Tiles and Shelves, on and on

Melissa continues her work on the tiling around the house... here's the bar top design as of now (note the new little Spanish painted tiles) the idea now is a blue border.

Here she is working on bringing the floor up to the level she wants it based on the door and threshold stuff. She uses a typical earthen floor mixture (which we have sitting around in buckets still - dried) to level stuff out. The floor has gotten worn away in this construction period.

Here's my cute little bench at the end of the shelves of the mud room. Melissa still has to grout these tiles and such, and the bench comes out of the notches easily enough right now (we still have to plaster as well)

and, here's the next couple of bays of shelves in place. Now for the other side!

Various Tile and Stone Updates

Melissa has been working away, getting things done on the tile and stone front all along. Check out the view of the shower:

this one shows the tops of the walls, which are covered by scrounged chunks of granite, cut to fit by Melissa:

here's the bathroom mirror, with the yet to be mortared in granite shelf:

On the bar, she's still debating about which tiles to use... we just got these beautiful tiles from Melissa's parents, who picked them up earlier this month on a trip to Honduras. The yellows are from Karl, the off-whites are from a demolition site we scrounged at, and the antique ones in the wall are ones my parents found in the Netherlands in the 70s, which were probably pried off some wall and sold at a sidewalk sale. Anyone have any opinions about the possible design? (realize that if you say you hate it, we won't listen, and then when you come to visit, you'll feel awkward)

Here she is planning out the front door threshold. I really want a 'stone' lip that physically blocks the bottom crack of the door, so she's trying to figure out how best to tile that in.

Snow?

Really?

Snow? Jack's not sure this is a good idea.

More test patches for plaster

this time, it's lime plaster, a new substance we're working with. We still have the test zone that is the wall that will be behind the cabinets, so here's two different mixes (the gray stuff) being tried out:

In the meantime, the first batch of shelves got put in place, just to see how things are coming together:

In the above photo, you can also see where Melissa has started thinking about the tile pattern in front of the door.

two more bays of shelves to go:

Making notches

In an attempt to document the process I'm going through, over and over, I took a photo of the notching process: first, follow the marked pencil lines with a tap to the chisel:

Then, use the stiff saw to cut down to the 1/2" mark (see the clamped piece? that's to stop the saw from going further, as the plank is 13", but we only want 9" notches)

Here's the first bay of shelves, standing on their own (no glue, no nails, no screws):

Charlie the visiting dog is not impressed.

Next thing, wall of shelves

We're now working on the other wall of the 'mud hall' aka pantry. I got the verticals in under the loft, and now Melissa has started marking out where the shelves will go:

and I'm making the notches for those shelves (these are the ones that got milled, baked, and planed earlier)

In the meantime, Melissa is also cutting granite pieces to fit on the top of the walls in the bathroom.

Quiche

Not only do real men eat quiche,

They bake them over an open fire in a dutch oven!

Old wood, the hard way

No one can say I don't do my part for conservation and 'using up' all of a resource. I'm working on more of the shelving, for the kitchen and the pantry, and since we wanted to have 1 inch thick shelves, I have to make that lumber.

a long time ago, I wrote about 'the tree in the valley', how I cut it down:

http://journeyinthewoods.blogspot.com/2008/01/leaning-tree-obession.html

and then how I got it out of the valley:

http://journeyinthewoods.blogspot.com/2008/01/giant-tree-project-update-now-that-ive.html

and how my neighbor came to help mill it up:

http://journeyinthewoods.blogspot.com/2008/05/milling-big-log-our-neighbor-and-friend.html

well, after all that, the thing ended up being too full of bugs to use as a structural element. I had cut the thing up into about 6ft pieces (for some stupid reason) and milled them into square beams. There they sat for what looks like 2 years.

Then this shelf project came up, and I noticed those chunks sitting there. So I got them up on the mill. I had to rebuild my jig to hold them properly:

Then mill them up into planks (I cut the short way due to cracks that would compromise the plank if I cut the long way)

then rip them straight with the table saw:

then mark them all out

cut them to shelf length (they'll be like the other shelves, notched in)

THEN, start a fire in the earth oven and let it burn for 3 hours or so,

Then BAKE all the pieces at 400 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes, to kill any possible bugs that still might be in there. (I did see a few during the milling process)

THEN glue them together to make the 9" shelves and the 13" shelves.


Still have to plane them all as well. By the way, I'm working on 18 different shelves.

Some Garden

In addition to building the house, we are of course, trying to grow more food. Gardening is enjoyable, but I always feel it steals time away from the building project.

Our artichoke is finally looking like this year will be its year:

I pruned all the fruit trees and grape vines in the last week; I'm going to work harder on monitoring the grapes, pinching off errant shoots and stressing the vines a bit more now that they're 4 years old.

and would you believe the black plum is already thinking about budding out?

Water

Melissa continues up the shower walls with the tiling. The green pieces, where the plumbing bits come through, are to represent a wall fall. It's starting to come together.

Have I ever mentioned we use a Berkey water filter for our drinking water? It sits outside in the shade, and we fill the double sized wine bottles with the pure water and fill the thing from the hose (you can see the white hose in the picture). works for us!

Check out the evening light!

as the walls get whiter, the winter sun setting in the west brings in some lovely orange light:

it doesn't look like much progress, but I got the vertical trim in the kitchen windows, and they're all caulked up - making it possible to start to clean those windows, and keep out the wind

"I planted these trees in the driveway and they just won't grow!" actually, I made a holder for these posts so that I could easily varnish all of them at once without having to lean them on anything.

and then I spent the day planing planks so I could start building the north wall of the kitchen - which will be all shelves