Some More Finishing Touches....

OK! It's been a month since I've sat down to document our struggles & our truimphs & our 'what the....??!!', but I'm back on track now & we are moving forward at a good pace....ever since I got up at 4 a.m. to write out some lists of jobs that we need to do before the summer is upon us.

Firstly, we went down to Florida to help Gerry & Lorraine celebrate their wedding on the beach - absolutely stunning event & a grand time with family (Phil's side) & a bit of time to ourselves & a couple of good nights down on my Uncle Gerry's sailboat in Fort Lauderdale.

It took us over 36 hours of traveling to make it back to Bamfield - with yet another massive shopping spree at Home Depot & Costco. This finishing work is almost more planning & organizing than the whole of the initial construction phase!!

We brought some of that Florida sunshine & heat back with us - a whole 2 days of it!! But June is just around the corner, so I'm sure the weather will improve once again. We had hoped to see the stairs installed (as promised) but they needed a bit more work & planning - so I've got my fingers crossed for the next week or so......


Introducing our loft stairs!! Big & beautiful! Here, they have no varathane on them & I was surprized that the 2 different woods looked so similar, but some of the work that needed to be done on them was to apply the varathane....




Here's Phil working with his sponge brush. You can already see the colours of the yellow cedar (the stringers on the side in the light colour) & the fir (the darker colour on the treads) coming out. I think Phil had to put on about 4 coats of varathane.






Here's Michelle getting down & dirty - literally! The place upstairs is a disaster! When I find the time, I'll get back up there with the shop vac & blast it all away.


This is just a close up of the stairs. There is a lot of awesome wood grain on the treads & the stringers have some nice knots & veins running along it.








The house was designed to have a bit of a landing at the bottom of the stairs. The house isn't wide enough to have the stairs where we put them, but I really wasn't expecting a 2 step landing! I'm hoping the boys will work on this today & put in the step on either side of it....plus the post at the bottom of the stairs. It was somewhere upstairs when I went to take photos, but I couldn't find it....

We are putting fir hardwood on the landing (& the 2 steps?) & we were lucky enough that a friend in town has lots of extra - so we shall see what we will do with it once it's installed....

While we were away, the upper kitchen was being installed. This design is quite a bit different than the suite kitchen - more custom to how I want the whole living space to feel. As you can see, the cabinets are up to the ceiling - this is for the items that we don't use everyday. You'd be surprized at how much you don't use certain 'kitchen gadgets' that are meant to save time - I found a whole wack of things when we were packing up that I NEVER use!

We are only half way finished with the kitchen - under the cupboards will be 2 open shelves - & a custom microwave stand & we've yet to pick out our under-the-shelf lighting, but that'll come along...

This is the corner pantry unit that Mark custom built for us - the angles match the office wall & the entry door angle down the hallway. It also allows for moving around the top of the stairs area without fear of falling down the stairs. This is going to be an awesome storage unit!


While Mark was installing the upper cabinets, we all realized that when the electrical was put in, we forgot to account for the cupboard doors. Usually, the upper cabinets do not come up this high (normal height is like in the suite kitchen) so we now have to dig into the drywall & move the lights out & away from the cabinets. Ruining a perfectly good paint job on the ceiling....grrrr.

I leave the boys upstairs to install the island for half an hour & come back up to see it & realized that they put in the central vac in the wrong spot....the island needs to be ripped up! We have the toe-kick hole that you use when you just want to sweep up the kitchen & brush it down a low hole attached to the central vac....Phil had Mark put it under the front edge - 2 or 3 inches back so that he won't smash his toe on it. It's supposed to be installed on the side of the island so that the broom can actually get the dirt down into the hole. Oops!


Phil's been doing all the electrical finishing upstairs too. He's got almost all the lights installed - such as this wall sconce on the front wall. It looks awesome at night & I can't wait to see the effect when the windows are cased & trimmed in.




Phil also finished the bathroom light installation. Makes it much easier to use this room - not for what it was intended just yet (we need a new toilet - the old one broke because we left it in the yard over the winter - talk about white trash!!). I'm using the bathroom as my staining room - some place where I can control the heat - air flow & reduce the amount of dust flying by my face.

Phil moved in the cedar trim wood - now it will dry out & we can get to planing, sanding, cutting, installing & putting on some sort of oil product to protect it & bring out the colours. The laundry room smells great!





Phil went down into the scarey crawl space this morning to wire it up for lights. Somehow we neglected this & we actually have a lot of useable room down there. He also built proper covers for the 2 access holes that we have to the crawl space. Maybe the musty smell down there will stay down there - although Phil has the de-humidifyer running again & that should reduce the damp.



Last night I came home from spending a day over at Aguilar House they've been renovating for almost 2 years & I've been doing a bunch of odd jobs there for a few months. Anyway - I've learned so much about finishing work there it's been a lot of help for us in our projects. I spent the day staining the wood in their games room & we've been needing to stain our interior hemlock doors for a while. It's kind of silly living with blankets as doors....really removes the privacy come 'bathroom time'......

Anyway!! I got home & we hauled up the 2 doors we have access to (the doors for the upper bathroom & office are stuffed in the back of the office behind all our boxes....). I wasn't sure if I should put on a wood conditioner before applying the stain (have heard 6 different opinions as to how to do it...) so I just started putting 'er on! It was TERRIFYING! The stain is the same as what we used on the kitchen cupboards, but the kitchen is hickory - a hard wood & the door are hemlock a soft wood - the soak up rate is vastly different with the hemlock. I had to wipe it off almost as soon as I put it on!! But the effect is stunning! The doors look like they are old doors - without all the dings & dents & marks that come from finding an antique door.

This morning I put on a coat of varathane & it's brought out the colour even more. I'll have to wait for the varathane to dry to see if I need to sand it at all & maybe put on another coat.

I also did the door frames downstairs with the stain last night, so we had to sleep in a stinky room. But with the varathane, it looks really good. Can't wait to see what Phil wants to do for door trim....