Reworking upstairs layout

We have been trying to figure out the upstairs layout and how to get some more room for the bathroom (which is the room in the bottom center of the image). You can see that it is pretty small right now and we are looking at being about to add about 16 more square feet to it but is it worth redoing all of the walls? What do you think?

The top picture shows the existing upstairs and the bottom shows the proposed upstairs.

Cabinet for the Kitchen

Because we don't have that many cabinets in the kitchen we are building a free standing unit in the corner between the sink unit and the bathroom. This is where the dry sink is in this picture.

The basic design is shown in the drawing below but we will be adding some additional features that are not shown.

Now that I am out of the house with all new construction I am a little slow in getting pictures of the progress so the first picture shows most of the bottom unit complete.

The brackets between the top and bottom unit are made from two 3/4" boards laminated up. Here is a picture of them being cut out and smoothed out using the oscillating spindle sander.

 These are pieces that are cut to be added to the top and bottom of the brackets.

We are planning on doing the countertop in zinc sheet. This is a very traditional material for a countertop. The sheet was cut and bent up using a sheet metal break. The sheet will wrap a plywood base but first the corners have to be soldered together. The zinc sheet will start out shiny but then will turn to a dark pewter color over time. You can see in the picture below a sheet section that is new and one that has been forced to age.

Here you can see how the sheet is bent to fit around the wood core.

Here is a corner before being soldered.

 And after being soldered. It does not look good now but it should blend in quite well once it is sanded and buffed down.

More work on the stairs (Bottom Part)

This week both Kristen and Connie worked on stripping the steps, getting new paint on all the kickplates and urethane on all the treads. At this point most of the paint has been stripped off the treads but there are still a large number of pits that have to get picked out one by one using some of Kristen's dental tools.

All of the kickplates were painted up with the trim color before they were scrapped or sanded.

Once the first coat was dry it was scrapped, filled and sanded.


Then back with the small brushed to get the paint into all of the corners of the stairs.

And here is what it looks like once they all are all painted.

Outside Pictures

The flowers were blooming in the front bed for the Historic Everett Home Tour this past weekend. Here is a picture from down at the road and a closeup of the front bed.

Faux Wood Finish on Fridge

We had been working so hard on things last week we were not too good about getting things up onto the blog so we will be playing catchup for a little bit to let everyone know what we were working on. The base color was a lighter brown and the faux wood finish is done with a dark brown paint mixed 1:1 with a glaze. Here you can see that just one of the front panels is complete.

To complete the look for the rest of the fridge we had to tape off and complete each section individually.

You can see the faux graining of the wood up close. This was done by painting the glaze mixture on with a brush and then almost immediately removing it from the surface with a paper towel.

Not much left to glaze here. As you can see the whole unit has become quite a bit darker.

Once all of the graining was complete on the cabinet a coat of urethane was placed on top to give it some protection and cleaning ability.

Historic Home Tour - Showing our home

Our house was on the Historic Everett Home tour this weekend so we have been working hard the past week (with the help of Kristen's parents) to get everything cleaned up and all of the tools moved up to the shop.

We also had a long list of items that got worked in each room to get the house in working order. 

Here are a couple of the pictures of what it looked like just before we had around 300 people come through and check out what we have been working on the past two years. We are going to rest for a couple of days and then back to work on the backyard project.

 

Granite Topped Table Fixed

This is a fir table that we found for free! down the street. It was not in the best shape but it had nice bones to it. The table had to be taken apart at first. Paul took the table top off and some of the additional newer pieces that were added by someone over the years.

 

 

One of the original fir baseboards for the house was used to make three replacement pieces that were a much better match to the grain of the original piece.

Some of the original pieces had to be glued up and blind screwed.

The new pieces of wood were stained to match the originals and the whole piece was given a coat of stain urethane.

To provide the top with some additional stability a 3/4" piece of plywood was attached within the frame.

The granite top arrived and it was heavy! We used the lift with some blocks to move it around the house and into the kitchen.

The top was slid on and a couple spots of silicone were used to keep it sliding around the top.

Here is the finish table in the middle of the kitchen.