Scary Cabin

To make the utility room more useful, we decided to add some cabinetry and counter top. Not only will the cabinets provide additional storage, but the counter can be used for laundry, crafting, or even computer work. We looked at a couple of different options, with the goal being to minimize cost, but in the end, it seemed worth a bit more to have cabinets and counters that match the kitchen. So back to the Lowes special order cabinetry desk.

We received the cabinets on Friday and had them installed to the point where the counter top can be measured by Sunday. It really should have gone quicker but for a knee drawer.

The upper cabinets went up pretty fast. The corner was a bit more than 90 degrees, but not so much that it wasn’t manageable. Then we started on the lowers. The first problem we encounters was trying to remember the layout. Of course we had forgotten the layout at home. The three lower cabinets are all different sizes but after some trial and error, we had it worked out. Next we opened up the box with the knee drawer and promptly started scratching our head trying to understand how it gets installed. The first attempt to mount it didn’t meet with Genny’s expectations so it was nixed. One of the issues revolved around where the cabinets were positioned in order for the knee drawer to fit. When we drew up the plans and ordered the cabinets, we measured the walls but failed to take into account the base boards. Moving one cabinet over by 1/2” and all of them out by 1/2” threw off the design and pushed the last cabinet to where it overlapped the windows trim. The only solution seemed to be to try and re-build the drawer box smaller. After thinking about it a lot, I took a chance and cut down the face of the drawer box as much as I could (which wasn’t easy on an assembled drawer box). Test fitting that seemed to work and the cabinets ended up in the right place. However, the drawer face was now too long to fit. It was made with about 2” of overhang on each side, so off it came and was shortened by 7/8” on each side. With that, it cleared by about an 1/8” on each side. All that was left was creating a brace to hold the rear of the drawer box.

With the knee drawer sorted, the rest of the cabinets could be mounted to the wall and each other.

At this point, it’s ready to be measured for the counter top. But there’s still more to do. We have the crown molding for the top and the trim for the toe kicks. There are also a couple of filler pieces that need to be cut and installed. That’s work for another weekend.

Todo list
Utility Room

1. Fix ant infested ceiling joist
2. Get roof fixed/replaced
3. Replace electrical boxes
4. Add recessed lighting
5. Figure out washing machine drain
6. Replace dryer vent
7. Frame new closet
8. Seal up the room
9. New insulation
10. New drywall
11. Texture drywall
12. Paint walls and ceiling
13. Prep for tile floor
14. Tile floor
15. Grout floor
16. Window and door trim
17. Base boards
18. Install closet door
19. Install cabinetry

The outside doors are painted and no longer primer white. It only took something like 3 years. With the outside stained, the white just wasn’t making the right statement. Genny spent hours taping, painting, and un-taping the doors and now they look soooo much better. We should’ve done this years ago.

We finished up the last of the utility room trim. The window trim is now installed, filled, and painted. The baseboards are painted and most, well as much as one tube of caulk would do, trim is caulked.

When our friends came over and saw the utility room for the first time since before we started on it, they said that this was the biggest transformation yet. There are still a couple more things to finish up, like the closet shelf & door and we need to order some cabinetry. But for the most part, the room is finished. We re-built the washing machine drain that routes the water out into the yard. The washer and dryer are now usable again. We started moving stuff out of the bedroom and back into the utility room so it’s getting cluttered up again.

The next step will be to go through the place and make a list of all the little things that still need to be done. And while it not “finished”, we’re to the point where we shouldn’t be making large quantities of dust and can start decorating and making it all look pretty.

Except for the large elephant in the room, or rather, outside the room … the deck. It’s a large deck and it’s going to take some to time to demolish and re-build. We’ve started looking at materials and are currently planning to use Trex composite decking and Hog Wild railing something like this:

The choices for decking and railings is ginormous. It’s taking time just to figure out what we want and what we need. But soon we’ll be embarking on our next construction adventure.

Todo list
Utility Room

1. Fix ant infested ceiling joist
2. Get roof fixed/replaced
3. Replace electrical boxes
4. Add recessed lighting
5. Figure out washing machine drain
6. Replace dryer vent
7. Frame new closet
8. Seal up the room
9. New insulation
10. New drywall
11. Texture drywall
12. Paint walls and ceiling
13. Prep for tile floor
14. Tile floor
15. Grout floor
16. Window and door trim
17. Base boards
18. Install closet door
19. Install cabinetry

We installed a number of tripping hazards or as they’re commonly called, post footings for the deck. Our updated deck design calls for some additions beyond the original deck and those will need footings. The largest addition will be a 13ft. x 13ft. step down area off the main corner. We’re also extending out part of the deck to make room for a small fire pit and adding a walkway between the main deck and the back door. Most of the new footings are located where they can easily trip someone up, hence the tripping hazards.

Digging the holes, mixing the cement, and poring the footings took about a day and half. We used 34 bags of cement. And just because, we did this on what was probably the hottest weekend of the year.

We also spent a bit more time on the utility room, getting closer to finishing it off. We installed all the baseboard (but still need to sand down filler and touch up the paint). Genny painted the both the inside and outside of the door. This is the first door to get painted on the outside. With the new stain, the white primer doors stand out and not in a good way. The Oakmoss green is a big improvement.

With the utility room baseboard installed, we used some of the leftover to complete the baseboard in the downstairs dog cubby and the upstairs closet. The only trim left to install is the utility room window casing.

With the inside nearly complete, we’re turning out attention to the deck. While the deck should be the last project, it’s going to take a while to complete.

Todo list
Utility Room

1. Fix ant infested ceiling joist
2. Get roof fixed/replaced
3. Replace electrical boxes
4. Add recessed lighting
5. Figure out washing machine drain
6. Replace dryer vent
7. Frame new closet
8. Seal up the room
9. New insulation
10. New drywall
11. Texture drywall
12. Paint walls and ceiling
13. Prep for tile floor
14. Tile floor
15. Grout floor
16. Window and door trim
17. Base boards
18. Install closet door
19. Install cabinetry

Cross a couple more items off the list. The utility room floor is tiled and grouted. That took about 3 days, including the time it took to empty the room again. Tiling always seem like something that should go pretty quick, but it doesn’t. Laying the tiles at a 45 degree angle means that all the tiles near the wall need to have corners cut off and small corners need to be cut to fit between them. Unless you happen to start in the corner, special care is needed to get the proper cuts to fit in a corner. Even when just laying out a row, it takes time to back butter and align each tile. The thinset is mixed in batches, about 6 batches for this small room. Sometimes, the thinset drys out and needs to be re-mixed. It does go much faster with two people.

For the utility room we’re using the same color of tile as the kitchen/bath, but using smaller 12×12 tiles. While easier to deal with when cutting, the smaller tiles do present more challenges getting them aligned. It is even worse when one box has tiles that are slightly larger than the previous couple of boxes. 1/8th inch grout lines don’t leave much wiggle room when the tiles are a 1/16th inch bigger. Yeah, I’m whining or making excuses because I’m not real happy with the way it turned out. It’s usable and I think the really bad spots will be covered but still…

With the floor done, trim work can start. The door casing was finished and turned out good. I definitely like working with wood better than tile. The inside window trim was cut, primed, painted and installed. Now all the window needs is casing and a window shade. One piece of casing shy of being able to finish it off.

While the utility room work took place inside, the outside of the cabin was prepped and stained with SuperDeck Mission Brown stain. We hired someone to do the staining as that’s one messy job and not being afraid to get up high on a ladder is pretty much a requirement. If it wasn’t still surrounded by an ugly rotting deck, the cabin would look pretty good with the fresh coat of stain.

Todo list
Utility Room

1. Fix ant infested ceiling joist
2. Get roof fixed/replaced
3. Replace electrical boxes
4. Add recessed lighting
5. Figure out washing machine drain
6. Replace dryer vent
7. Frame new closet
8. Seal up the room
9. New insulation
10. New drywall
11. Texture drywall
12. Paint walls and ceiling
13. Prep for tile floor
14. Tile floor
15. Grout floor
16. Window and door trim
17. Base boards

Progress on the utility room continues and is actually going according to schedule! Although, keeping on schedule has been more work than anticipated at times. The goals for the past weekend were paint and cement board. The primer coat went pretty quick but did take almost 3 gallons of paint. After that was done, we only had a small break (lunch) and it was time to start putting some color on the ceiling and walls. I had forgotten how much work it is doing all the hand work for the ceiling to wall corners. This room had some interesting challenges in that the ceiling in most areas isn’t high enough to stand on the platform without hitting my head, but just high enough to make it a reach without the platform. This also makes it fun when using a roller, with a long handle, you’re baning into things, and without, you’re stretching. Another small break while the ceiling drys before trying to cut in for the walls.

We’ve not had good luck getting the wall paint to cover in one coat. It almost does, but leaves lots of spots where it seems to pull away or shrink as it dries. With a second coat on the wall, we call it done.

Next we install the cement board on the floor. Getting it cut and placed isn’t too bad, but then we have to screw it all down. That’s a lot of screws!

Some thinset on the all the seams and it should be ready for tile. But that’s going to have to wait. We need the guest bedroom back as a bedroom so eunwieldlyverything has to be moved back into the utility room. We do spend some time trying to organize it a little so it’s not a complete mess. The cardboard floor covering in the bedroom has served it’s purpose and was looking pretty bad, so we pulled that up and finally get to see what the room really looks like now.

Since most of the rooms have been completed, it was time to start working on a way to show the dramatic changes that the have taken place over the past 4 years. One of the ideas was to duplicate many of the original photographs and show before and after photos for each room. There are still a couple of room missing, but the results are available from the menu on the right. This also prompted a review of the main website for the cabin photos. Using the photo gallery for the main web pages and menu is getting a little unwieldy and there have been some issues with the photo gallery in general; like the thumbnails don’t look very nice and it doesn’t work well when viewed on a mobile browser. After reviewing a number of different photo gallery packages for the web, there are two that seem to work best. One is a revamp of the existing code. The thumbnails are cleaned up and the photos properly set to display with the right orientation on all browsers. The second is a fairly complex database driven package. While the complexity of using it is higher, it does offer some nice features like display of the camera info and the ability to allow comments to be posted for the photos. Both versions are available from the menu on the right. To finalize this, a new main cabin web page needs to be created. One thought is to use is blog as the main page and use the menu on the right to access all the different sub sections. If you have any thoughts on this, please leave a comment.

Todo list
Utility Room

1. Fix ant infested ceiling joist
2. Get roof fixed/replaced
3. Replace electrical boxes
4. Add recessed lighting
5. Figure out washing machine drain
6. Replace dryer vent
7. Frame new closet
8. Seal up the room
9. New insulation
10. New drywall
11. Texture drywall
12. Paint walls and ceiling
13. Prep for tile floor
14. Tile floor
15. Grout floor
16. Window and door trim
17. Base boards