Suntanned and back to trim (Day 821)

Well we took a short respite from the house and went sailing in Belize--that's British Honduras to most of you that took geography in the 60's. Nice 3rd world micro nation with out the obvious drug and crime problems of its neighbors. We chartered a 38' catamaran from TMM Yachts for a bare-boat trip down the Belize reef, the largest in the northern hemisphere. Little did we suspect that it had been trashed by decades of over fishing and increasing sea temps. The water was 80-82°F in Jan. and a bit more in the summer. We sailed out of San Pedro, Ambergris Caye which is the most populated of the hundreds of offshore islands in Belize. San Pedro is a bit of a pit, crowded with golf carts, tourist shops, and hotel/condos. Caye Caulker to the south is a bit more laid back it you are into laying around on the beach.

The sailing was adventurous to say the least. We were restricted to the back (western) reef waters for obvious reasons—the most important of which is the easterlies would drive a disabled vessel upon the reef, and when it comes to fiberglass vs coral, the coral will always win. Lots of the routes between the reef and back bar islands (mangrove covered) is in water less than 10 ft deep, some 5 ft. Our boat drew 4 ft, so we keep a careful eye on the depth meter and the bottom. It is mostly sandy bottom so the worst case is you get stuck for 6-8 hours as a high (±0.5 ft) tide lifts you. Nevertheless, we had ideal conditions going down with 10-15 knot easterlies and a southern route for about 70 miles. So lots of beam reaches with full main and jib, making 4-5 knots.

On the return leg to the north, we had two days of 25-30 knot northerlies, which meant motor-cruising dead into the wind. I've had more fun and now have more respect for the term "going to weather." The cats are so burdened (12-16k lbs of displacement) that you just can't get them going. Think of two monohulls bolted together by the saloon and back deck. On the plus side, they are great boats for leisurely sailing with families and kids. No regrets, just a desire for more speed (that comes from my history of racing beach cats).

We returned to standard PacNW weather; light rain and cool temps but it felt good after the heat and humidity of Central America. First job up was to complete installation of the bath cabinets, including installing the wall unit. Now its on to doing the trim work in the upstairs bed and bathrooms. There are 3 doors to trim out (1x4 finger joint-painted trim and 5/4 x 6 headers) and about 125 ft of floor trim. I'll cut it all to size first, dry fit it, then paint it using my now favorite method of rolling the latex on and tipping it off with a brush. Two coats, nail it up, and then fill the nail holes and touch up the pain. I'll paint the door trim in place since it has to be caulked anyway. Richerts says they can't install the countertop for 3 weeks, but that's not a big issue. We're glad to see that they're booked up for January; business must be picking up in the construction world.

Hopefully, with a couple days of trim and paint, the upstairs bedroom furniture can go back in place and I can get on to tackling the monster job of laying up the 120 sq. ft of Chinese Ming green marble tile that we bought last fall for the bath and shower surround. The big chore on this tile job is to bull nose all the corner tiles by hand (sanders and grinders), but that's another chapter for this blog.

Bath cabinets going in (Day 803)

The tung-oiled floor cured while we were gone at Christmas, so it was time to start the cabinet install in the upstairs bathroom. This should be pretty easy and straight-forward, since it will be the 4th set of cabinets we've installed.

First off, I had to move the electrical outlet that will go above the back splash. To meet code and pass inspection, we had just screwed a plastic double outlet box to the wall and got the wiring connected for an overhead light and a ground-fault protected outlet. Not knowing the configuration of the cabinets last May, this was all we could do. However, it wasn't too hard to move the box. I just cut a channel upwards in the wall board, found a cross stud and cutout a hole for the box. Now it will be a few inches above the back splash and under the overhead, hanging cabinet. I unwired the box, feed the wires up, and rewired it, about a 30-minute job. A little drywall mud filled the channel, which will be mostly behind the back splash. Some spray on texture, and we'll be good to paint.

The cabinets were ordered from Discount Cabinets of Washington, who we used for the pantry and mudroom. Order their best quality and you get good plywood cabinets, top quality hardwoods and hardware at 1/2 the normal (showroom) price. For this bathroom we went with their Omega cabinets, shaker style doors and quarter-sawn white oak (natural lacquer finish) to match the new flooring in the bedroom. The picture on the right shows the 5 cabinets, unboxed but still wrapped in plastic. I think the net cost for the cabinets was about $2k plus tax (about $400 for each box on average). I also bought two 8' pieces of oak trim (1x3 x 96", $50) to make a mirror frame. We did this downstairs and the matching mirrors and cabinets look great. With glass, the mirror will only cost about $125 or a quarter of a custom-made one.

Next step was to figure the cabinet spacing and make filler strips from a 6"x36" piece of prefinished trim the company supplies. The bank of 4 lower cabinets are 84" wide and their parking place is about 87". So there is 3" to work with. I put a 3/4" spacer on both ends (for door out-swing clearance against the wall), then took up the remaining 1.5" with three 1/2" spacers between the four cabinets. This way all the drawers and doors will have equal spacing between them and it will look good. In the photo to the right, the spacers are cut, clamped in place and the cabinets are ready to be screwed together with 3" finish screws (#10 bit). Above the bank of 4 cabinets their will be a single wall-mounted cabinet with doors (linen cabinet). This will go up against the left wall with another 1" spacer.

One tricky part, and there's no room for screw ups, is to drill the back of the sink cabinets for the hot, cold, and drain pipes. I used a 1" Forstner bit for the water pipes and a 2.5" hole saw for the drain. Measure carefully and you won't get any surprises. When you screw the cabinets together, be sure to clamp the fronts of the cabinets to align everything and shim the bottoms to the top of the cabinets form a nice flat place for the counter top (400 pounds). Three screws in each cabinet will hold things fast. Then fasten the cabinets to the wall through the backer plate in each cabinet using cabinet screws (square drive with wide lip to hold plywood). Next, I'll scribe one of the 1" wide fillers and attach that end to the side wall. Almost done. Scribe and cut the other 1" wide filler and attach that end of the cabinet to the other side wall. Shim out the backs and the sides of the cabinets so the whole unit is square, and screw them to studs with 2-3" cabinet screws.

The final thing to do is to rip another filler piece for the side wall side of the hanging cabinet so that it will be perfectly aligned with the cabinet beneath it. Repeat the fastening procedure and you're all done.