Rõika 15

Bathroom windows

The shed is cleaned up, so it was clear the glass in the outside window needs to be replaced. Some are cracked, one has a little hole and one has some spray paint on it. So on to the glass store. Of course also the frame needed some attention, but it was mainly sanding and painting. Something that could be done on my new workbench.

With the new glass in place, we started talking about the inner window. I suggested to use frosted glass at the bottom to get some privacy in the bathroom, but Mo thought that was a bit boring. We talked a bit more and 10 minutes later we had thought up a nice alternative. A window inspired by Mondriaan and Mo’s Mondriaan inspired wedding dress. Another half an hour later a sketch on scale was made and even a bit later I had drawn it on the wall and card board/windows. That showed we needed a little adjustment, to have the tiles match the floor tiles. Great plans, now see if this can be done within a reasonable budget.

Fixing up the window frame on the new work bench

Cleaning out the shed

With the wall fixed up, I figured I could clean out out shed and make a space for the garden tools and for the bags of pellets, as that way they are closer to the heater.
The work mostly consisted at taking out the wood I put there from the first work almost 2 years ago. I moved it to the old shed in the back of the garden where I have stored more wood until I get to cut it in pieces for the sauna heater.
When the place was empty I could broom it clean and make a rack for the bigger garden tools. I cut a few pallets to size, so the bags with pellets would fit on them and moved the last bags from the garage to the shed. I guess it is time to order some more.

Later in the week I moved some of the last rubble that my dad dug out the bathroom area to the very back of the garden, where there is a piece of no-ones land, that can use some straightening. Later that day the pellets where delivered, so I could check how they would fit. Pretty nice, I would say.

Workbench and garden shed

After a week of very visible work a week of less noticeable work followed. I finished the driveway outside of the gate, but then I went back into the garage and worked on the workbench. When I dry fitted all the joints I was impressed by how sturdy the workbench was already. I was looking forward to gluing it all together.

I also wanted to close the wall in the garden shed that has been build on the back of the house as there is still some cold air seeping in. For the bathroom I had taken out half of the windows, so there was a spare part on both sides of the window on the outside. While doing this, I noticed the part of the wall under the window was pretty crooked, so the result was not perfect, but good enough for a shed.

Garage kitchen and driveway

With all the space in the garage kitchen it is motivating to clean the place up. I started with cleaning the walls, it looked as if I had painted them. There was a lot of dirt on the paint. After that I placed some of the old Ikea cabinets that came from my grand parents. They fitted very nice. As the cabinets with the doors had been hanging cabinets, I made shelves to add to them.

In between, 4 months after ordering them, the guitar wall holders for Mattias finally came in, just a few weeks after his birthday, but it sure is a finishing touch to his room.

Recently I had noticed there is a hole in the driveway where the trailer tends to get into while backing it up into the driveway. I decided to fill it up with some left over sand that was kind of in the way anyway and than cover it with some of the split we still had on a big pile in the middle of the driveway. This gave such a nice result I continued working on the driveway the rest of the week.

Little by little it really started to become a driveway. When I met former coworker Jarkko at a house warming party who said he really like carrying stones and wood, we made an appointment to move the pile of stones that has been laying against the house for as long as we know to a better place. Mattias also helped cleaning up the bricks pieces at the front of the house. This cleaned up even more and the result looks great!

Workbench and garden work

If you search the internet for Morovian workbench you will get a lot of information on how to build one yourself. I started with making the countertop and once I had glued the two pieces together I could already use it by putting it on some supports. Then the real work started, making mortise and tenon joints, bridle joints and dove tails. One of the reasons I picked this workbench is to get back into wood construction.

During the weekend we decided to pick the apples that had not fallen yet, so we can store them. After that I figured it would be a good idea to extend the electrical system from the garage to the train roofs, having a light and a power point there will come in handy. Doing this also was a good excuse to clean another piece of garden, so next season we will have grass there and not weeds.

As a last thing this weekend Mo and I moved all the light armatures and cover from the garage kitchen to the train roof, so we can look through that later on and getting more space in the garage at the same time.

Garage and train roofs

During his stay around our wedding, my uncle asked if he could help with something. As he is good with electricity, I suggested he would make a start to unravel the electrical mess in the garage. He stripped the exiting mess, ordered all the cables, installed new fuses and reconnected the lights. A great start!

After the wedding we spend the time with the family and friend who made it here, so only a week later, I continues with the electrical system in the garage. Than I also realized the house was getting to a point where it would not be practical to make everything inside, so I would need a work bench. During breaks in the past months I had checked YouTube for all kinds of work bench designs and figured at Morovian workbench would be a nice option. This design from the 1700s is very sturdy, yet it can be easily taken apart and moved. Nice for working outside in the summer. The best part is that I found all the would I would need between the wood that was laying under the train roofs.

In the mean time Toon had contacted me about a space to store his Volvo Duett for the winter. When I told him I had space, but that was still pretty full he offered to come and help clean this out.

He came with his son August. Together we move and reordered a lot of wood and stones. Besides we found a lot of old metal pipes, which we loaded in the trailer and dropped off at the scrap yard. At just shy of 15 cents per kilo we collected over 80 euro, so you do the match on how many pipes we found. At the end of the day the train roof had more space then we have seen so far. Ready for a car or two to stand (more or less) dry this winter.

The ceiling

With just one week to go until we have a house full of people, we are trying to get as far as possible. The walls in the kitchen is finished. Marc helps out with filling the screw holes.

Later in the week Jeff comes to help out with the ceiling. We start by putting metal stud up. Another great use for the laser.

Towards the end of the week we are just a day short to put the plaster plate on the ceiling, but it is already such a big difference from a month earlier. Time for a wedding party. We’ll be back somewhere after.

Start on the kitchen walls

Since we will have an open kitchen a logical continuation of putting in the plaster plate in the livingroom, is to also put them in in the kitchen. Since we still need to use the kitchen this involves a bit more logistics of moving around cabinets and kitchen appliances. But overall this goes pretty smooth as well. There are more power plugs needed here and also specific power plugs for the oven and the stove. Nice puzzling.

While drilling a hole towards the hallway I managed to hit one of the pipes of the central heating, which caused a delay of a few hours, as this had to be fixed of course.

Also I finally decided to open up my Makita accu drill to find out why I cannot switch to clockwise drilling anymore. It turned out to be pretty simple the selector was broken and the replacement part was in stock at Makserv for just 50 cents.

Covering sewer and chimney

After some easier straight walls, this week the more fun parts came up. I had to make a cove around the sever pipe and cover the chimney. Which also made us plan the kitchen a bit more, as the size of the cove would be influenced by what we want to put against it. We decided to have an extra cabinet there, likely partly with either doors on either side or shelves that are reachable form either side. We’ll see in the future.

Start of the living room

After a short visit to the Netherlands and our first Corona test, we had to stay at home till the next test or 10 days. Plenty of time to focus on the living room!

We started by taking out the closet and the beds from om temporary bedroom. Since next month we will have some extra people staying over, we created two guestrooms. One on the attic of the garage and one in the future studio.

Once the room was empty I could start putting the the last pieces on insulation material at the top of the wall. then I put in the first holes for the power plugs, put in the metal stud and the first plaster plates.

In the mean time Mo painted the window sills in Mattias his room.

Soon I found out we had to make some decisions on where we would like to the furniture in the living room, as that influences the location of the power plugs and network connections. Still a lot of work was done.