Garage – Rõika 15

Bathroom and summer kitchen

The first thing to finish was the bathroom ceiling. The majority of the work was done already, only the main ceiling had to be put in, plastered and painted. This went pretty smooth.
In between we moved the temporary kitchen to the garage and made it into a pretty cozy kitchen. The only thing missing was running water and a sink, but this was fixed with a the vacation jerrycan and a bucket. It is temporary anyway. Soon we will be able to use a real kitchen.
Finally we could also put in the cabinet in the bathroom. At first I thought of building a cabinet, but when I found out it would fit a stock cabinet from Ikea with matching wooden doors, the choice was easy. Just in time for the arrival of my dad. It was good seeing him again in Tallinn. Looking forward to all the work we have planned.

The first thing we planned to do was take out the floor in the living room/kitchen and make it completely level. So taking out all the floor boards again. Minor detail was then we had build the insulation and walls over the floor, so we had to cut the floor. My old cheap jigsaw broke, so time to replace it for a real one. For some parts this was not the best solution either, so we also got a little circular saw blade for on an angle grinder. A scary tool that got the job done nicely.
With the floor out, we had to find out how big the difference was. After a lot of measuring we found out the difference between the highest and lowest point of the floor was almost 5,5 cm. No wonder the floor was wavy. We put in screws at the measuring points to visualize what we needed to fix and decided to screw some straight beams against the sacked beams.

Ready, set: GO!

This first decent vacation since we got the house has done us good. We rested, got inspired and were ready for a big large sprint. On a rainy day in France we went to Ikea and made the last decisions about the kitchen, so we where ready to order it.
It had been hot in Estonia, actually this region has been the hottest in entire Europe. Those small tomato plants we left a month ago, turned into a huge tomato plant jungle, which Mo cleaned up nicely.

After that it was a week of visiting a lot of shops. First stop was Ikea to check some final details and double check if everything we picked was also available in Estonia. Than we went for Floorin as I though linoleum might be a good solution for the kitchen. Mo’s first response was something like ‘No way!’ Ben when she saw the modern colours, she agreed to check it out and after seeing it in real life the decision was made quickly. We also found some roles of heavily discounted linoleum in the colour chartreuse, which we thought would be nice for the hall way. Nice detail was we brought a bottle of Chartreuse from France and it is clear how the colour got it’s name.

Next was a few countertop specialist, the good thing of have two offers is, you can negotiate prices. Since the first company we checked couldn’t beat the price of Granimar the order went to them.

For the living room we wanted a wooden floor. After earlier success at K-Rauta we went there and also this time we found a floor we liked quickly. As a bonus we also found a vanity desk for in the bathroom that was on sale, so we took that as well.

With these preparations done, we could start the real work. We wanted to try to get the bathroom done before my dad would arrive. It was just the ceiling, starting with plastering it.

And since we would replace the entire floor in the living room/kitchen we also needed to make space there, so we cleared out the garage to create a temporary kitchen there.

Start of a chair

About two months ago I talked with Mo about her birthday present. As I found out she is very fond of ‘De Stijl‘ I aked if she would like a Rietveld chair for her birthday, which would be delivered a bit later… Time flies so it was about time to start building it. As wikipedia has a full list of used parts it was pretty easy to calculate how much wood I would need. Since beech wood is very hard to get in Estonia, I used pine.

I started with a beam that I cut to length, then I cut them to size followed by drilling the holes for the dowels. When dry fitting them, it quickly started to look like the chair. As I did not have the sheet wood, I put a few other pieces to get a feel of the later result. Time to get paint.

With these darker days it was getting a bit annoying that the light in the garage kitchen did not work. After testing together with Jan who stopped by for a visit, I consulted with Loeke. The solution was actually pretty simple. It turned out the common ground and the switched ground where close to each other, and not explicitly marked. Since the switched ground strip was full I had continued with the common ground, which is a different circuit, so the circuit break did work as designed. I added a extra strip to split both grounds up and then I had light in the kitchen and under the train roof.

In the mean time it seems winter has started with a nice layer of snow and temperatures under 0.

The workshop

Secretly I had already started to use the work bench, which also stimulated to create a bit more order in the tools. I had seen a nice design of so called french cleat storage wall and wanted to try this. So I made a few small tool organizers. Because of the system you can easily move a set of tools do a different part of the workshop. After building this test setup I am convinced I will use this system to store the rest of my tools later on.

A few days later a new toy arrived, an Odroid N2+ with ‘gorgeous’ aluminum case, shortly the Home Assistant Blue, as an upgrade for my Raspberry Pi 3 to run home assistant for the upcoming years. So the darkest time of year I had something to keep me busy. Of course the first thing I did was open the case to check the content (and to turn it around to the connector where on a more logical side.)

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.