tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106695642013-04-17T18:44:20.860-07:00One old neglected bungalow, two kids, and us. Our quest to bring new life to this old house.Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09098532257506560012noreply@blogger.comBlogger320125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-66731458768125395912012-06-14T00:08:00.001-07:002012-07-25T15:25:50.239-07:00

We've had a new member of our family for about 8 months now. His name is Fizgig and he's awesome. I saw his picture on the BCSPCA website and went the next morning to meet him.

Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09098532257506560012noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-82924091080149629452012-01-16T19:58:00.001-08:002012-01-16T20:19:32.581-08:00

Well its been about 6 months since our last post. We've been working on the kitchen since May, pulled out all the plaster (it wasn't salvageable). Replaced the windows and doors, refinished the floors, and many other thing we'll leave for another post. We're building the faceframes and doors using salvaged wood from other parts of the house, 80 year old douglas fir. The boxes are made with good

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0Vancouver, Vancouver49.261227 -123.11393tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-28714486250191305752011-05-16T11:36:00.000-07:002011-05-16T11:36:11.238-07:00

I've been working on the other 2 drawers, it's a really slow process. The 2 middle drawers are both 5". The bottom drawer is 7.5". I should have done 5.25" and 7", would have been a lot easier, since I have to glue up boards for the bottom drawer. I drilled the holes for the hardware, it isn't screwed on yet, I still have to varnish the fronts. The  centre slides have been giving me a little bit

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-58025292515853691562011-04-30T21:20:00.000-07:002011-04-30T21:20:12.842-07:00

  Finally got the top drawer done and installed. I had to router out the slot for the bottom. I used a piece of 1/4" pine plywood left over from another project. Since I used a centre slide I had to double up part of the bottom, so the screws didn't go right through. It took me a while to figure out how the slides work. They come apart in to 3 pieces, so they're adjustable in depth, and you can

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-70550468037595872132011-04-24T20:13:00.000-07:002011-04-24T20:13:02.765-07:00

 Half-blind dovetails that is. These are the first ones I've attempted, besides the few practice ones I did. I'm pretty happy for a first attempt. It sure is time consuming doing them by hand, I don't know how many hours it took me to just do one drawer. This one is for the basement, 3 more to go for these cabinets. The most difficult part I had was marking the lines, if you make more than one

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-21796784360349284672011-04-17T20:36:00.000-07:002011-04-17T20:37:02.069-07:00

Here is the rain barrel we got a few weeks ago. I added the overflow pipe today. Bought the wrong pipe the first time, so back to the store. The 1" pipe said 1" 25mm and I read it as 1.25". It doesn't have much water in it considering all the rain we've been having, time to check the gutters, there much be something clogging them somewhere. We don't have big trees, so I usually only clean

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-58051881368164662382011-04-10T19:37:00.001-07:002011-04-10T19:37:55.881-07:00

I built the side panels for the cabinet today. Now for the counters and drawers. I want to practice my dovetails more before starting on the drawers. The counters are going to be concrete, 2" thick black. I need to make the mould first, we did a small counter in the bathroom, so this will be the 2nd one. We're not going to under-mount the sink, so that should make it a little easier. We have to

Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09098532257506560012noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-29427665676841583432011-03-06T21:55:00.000-08:002011-03-06T22:15:49.443-08:00

Plumbing isn't really my thing. Having to sweat copper pipes in a confined space, surrounded by flamable materials makes me nervous. I used a doubled up piece of galvanized metal, and I still burnt the wall and cabinet a bit. I had a leak on the first attempt as well, I think the pipe was a little out of round, so I cut a bit more pipe off, and then it worked the second time. Well after getting

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-64434971620391873172011-02-06T18:50:00.000-08:002011-02-06T20:53:23.899-08:00

I cut up an old 2x6 that I had to make some panels for the cupboard doors. They're almost 1/2", I'm going to plane them down to 1/4". There's are quite a few nail holes in them, we're going for a rustic look in the basement. One board split, so I had to glue it back together. I need to joint the boards as well, I'm going to set up the router table to do this, since I don't have the space or

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-24070729518799529832011-01-22T19:35:00.000-08:002011-01-22T20:25:06.801-08:00

I set up a couple jigs to do the mortise and tenons for the doors. This one is for the mortising. It holds the work piece, and has stops, so you adjust the length of the mortise. It look me a while to build, and while to setup. It was difficult to get them centred, I used my electronic calipers, to help dial it in. It needs to be centred, because I have a stop to position the piece, so each

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-55721347670185040262011-01-03T20:18:00.000-08:002011-01-03T20:52:25.747-08:00

Here's the new mobile base I got for my tablesaw, I got tired of dragging it around the shop. With a small shop, I have to shuffle the tools around.I made a new crosscut sled for the tablesaw as well. My old one wasn't very accurate, so I just made a new one from scratch. Here's the corner cabinet, which I built first, after building and levelling the base. There are lots of pipes to work around.

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-17654496374879633872010-11-27T21:55:00.000-08:002010-11-27T22:25:30.942-08:00

I've had the top for this router table for almost a year, so I finally started building a base for it. Here I am, finishing off the drawer. I'm going to add another drawer, but one should do for now. Here's the router table with the Lee Valley top and fence. I build it out of scrap I had lying around. The melamine and pine are taken out of our bedroom when we demoed it. The case for the router

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-17071041778511714482010-09-11T21:18:00.000-07:002010-09-11T21:32:11.147-07:00

Stripping the side of the house with a heat gun, was taking forever. So we got a Silent Paint Remover. It's still taking forever, I guess it's faster though. I don't know what kind of paint we have, it doesn't come off like in the videos though. Instead of coming off in sheets, it comes off in tiny flakes. It must be because there's no latex paint binding it together. I had a few shingles that

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-2307969401255089142010-08-29T20:50:00.000-07:002010-08-29T21:11:31.744-07:00

I've been busy at work on the side of the house, all the stucco is now removed, so now only the east side has stucco. I haven't been blogging much about the progress, since we've blogged about the stucco removal a number of times. Today I ripped out all the shingles that had holes, from when they insulated the house. There was another one that was rotten, the only rotten shingle I've found so

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-92025199821574765582010-08-06T10:12:00.001-07:002010-08-06T11:58:42.462-07:00

Here we are in front of the infamous Petch House. We stumbled upon it driving around Eureka. Greg wasn't home so we left him a note. His house looks great, and I was impressed with the all the nice houses in the neighbourhood.This was an example of one of them.This is the Carson Mansion, it has to be the gaudiest victorian I've ever seen (I mean that in a good way). The amount of detail is truly

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-35192236782813295232010-06-28T11:27:00.001-07:002010-06-28T23:21:04.376-07:00

I've been working on the side of the house for about 16 hours total. It's pretty thick in places, and not really easy to remove. My arms are sore from working on it yesterday. You can see a yellow bucket over the electric meter, since it's glass, it needs protection. will need more protection, when we're further up. The electric wires complicate things too on this side. I'm thinking we need

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-62365248108618531102010-05-04T22:25:00.000-07:002010-05-04T22:33:27.814-07:00

Yeah, he could be a little cranky...and he ate too much grass, sometimes...and he left a permanent mark in my fresh concrete...This was one of his favourite places to lounge...trying to make an escape...We miss our construction cat. He died while we were eating dinner, it looked like he was having a stroke. He was 14, and I'm glad he didn't suffer. He will be missed by all.

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-20759844271522409572010-04-04T20:34:00.000-07:002010-04-04T20:56:39.664-07:00

We hung the wallpaper in the bedroom on Friday night. We've had the paper for a while, we got it though Graham and Brown. It's the kind of wallpaper without the glue, so we had to glue the back, and let it sit for at least 5 minutes. It's really difficult to cut when it's wet, that seemed to be the most difficult thing. I had problems with the first corner too, where you're trying to fold it both

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-16797931753287627992010-03-28T16:33:00.000-07:002010-03-28T17:00:42.662-07:00

Here's what some of the bad parts looked like after sanding. I sanded the floor with an edger, using 60 and 80 grit paper. It didn't seem to take much off, so I used the belt sander with 50, 80 and 100 grit. It took off a lot more, but I gouged the floor a little when I wasn't being careful. Next time I'm going to look in to different floor sanders. The room is only 12' long, so a drum sander

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-11472855344927187112010-03-14T17:02:00.001-07:002010-03-14T17:16:07.885-07:00

We've slowed down a lot since I've gone back to work. We did get some paint on the walls. We had the paint matched to 2 colours on the wallpaper. I wasn't sure if I liked the blue coloured ceiling at first, it just seemed too saturated and artificial. It's starting to grow on me now though. We're going to be building a built-in for the closet, drawers on the bottom, and hung clothes on the top.

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-81346543822587006252010-02-26T12:16:00.000-08:002010-02-26T12:55:56.938-08:00

This room had a bad reno done by the previous owner. He ripped out the old plaster, and replaced it with a horrible drywall job, and sub-standard electrical work. The drywall on the ceiling was hung the wrong way, and some of the joints were hanging between joists. He ripped out the closet on the dining room side to make one large closet. He filled in the floor with some door trim, and a hockey

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-36128299527323496302010-01-10T21:23:00.001-08:002010-01-11T09:25:36.033-08:00

Here's how the dining room looked on Christmas eve, just before we moved the furniture back in. We pretty happy with how the floor turned out. I did most of it with an edger, and then a belt sander. Since the room is so small, it didn't make sense to use a full sized sander. The edger is a little tricky to use, and I wasn't too happy with how the floor wasn't sanding flat, so I switched to my

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-35473474340358868612009-11-16T15:08:00.000-08:002009-11-16T15:21:55.481-08:00

I didn't take any in progress pics of this. This room is all plaster, so we had to take extra precautions before making holes for some ceiling speakers. I made a backing out of quarter inch plywood to fit in the joist bay, and attached a 2x4 on each end of the plywood. I attached this in the attic to the joists. Of course, I put one of them in the wrong place, even though I'd already drilled a

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-72041516377898462982009-11-08T18:38:00.000-08:002009-11-08T19:22:58.831-08:00

It seems like we've been working on this room forever. We put new french doors in, during the summer. I drywalled the one wall with the doors, after shimming it to make it plumb. It was an inch out of plumb. There was a large patch on the wall shared with the bathroom, I think someone did that ripping out the medicine cabinet. Too bad, now I have to build my own cabinet to replace it. The plaster

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10669564.post-45307988858636120992009-07-12T21:22:00.000-07:002009-07-12T21:48:15.784-07:00

Here we are this morning, with the old aluminum window taken out. Someone took out the centre of the frame to put in the aluminum one. So the first thing I had to do was remake some of the pieces. You can't see it in the picture, but it was really windy this morning. The door kept slamming... Here's the frame primed with the new pieces I added back in. The sill is 9 degrees, so I had to match the

Derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134900860188022345noreply@blogger.com0