Monkey House

I never thought I’d find myself rinsing off river stones.

The short version: although the layer of weedblocker fabric that was under the rocks was still doing its job (no weeds were growing from the ground itself), there was so much compost/sediment built up between the rocks that weeds were growing anyhow. A lot of them. Rather than just use herbicide of some sort, we took the rocks off the weedblocker (which we also replaced while we were at it) and put them through several stages of rinsing (not really by choice but out of necessity… the muck was stubborn!) before finally replacing them.

We only did the left side. The right side is a bit larger to begin with, and also extends down the side of the deck. It’s roughly twice the size of the left, all told.

Several, SEVERAL hours of rinsing and back-breaking shoveling. You can’t see the difference in the pictures, but it WAS an effective solution. Only problem is, too labor-intensive for the trade-off. When we do the right side next year, we’ll just use eco-green herbicide (I know, quite an oxymoron, eh?)

Small update, on two related points–

As you guys (anybody reading this blog) already know, we have opted to have a home birth. Part of our plan is to use a birthing tub (AquaDoula is the brand name) for comfort, muscle relief, and if Alie feels like it, the delivery itself.

Tubs need water.

Water source is ensuite faucet.

Ensuite faucet to tub requires hose.

Hose to tub requires adapter on faucet.

Now, most (all?) faucets have a screw-on aerator attachment. You know the thing I’m talking about. Little mesh baskety-dealy that prevents the water from coming out in one forceful gush… in kitchens, people unscrew these for attaching Brita filters. Yeah. We broke that. I broke that. In all fairness, it was seized onto the faucet with about 20 years of corrosion and mineral build-up. Same thing happened to a colleague of mine not too many months ago, so I know I can’t be the only one.

But either way, off to Home Depot. And if you’re off to Home Depot, might as well do it right. That meant getting a new faucet, shut off valves (had to go back a second time as I got straight when I needed angled), and braided supply lines. Add to this a “new” sink we already had! Since we hated the beige one that was in there (and happened to have a white one that we got for free not too long ago), changeroo time.

For possibly the first time ever, I can say that although breaking the faucet sucked, the actual renovation was a complete success. No drips, nothing broken, no problems!

Some parting statistics:

- Filling the AquaDoula takes 55 minutes with our faucet. That’s a long time to be running water. Felt guilty.
- Heating the AquaDoula to 95 or so degrees Farenheit takes 18 mother-effing hours. Needless to say, we didn’t get to enjoy the fruits of our labour that night.

I’m not allowed to post full-motion video of my wife, so I’ll have to learn how to edit a video before I start showing anything… I always manage to film her giving high-fives and stuff, thereby making an otherwise video a little more fun but a little less publicly-consumable.

The built-in was a relatively easy project, but we got great satisfaction out of it. The best part of it is that the Ikea “Komplement” drawers we picked were just shy of the full depth of the existing closet. If we had tried to just “hide” a dresser in there for extra storage, it would have been much shallower. We’ll get some good storage out of these suckers. Plus we went with cavernous shelves which will be good for storage versatility.

Here’s what you need:
- melamine boards, with 1 finished edge
- variety of screws (some long enough to go through melamine + drywall + grab a chunk of wall stud)
- a level and a measuring tape
- melamine heat-applied edging (optional touch to cover visible particle board edges)

Here’s the pics:
(left to right 1: final product; 2: brackets installed 3: just needs finishing steps)

In the final product there’s a top to the built-in that extends the existing shelf. There is also a toe-kick that gives it a polished look.

The project was relatively easy, but still took about 9 hours including snack breaks, watching some tube or internet here and there, etc. The general breakdown of how we approached it:

1. Measured from carpet to existing shelf to get height for sides of the “cabinet”. There’s no way we’d expect both to be the same, so we measured in EACH location and cut each “side” separately, adding a couple mm to account for carpet squooshiness.
2. Located and cut grooves so that the top would fit in and around the existing shelf and so that the bottom could go over the existing baseboards
3. Removed baseboard from right side so that cabinet side could go right into the wall
4. Screwed right side into wall. Screwed left side through the pre-existing “shelf” into the top of the side. This was unecessary and we ended up having to unscrew later
5. Measured where we wanted first (bottom) drawer to go, and added the rest of the slider brackets from there:
   1. used level on first bracket to locate where “back” screw would go; installed bracket
   2. used level to go across (not trusting measuring up from floor or down from top; dimensions are never square or straight!) to locate and install front screw of next bracket
   3. used level to locate and screw in “back” screw and installed bracket. Now we have a matching pair so we test-fitted a drawer. It worked!
   4. since the first pair worked, we now had a “base” for measurements. Measured all the front screw holes and installed brackets.
   5. using the level worked in the past, so we used the level for each of the remaining 6 brackets to locate “back” screw and finish installation

Test fit– all drawers work, but we wanted it less sticky.

6. Unscrewed left side and “tapped” left side into place before re-screwing through the top
7. cut and installed 4 “ledges” for our 2 shelves using a similar levelling technique. Why ledges? Can’t drill easily into that right side… might as well be consistent. You can see the front of the ledges in the “later” photos

We screwed up one of the screws somehow, or the cut for the ledge was crooked… either way, we decided to keep it as-is. Hard to notice.

8. put our 2 shelves on the “ledges” and screwed them into place also from the left side.

Now the whole structure is rock-solid and “built-in”

9. added the top (trickier than you think! No angles were 90 degrees, so we had to make a few cuts and eventually steal time on dad’s mitre saw for half-degree cuts in order to get it pretty tight)
10. re-installed some of the baseboard on the inside of the closet

Done!

Nothing much to report here.

The toilet we installed for our new powder room is cracked already. Hairline, but enough to be a worry and for a few wee droplets of water to get through. Gotta replace this before it becomes an actual problem.

Possible culprits?

1) over-tightening the lugs securing the toilet
2) the toilet always felt a bit tippy… maybe the bottom was uneven to begin with; either way, will make sure next toilet doesn’t exhibit this problem.

–

In other news, the built-in isn’t quite done yet. There’s still one more piece of lumber to paint tomorrow, and then pictures the day after.

Greg

I seem to be talking mostly about home reno on this blog. I assure you, there is a baby on the way. Due June 7, 2009, and I couldn’t be happier. Er, so, more about renovation!

The room that has become the nursery has a very large closet. Too large to have all the space wasted with just a long pole for hanging things on. Nosir, this sucker needed some shelving and/or drawers.

It had been suggested that with such a large closet, you could easily put a dresser in there. True, but a dresser isn’t very fun or very impressive. We’re some pretty skilled folks, so we figured, “Why not just make a built-in storage solution?” We like our Ikea Pax wardrobe, and were thinking about repurposing its drawers, but at the end of the day they were just a bit TOO wide at ~90cm each (with cabinet and hardware included, a total of 100cm width). So, we purchased 4 narrower “Komplete” drawers in white (“Komplete” is the Pax drawer/shelving line), and some sale-priced white Melamine to make a cab with.

Should be finished tomorrow, and pics will follow.

Greg