Landscaping is an endless chore, but we managed to clean up the yard in the fall and put the lawn to bed. Cleaning out the gutters is still on the list, since I can see debris piling up in them. Next summer we'll have to attack the back yard, which as reverted to native weeds. Nancy has a plan, I just have to implement it.
Lots of little things have been accomplished. I found a smoking good deal on bamboo flooring and stair nosing at Home Depot and installed this hardwood on the landing in the garage. Turned out pretty darn nice; total price to install was about $75 with my free labor. I installed a couple door locks that got missed the first time around, painted the skylights upstairs (ladder work), and reorganized the garage to make a place for the new Grizzly dust collector (2 HP, 220v; it really sucks).
SAUNA
The sauna is getting built out now, hopefully in time to get good use of it this winter. The rainy season is on us, so a hot sauna will definitely be the answer to recovering from a cold walk in the rain. We picked up the sauna heater, an 8-kw Finlandia stainless steel unit from the distributor just south of Portland during a visit down there in October. Did I mention that Oregon doesn't have sales tax (9% in PT) and the dealer beat all the internet offers by about 10%. Plus it gave us a reason to spend a few days down there checking out America's most liveable city.
This heater takes 220v, which I had previously installed during the electrical rough in (4 strand no. 8 copper cable). Gary Estes (Craighead Electric) came over to consult on the heater and finished hooking up the garden shed to the house electrical and the 30 amp line from the generator (in the shed) back to the house. So now, if we have an extended power outage, I can fire up the generator in the shed, flip the breaker on the basement electrical panel and power the house (up to 7kw) until electricity is restored. 7kw will run most of the house, with the exception of heat-generating appliances (the double oven and sauna).The interior of the sauna is trimmed out in 1x4 tongue and groove cedar, the TK (tight know) variety which was milled by Bill McCutchen in Port Hadlock. I called for 1000 linear feet and used all but about 40 ft of it for the walls and corner trim. Bill also milled 40 ft of base board, which is 5/4 by 6 TK cedar. All the wood is up, nail holes are puttied, and is stained. Since the sauna can be either dry or wet, staining the wood is probably a good idea to preserve the surface. Using Cabot water -based semitransparent stain this time around because I don't want the lingering spell of the oil based stain we used on the exterior of the house.
This last week I've been building the benches for the sauna. I was going to use clear cedar or fir for this, but it was just too expensive. Carl's had some Batu boards for decking, which were half the price of the other alternatives. I'm not exactly sure what Batu is, but I call it Asian mahogany. [The Internet says "Batu closely resembles the rich classic look of Mahogany. Heartwood from Batu for decking ranges from a medium red to a deep red / brown with purple tinges and often has resin canals with white contents in concentric lines on end surfaces which produce a warm and visually striking effect. The texture is moderately fine and grain is typically interlocked. Its ideal for exterior use, so it should be well suited for the sauna."]Anyway, the Batu mills up nicely. I used 1 x 6s and ripped them in half. With a 1/4" gap, the decking has 3" repeats, which worked nicely on the bench dimensions of 18-24". After sanding, I treated the board with a water-based preservative, resanded lightly, and retopped with another coat of preservative. I made a slug of spacers (see photos) for laying out the decking, then pre-drilled and screwed them down with 2" square head finishing screws. Looks nice and professional. I haven't given the sauna a real try yet, but found that it will get up to 140°F in about 20 minutes and 180°F (pretty darn warm) in 30 minutes. Bring WINTER on, we're ready.
A couple years ago I bough an old tiller at the local antiques store with the intent of making it a coat rack in the new house. However, I found another coat rack that I liked better, so this tiller has found a happy home in the sauna as a towel rack. Above it is a water-proof bulkhead lamp and to the right is a temp/humidity gauge.ISLAND BAR TOP
For the longest time, we've planned to have a bar top off the side of the island in the kitchen. This was my (Michael's) one request for Nancy's kitchen design. Thought it would be nice to be able to have coffee or a glass of wine from a slightly elevated position, or standing. Well, implementing this little feature was WAY harder that I ever imagined. Most of the problem was how to hold the bar top above the island. Everyone said "just get some standoffs", so we looked and looked. Nothing quite right seemed to be available.
About a year ago I had some aluminum ones fabricated at a marine shop in PT. Seemed about right, but they required drilling a couple holes into the island rock for each standoff. This bothered me to no end, and then when we got the standoffs back from the paint shop they didn't even look attractive. $750 down the rat hole--boy that hurt. So back to square one. Finally, I thought back to the corbels that Jim Quandt made for the roof overhangs and decided that wooden brackets would probably go well with the island cabinets.
Down to Edensaw, our local exotic woods warehouse (and I mean warehouse!). They have just about any type and size board you'd ever want. OK, lets get some quarter-sawn red Oak to match the cabinets. I selected a nice 8' board, 2" thick and about 6" wide. I drew up some plans for the brackets, printed them full scale, and took them to Bill McCutchen to fabricate. Bill has lots a great power tools, including a portable saw mill (he made all the facia, soffit, and T&G cedar for the house). Bill said no problem, and about a month later we had 3 nicely shaped and sanded solid oak brackets Total cost about $100, so I felt better about the wasted metal ones.After the brackets were finished, we approached Jerry Perrett—a local glass artist that we'd seen at several art shows in the area (Glass Etching by Perret, PT). You know the current mantra— BUY LOCAL. Well this was a great solution for the bar top. The biggest problem was deciding what to sort of art to have etched into the bar.
Jerry made a few suggestions, and we went back and forth a few times. We settled on four salmon swimming across the bar, with some sea weed and gravel to complete the scene. Jerry made up a sketch, we approved it, and then he made the full size drawing. He ordered the glass from Seattle (16" x 72") and it arrived in a couple weeks (ca. $345). Then he coated the bottom of the glass with an adhesive backed rubber sheeting (ca. 1/16" thick), laid the paper template on top and rubbed the pencil drawing onto the backing. Then the image is tidied up and its ready for the sandblasting process.The pattern is sandblasted into the glass with relief so you get a 3-D image from above. This is done by progressively removing the rubber backing. Jerry has a separate shed for sandblasting, and can do items as large as shower doors.
His bread and butter are small art objects like sushi plates, serving trays, and wall hangings. The heaviest blasting is done first, and the lightest is done last. In the end you have a gorgeous bias-relief image underneath the bar top. You'll have to see it to really appreciate this little piece of art in our house.Well that's it for now. The Christmas season is upon us and I won't get a good stretch of time for projects until mid January. But then the upstairs shower is crying to be finished, before the next onslaught of visitors start showing up in the Spring. Merry Christmas to all you out there.
