Small fixes for the floor

In the kitchen, I had put some 2x4s into the subfloor as potential anchors for the cabinetry. Then, when we finally decided on the depth of the cabinets and placements of the posts, these footings weren't in the right areas. So I just put the floor over them.

Well, the thinner layer of finish floor didn't like that, and there were some small cracks due to faster drying or whatever. To fix them, first I wet down the area with a spray bottle,

and then took a little bit of leftover floor mix (remoistened) and just worked it in with the trowel:

then, gently swept away any excess, and it seemed to work pretty well. Here you can see all the little spots I had to work on:

The Damage

The rear output shaft of the truck transmission... cracked through a 1 inch diameter steel rod.

at least I got to keep the part.

Closet Rods get in

In between coats of oil on the floor of the second bedroom, I managed to put together the closet rod set up in the main bedroom. It has a center area for long things (pants hung by cuffs, dresses, etc) and two sides with each an upper and lower rod.

Here's a half done photo:

and here's how it looks all put together. It was surprisingly difficult to put all together, due to the design that locked it all together.

Back at the floor

After a week of travel, we tackled the last big job of the kitchen/dining room/pantry floor. We couldn't quite get the whole thing down in one day, but it was close. It'll be nice to not have the dusty floor kicking up on everything.

Some features in the bathroom

Got the first batch of cabinet doors on to the bathroom shelves. They're fronted with the reed beach mats you get for a dollar. Melissa sewed up the edges and when backed by some veneer, they look pretty good.

Showing off my bathroom door lock:

carved out of a piece of Madrone.

Hammer and Oil

Got the pantry/mud hall shelves cleaned up (again) and oiled so they'll be ready for their doors. If they were always going to be empty and dusted like this, I'd leave the doors off, they look so good.

The first grounding rod for the DC side of things got put in the other day. 8 feet of copper bar,

all the way in the ground. We probably have to ground the AC side, and then do some more for a lightening rod set up.

Growing ideas

An interesting discovery I've made about my thinking process living out in the woods is how sometimes it takes a while to see the obvious answers. Perhaps it's a change in my perspective due to age rather than my surroundings, or perhaps that I work in more practical applications now than I used to... or maybe just I need more solutions more often.

The most recent example comes from dirty water. In the plans for the house, I had made up a complicated gray water system that could hold about 50 gallons if need be so that I could then distribute that water with a hose to the fruit trees when I got around to it.

This summer, instead of doing the typical 5 gal buckets at the end of the drainpipe, since we had a good crop of raspberry and blackberry bushes, I 'stretched' the capability of the hose and had it just drain out right into those berry beds. The main reason I hadn't before is that it's almost a horizontal run from the yurt to the berries.

Now that the strawberries have finished producing, I'm putting the gray water there, to encourage runners and new growth for next year.

All this leads up to my realization of the obvious: I don't need a complicated system for the house, I can just have the drains go right to a hose, and just move the hose every day or whenever I get to it. I'll just have a switch for wintertime, where I can send the gray water out into the woods when we don't need it for the orchard. Easy and simple. Took me 3 years of thinking to get to the simple answer.

The blackberries (with bird netting on it now) are VERY happy to have had all that gray water in the month of July.

And the peaches are starting to look good too. Another week or so before they'll get eaten.

Kitchen Cabinet Doors

are on! They're not all perfectly square, and they don't all line up exactly how I'd prefer, but in general, they don't look too bad.

We'll probably use those little door-holder magnet things, but most already stay closed the way one would want.

Now I have think about whether I want to try and make handles/pulls, or just buy them.

Truck Trouble

The photo below is one of three interactions with the towing company from the last week. Seems like the transmission is not happy. It stopped moving down at the bottom of the road with a load of sand in it. We tried to get it towed that day (Friday) but with the sand in it, it was too heavy for the tow truck. After a long complicated day with another truck, I got the sand out, and had it towed into town.

Now we've had to have it towed from town to another town about 15 miles away, to a transmission specialist. could be spendy, but it's gotta get done.

Tear apart

So, I had to take apart the bed yesterday, as we had a worry that down inside, underneath, there may have been a mouse that got in before we closed off the doors, and then died. The evidence was, unpleasantly, a lot of flies in the bedroom. No smell or anything, but flies.

So, taking that apart took some work:

making a mess, I decided to plaster in the bottom layer, to really cut off any possibility of this happening again

here's a shot of the new plaster edge, before the top went back on.

Bathroom floor tile in place

Melissa has the tiles all laid out, getting ready to be thin-setted down. Looking pretty good!

the idea is that it's a stream, from the waterfall on the wall.

More Floor!

Living room surface is DOWN! now wait a week and start oiling. I'm also looking forward to removing all that paper and blue tape protecting the walls.