A Little Light

Kitchen cabinets are going up.

With lighting in the cabinets and under the cabinets.

Travertine tile on the bathroom floor. It's been sealed and grout is coming soon.

There's also travertine on the shower wall and black pebbles on the shower floor.

Laundry Room and Goodbye to Mr. Stump

Things are continuing to take shape. The old kitchen cabinets are now cleaned up and installed in the laundry room. That room doesn't have any windows, but there is now a combination skylight/solar chimney that will provide us with some illumination and ventilation.

One of the oddities of the house when we bought it several years ago was the large stump that stood in the front of the house. The previous owners had decided that it was the perfect thing to attach a downspout to and it sort of became a part of the house's architecture. We decided to give it a shove the other day, having made a few other attempts over the past months to see if it would give. Well, the weather and the bugs finally had their way with it and over it tipped, crumbling into a pile of mulch, bugs, and two snakes. 

Fall 2010, Mr. Stump standing tall and creatively attached to the house with a downspout. 

September 2013: Mr. Stump is no more.

Tile Sneak Peek

It's here! We moved 150 16x16 pieces of travertine tile from Home Depot to the house today; 50 in my car and 100 in the truck, 1600 lbs total. It's gorgeous! Now we just need to install it.

The Great Wall of Storage

The latest project has been the construction of the wall dividing the bathroom from the laundry room. This isn't just any wall; it's the Wall of Storage. On the bathroom side, there will be tall cupboards for storing bathroom stuff. On the laundry room side there are deeper cubbies, which we may just decide to leave open. One of the bays will allow laundry, dirty and clean, to pass between the two rooms. Two drawers, accessed from the bathroom side, hold laundry baskets so that dirty towels and clothes can be tossed in from the bathroom side. Above are cupboards that can be stocked with clean towels from the laundry side and accessed from the bathroom side. Genius, right?

Laundry room side 

Laundry room side. The nook at the right where the drill now is will be occupied by a stacking washer and dryer.

Laundry baskets and ventilation.

From the bathroom side (note the grab bar/towel bar at right—it's never too early to plan for later!) 

Looking into the bathroom from the doorway.

Toilet nook

Ikea sink installed. A find in the "As Is" department a few years ago. That pipe in the wall is called a Studer vent. It will be covered by a mirror later.

Next up will be tiling the bathroom floor and the shower stall. Stay tuned!

Bathroom in Progress

The big project of rebuilding the bathroom is underway. It's located where the original bathroom was, but will be 1,000 times better. Here's a series of photos of recent developments. It feels so good to be building instead of tearing out and fixing.

That's the IKEA sink cabinet there on the floor that we picked up in the "as-is" section. It made a temporary appearance to figure out size and placement, then it went back to its hiding place.

Adding some structure to the ceiling, along with a vent fan, a light tube for some more natural light, and junction boxes for the light fixtures.

Light tube partially installed.

Drywall on the ceiling. The light tube really shines!

Another view of the light tube and Big Red, our drywall lift.

Putting leveling compound down on the floor in preparation for laying down luan and backer board for the tile. Look how clean it is!

Backer board down, shower base framed in, and a hole in the floor for the toilet (!). 

Shower walls are starting to happen, plus the first divider that will form a storage cupboard between the bathroom and the laundry room.

That's not really a window in the shower. It will be the access panel for the shower plumbing.

Ikea Man

We purchased Ikea kitchen cabinets, oh, about two years ago. At the time we had no idea that the work on the house would take such a long time. Yesterday I pulled out three of the cabinets, one base, one wall, and one tall, and put together the boxes so that we would have accurate measurements of each in order to plan out the receptacles in the walls. It went smoothly; a good sign for when time comes to put all the rest together.

Ikea Man or the Greendale Community College mascot?

Base cabinet for sink or cooktop

Attic Man

Hood Update

The vent hood is taking shape. It's wired and the lights and fan work.

Touchpad dimmer

Small Mason jars cover the xenon puck lights

A leak was discovered in the attic. This was the culprit (not where a roofing nail should be): 

#roofingfail

Now . . . Where Was I?

Okay, so I've got some catching up to do! The year got off to a rough start with a back injury for Tom, which took him out of commission for most of January. He worked hard throughout February and March, getting the furnace and ductwork installed and a lot of wiring done. We also got a little Jotul wood stove on eBay and installed the chimney and stove pipe for that. Cutting a hole in the roof is interesting. So progress has been made, and now that spring is here, we expect things to proceed at a quicker pace, and I'll try to post more regularly. The newest project is the vent hood in the kitchen, custom built, that will go over the gas cooktop on the kitchen island.

Up on the roof, cutting a hole for the chimney.

That guy on the ladder again. He squeezed himself into the chimney hole.

Shiny new chimney.

A bad photo of the wood stove. The big rock was Tom's idea to increase the thermal mass while he worked. I'm not anticipating that it will be a permanent part of the decor.

Definitely one of my least favorite jobs: army crawling around in the cellulose insulation in the attic.

But at least I get to wear the new full face respirator.

Tom took a break to make my wedding band and then we both took a break to get married. The ring made from a very old, very high quality brass plumbing pipe (really!), rumored to have come from the governor's house in Dover, NH. Tom turned it on the lathe. Miraculously, my left ring finger is exactly the same size as a century-old water pipe! 

More pipes, this time ductwork in the specially built duct closet.

Ducts running through the new soffit in the hallway to the bedrooms and bathroom.

Building the island hood and coffered ceiling detail.

This wall will eventually be occupied by tall cabinets, a wall oven, and refrigerator. The space in the background will be divided into the laundry room and a bathroom.