Yeah we have Grass

Well I got bored out of my skull sitting around so checked into it and I was allowed to do some light work around the house while waiting for my hand to heal. This past week Monday was allowed to remove the cast so have even more mobility. Have my stitches out next week Wednesday and we'll see what the Doc says however expect light duties for another 2 weeks.
So as I said in the title we have grass. After 2 weeks this is what the front lawn looks like today.

So last week while I still had the cast on I managed to prime the lower cabinets, however it was not as easy as I thought it would be so decided to wait till this week before I did more work.

This week Wednesday I spent some time putting all the face frame pieces on the lower cabinets. In case I did not mention it earlier the carcass is made with Poplar plywood 3/4" thick and the face frames are made from 3/4" solid poplar lumber. For the lower cabinets I broke it down into 3 sections with the third section being the area where the laundry sink will go. In the other two sections I also built in two drawers. By the end of the day the cabinets were framed out and the drawer parts were cut out. Here are two pictures showing the lower cabinets and then the parts for the drawers minus the drawer bottoms. As you can tell by the second photo the drawers are based on the process of an interlocking corner and then groove for plywood bottom.

On Thursday we built the drawers and sanded and rounded over all the edges on the lower cabinets. I then test fit the drawers and realized my tolerances were to tight and had to spend some time sanding down the sides of the drawers where the drawer slides go to allow the drawers to move smoothly. Here is a picture showing all the parts awaiting paint.

On Friday and Saturday I spent time first putting a coat of primer on the cabinets and then a coat of semigloss on the lower cabinets. At the same time I coated the drawers with three coats of waterbased varathane. I still plan on at least one more coat of semigloss on the cabinets however I think the drawers are complete. Later on Saturday afternoon I installed 6 sheets of 1/4" mahogany plywood on the framework of my wainscotting. Later next week I plan to go to Toronto to buy 6 sheets of 1/4" Teak plywood to install over the Mahogany plywood. This will give me a 1/2" thick sheeting and a nice looking wainscotting. Here are two pictures showing the cabinets with 2 coats of paint and the second photo shows the Mahogany plywood installed.

Well that's where we're at as of now. Hopefully this coming week will allow some more work to be done and hopefully the Doc is happy with my hand and its progress. So until next week have a great fall.

Harold

With a little rain some grass should grow

Unfortunately the little rain is turning out to be a fair amount of rain. So far at least the front lawn is holding out. However we still have it looks like 4-5hrs of rain in the forecast off and on. Then 4-5 days of sunshine. So we'll see what happens. So why am I talking about this well lets see what we did to cause this.

On Sunday morning and late afternoon and evening we moved some dirt around to get a layer of topsoil down on the front lawn.
On Monday I moved more dirt until the heat drove me inside. Once inside I decided I could finish off some drywall mudding in the basement. We spent a few hours finishing off the first coat of drywall mud in the second bedroom, the hallway and one of the two rec room areas. Now the only room not given a first layer of mud is the second rec room and the lower end of the staircase to the basement.
As well I installed a piece of Bamboo countertop in the kitchen area. When I built the kitchen area I built a wall to act as the back of one set of cabinets and to provide an area for a eat in bar area. At the end of this wall where it hits the exterior wall I built two small extensions for a small table there. One of the reasons for this was to hide the gas barbecue pipe that came up there from the basement and went out the wall for the BBQ. Well I picked up a piece of Bamboo countertop at Lowes on Sunday that was 6ft by 25in by 1.5in thick. The piece was cut down to fit, about 48in, and then installed on the small wall extensions. The top is quite heavy so all I did was lay down a decent layer of wood glue on the wooden wall tops and set the piece on this. I then laid down the first of many coats of water based varathane. I finished the day by cutting down to size some of the tiles that would be installed over the shower in the spare bathroom. Here is a picture showing the Bamboo table in the kitchen area.

On Tuesday morning the first thing we did after meeting the gang for coffee was to go to the lumber yard and pick up some 1/2" metal screening. I picked up a two ft square piece and nailed it to a frame work of 2by4's and proceeded to sift dirt for the front yard. Initially I spread out the topsoil but it included the odd stone and some larger clayish lumps. For the last inch or so I wanted no large lumps so I sifted the topsoil to remove anything larger than 1/2". This sifted topsoil was then spread out over the front yard area. I managed over the course of the day to spread out enough dirt to cover about 75% of the yard. In between working on the yard I also spent some time indoors to get away from the heat and the light rain. While inside I installed about 75% of the rear wall of the shower enclosure with tiles. I've decided that instead of cutting a thin strip to finish the wall off I would instead buy a 1" tile to act as a decorative border thereby allowing me to install full height tiles. This meant I had to leave the last two rows empty until I could find a suitable tile for use as a border. As well we put the final coat of paint on the upper cabinet carcass for the laundry room and varathaned the Bamboo counter twice during the day. Here is a picture of the tile work as it sits for now awaiting the decorative border.

On Wednesday morning we finished sifting the dirt and spreading it out over the front lawn. I then rolled the entire lawn twice going north/south once and then east/west. Once that was done I took a lawn rake and scratched the surface to loosen up the lop 1/8"of soil. Next we went around and spread some grass seed. Again we raked the dirt to mix the grass seed in and then spread some more. I did this one more time before we again rolled the yard to ensure the grass seed stayed put. Now all we need to do is wait for some rain and sun to get the grass growing. Once this was all done I went inside and installed some shelf track supports in the upper cabinets before the sister and brother in law came over to help install this unit. The installation went smoothly with the exception of one screw. I had marked and predrilled holes in the poplar 1by4's so that I could install screws in every stud on the wall. Unfortunately one screw fell right on the plate that protected the ABS vent pipe in the wall for the laundry tub. So instead of 10 large screws holding it up only 9 are doing the trick. So here are three pictures, first one shows the front lawn after seeding and rolling, the second picture shows the shelf support track and the third shows the installed upper cabinet.

Some of you will notice the level sitting there. Yes it is bang on level. Later in the day I started work on the lower cabinets and the picture below shows their state at the end of Wednesday.

Well for the rest of the week I had to work however on Friday night managed to get a little bit more work done on the lower cabinets. I had hoped to have them at the stage that they might be ready for painting such that I could paint them next week while recovering from my minor surgery however with the rain today I did not bring home the plywood needed to finish the lower cabinets. So as of now this is what the lowers look  like.

Well due to the surgery mentioned above it will be a few weeks before I can get back to work on the house. About the only thing I might do is water the front lawn with my left hand over the next few weeks to try and get the new grass growing. So until I get back to work I will most likely not be writing any updates. I anticipate being back to work on the house in the second week of October so hopefully around 10 Oct I might have an update. 

Until then have a great few weeks.

Harold

The Hill is barren and the grass is hopefully on the way soon

Well as stated the hill is bare. I guess people want to see pictures of this hill and weeds. Sorry I did not include them last week. For those who asked here are two pictures showing the work in progress and the size of the weeds.

Now that, that's done on to the work we did this week.

On Monday after work I spent some time backfilling the small retaining wall on the west side of the house that I built last week. 

On Tuesday I first started by pulling weeds and filling up the trailer for a second load of weeds to the dump. For reference here's a picture of a trailer load of weeds.

After we went to the dump I went to the local lumber yard and picked up some Poplar 3/4" plywood and some 3/4" solid poplar lumber. This material once brought home was turned into a carcass for some upper cabinets in the laundry room/back entrance. The lumberyard cut my plywood in half so I had 2 pces 24" wide by 96" long. This was easier to transport and easier for me to handle as well. Once home we cut one piece into 37" long pieces and then proceeded to rip these into 12" widths. Luckily the original panel was almost 49" wide so we had one 24" wide piece and one 24-1/2" wide piece. I now had 4 pces 12" wide and 36" long. I notched out two pieces on the back sides of these panels to accept a piece of 1by4 poplar. The lower piece of 1by4 was grooved to accept a pce of 1/2" poplar plywood for the bottom of the cabinet. I then cut down some more of the lumber into 1by2's for the face frame. The top pce was rabbited to allow the top of the cabinet to fit into the rabbit. I also rabbited the bottom pce to accept the three lower pcs that would make the base of the cabinet. Hopefully some pictures will help later on. Once all the pieces were cut and ready we started the assembly by dividing the four side panels over the 92" length of the 1by4's. The upper cabinet will be 36" tall by 92" wide. Later the bottom cabinets will also be 92" wide but they will end up around 40" high and 24" deep. The 1by4's were glued and screwed into the notches on the side panels. Then the upper front face 1by2 was glued and screwed followed by the top plywood. Once that was done we installed the three bottom pieces and then glued and screwed the lower 1by2 face frame onto the plywood. All that was left was to install the 4 pieces of face frame on the front of each panel as well I installed some 5/8" filler strips on the plywood behind the face frames in the location where the hinge plates will go. I did about half of this in the morning and then went outside to spread dirt while I waited for an appraiser to come by to check out the house for my bank. They needed this done before I can receive a Home owners line of credit/mortgage to  provide money to finish the house. Once he was done off to the lumber yard to pick up the screws I needed and then back home to finish building the carcass as described above. Here are some photos showing me cutting the plywood, then all the parts prior to assembly. Then we have a photo from the rear of the cabinet showing the 1by4's in place followed by a picture from the front showing the filler strips and the completed face frame. Later in the evening we pulled more weeds to start filling the trailer for the third and final load to the dump.

On Wednesday I started by finishing the weeds on the dirt pile and then taking the last load to the dump. Once this was done I moved the upper cabinet carcass onto the deck and proceeded to round over the majority of the edges as well as giving a final sanding with 120grit paper. As well I had earlier applied wood filler to the screw holes to fill them in prior to sanding. After sanding we touched them up with a little more wood filler and once dry sanded those areas again. After this was done spread out a tarp on the deck and proceeded to prime the entire cabinet. Unfortunately the humidity was extremely high that day so there were times my sweat was dropping onto the paint. However on the positive side the paint dried quite quickly allowing me to put the first coat of Semigloss on the carcass that evening. However this time I moved the carcass into the house on sawhorses so I was not sweating as much. In between painting went back to the lumber yard and picked up some more 3/4" poplar plywood and lumber for the lower cabinets. Their construction will be very similar to the uppers however larger and I will also have drawers in two of the sections. The third section will house a laundry sink. As well there will be an indentation at the bottom for a toe kick. After this was done we again went out in the evening and moved a few more wheelbarrow loads of dirt. Here are some pictures showing the carcass with primer and then paint as well a picture of some of the pieces for the lower cabinets.

On Friday evening we spread a little more dirt and then painted the majority of the uppers with a second coat of paint. 

On Saturday we spent the majority of the day moving dirt. However I did take a break around noon hour to spend some time building the stairs to the front porch. Once that was done and it was a little cooler again we went back to moving dirt. Here are two pictures showing the stairs which are functional just not complete, still need railings. As well the second picture shows the front yard after numerous loads of dirt, some racking and then rolling to pack it down. Once the entire yard has its first layer of dirt I will then carefully spread out more where it needs it and then roll it again. Once that is all done I plan on taking a leaf rake and loosening up the top 1/4" of soil and then spreading out grass seed. Then raking it again, spreading out more grass seed before rolling it for the final time. Then we'll need to start watering the yard however I hope mother nature will help in this.

Well that's were we are right now. I hope over the next few days to finish spreading the dirt out front and hopefully even get it all prepared for grass seed. The hope is to have this seeded prior to my going under the knife. I may not be able to do much work but I should be able to spray some water on the seed daily with my left hand. Well we'll how it goes. I'll let you know next week.

Harold