Kitchen Cabinets 2

After fitting the drawer slide and hinge backing blocks we were able to move the cabinet boxes from the shop over to the house for their trial fitting on the bases which were fixed in place on the floor a few weeks ago. There are a few little things to deal with on the 4 box units (+ 1 for the downstairs bathroom vanity) but we should be able to get a finish on them all tomorrow in preparation for their final installation

Kitchen Cabinets 1

The Christmas holiday project for this year is to make and install some kitchen cabinets so the counter & sink and gas stovetop can be installed for the final building inspection. So, at the end of day 2, we have all of the lower maple plywood boxes together with the cherry face frames and trim installed.

Stair Handrails

A "continuous, graspable handrail anchored every 1200 mm (4') is what the building code says, which seems simple enough (and was on our straight-run stairs in the other building), but proved to be quite an interesting project to turn a 180 degree corner. Thank heavens for computer drafting where I completed as much as I could with the sizes I knew and had the program provide me with the missing sizes and angles.

Balcony Railing Panels

First of all, our apologies for not posting anything for so long. Our building inspector, Grant, was here a few weeks ago to approve the wood stove in the house and provide us with a list of items that need to be completed before the final occupancy permit can be signed off. So, we've been working on a panelled balcony railing and stair hand railing to check off a couple of items on that list.

Master Bedroom Deck All Done

After picking away every evening after work and a couple of weekends, the master bedroom deck and surrounding walls are now complete, just as the evenings are getting darker earlier. The large piece of glass is 20" wide and 10' long and weighs - a lot.

Stair Treads Installed and Finished

The stairs heading up to the landing and on to the second floor are now complete and have a couple of coats of finish on. The fir used on the steps is from the same batch of the reclaimed hangar roof from Comox that we used on the whole second floor.

Marble Tiles all Down, Woodstove In, Washer & Dryer In

Gradually the marble tiles have all been placed and grouting has been completed. The final grout tally for 500 sq ft of tiling was 220 lbs., all placed on our hands and knees.

The woodstove was installed on Friday and chimney pipe hooked up, so now we are just a final inspection away from another source of heat for the house.

The other Friday evening activity was to rent an appliance dolly and move the washer and dryer upstairs to their final resting place and hook them all up ready for the final plumbing and electrical push.

Marble Tiles Placed

So the last job on the list before the return to work was very, very close to being completed by 7 pm Sunday evening. The marble was purchased from Matrix Marble in Duncan and is all quarried here on Vancouver Island. The blue-gray tiles come from the west coast near Zeballos, and the black ones from another quarry near Carmanah. We worked out a pattern and had Matrix cut us several sizes to suit. (See Monday, July 19 posting) Installation was pretty straightforward but required the odd pause-and-reflect moment. We're happy to report no tiles have had to be chipped up from being incorrectly located. The remaining work to be done is just cut and fit a few tiles around the edges, then a LOT of grouting.

Preparing for Floor Tile

This week (my last before returning to work after 14 months off) will be spent getting the marble tile installed on the main floor of the house. Today's job was cutting and fitting the uncoupling membrane. This is the bright orange waffle-textured material that is meant to prevent any of the cracks in the concrete sub-floor from transferring through to the tile and grout lines in the finished floor.

After seeing it all in place, we now have a good idea how the house would look in wall-to-wall orange shag carpeting. I guess it's not too late...

Shingling Done!

We completed the shingling late on Friday afternoon, last week. Scaffold was all down and returned by 10 am Saturday. The remainder of the weekend was spent constructing and installing the downspouts so we are now ready for the wet weather.

Garage/Office Shingling Work Progresses

A great run of hot, sunny weather has allowed a major push on the shingle installation on the upper storey of the building. The back (east side) was completed last Monday and the scaffold moved around to the front where the final shingles are oh so close to being completed.

At this stage, I'm really looking forward to not having ladders in my life, and spending a week or so of tile setting on my hands and knees.

Trimming Cork Floor

The cork floor in the kitchen and dining area is now installed, so the only job left was to get a good, true edge on the radius where the edge of the cork will mate up against the marble tiles. The router was pressed into use using a centre-point jog on an 88" radius which worked very well.