the house once I'm gone, but I figured I may as well save them the trouble. Concurrent with this, I wouldn't mind seeing the cabin torn down, and perhaps even the treehouse, although these are way, waaay down on the priority list (indeed, I likely won't live to see this happen).
9 June 2020
The camper has been moved to the driveway next to the garage where it can easily be taken away, very likely in the next week or so. You have no idea what joy this view brings me: this is land that has not seen sunlight since December 2013.
8 June 2020
Bath time! 13 June 2016 was the day framing for the tub enclosure began, so this odyssey is almost exactly four years old.
6 June 2020
The kitchen island is structurally 100% complete (I've no idea when I'll get to the staining). I even wrapped up a very old loose end: the downdraft vents. Their installation was far simpler than I'd ever imagined...
The vents are held in place with four tiny supermagnets, one near each corner; they latch onto four 5/8" steel nuts screwed to the wooden substrate. Yes, the filters are rather inelegantly pieced together and held in place with duct tape, but these are heat registers, so no one makes filters that exactly fit.
5 June 2020
The drawers are done. All that's left to do are the cabinet doors and, of course, staining.
4 June 2020
Three drawers down, five to go. Note the flush-faced drawers (and cabinet doors will be the same)—harder to pull off, but a cleaner finished look. Also completed the center cabinet interior (below). You know the old saying about a place for everything... here's a prime example. Top to bottom: splatter screens, small pots and pans, lids, and large pots and pans. I especially like the space-saving lid rack.
3 June 2020
It's the first drawer I've built myself from scratch! I had to build one all the way through to the end so I knew what to do for the rest. Now I can mass-produce the parts and knock them out much more quickly. Surprisingly, this is a case where DIY isn't as economical as one might think: each drawer costs about $50 to build.
2 June 2020
One of several things I learned hosting a party on 1 June is that it's challenging to cook efficiently when things are not organized, and not having any finished kitchen cabinets proved to be a handicap. I also learned that I'm seriously rusty when it comes to construction; plus, the stores are depleted of a number of items I needed. Which, taken altogether, means my cabinetmaking will be very slow-going. It took nearly a day just to prepare one of two spaces for drawers in the kitchen island, which bookend a large cabinet in between. At this rate, it may take a week to finish it—and then there's the twelve feet of cabinets that face the island.