Kitchen cabinets - part 2

Big weekend for the island. Starting very early Friday morning, I had to stop at Menard's on the way from home to pick up the counter tops and still make it to the ferry by 8:00 AM to meet the Bayside contractor to fix the tankless water heater at Cedar Cottage.

I was excited to see the drywall finish work completed at our cottage. Thanks Mike. However, the entire place was covered in dust from all the sanding, so I spend the next few HOURS cleaning up pounds of drywall dust. Unfortunately, the cottage will be very dusty for a while until I can get some primer on the ceilings and walls.

Just having all of the seams mudded and sanded is so nice, but really the ceilings look the best. It is tricky to see from the photo below, but the ceiling texture in the bedrooms/bathrooms look(s) great.

Ceiling texture

 

Before closing up the cottage last year for the season, I took some measurements for two built-in wall shelves, one in the bar hallway and one in the master bathroom. Here is a sneak peek of the of the built-in bar wall shelf, custom built by my father-in-law Bob Trapp. Looks awesome, huge thanks!

 

Custom built-in wall shelf

 

Uncle Al was able to catch the 7:00 PM ferry on Friday night to join in the fun. We hit the town that night and planned to start bright and early Saturday morning installing the kitchen cabinets.

 

Uncle working on the cabinets

Here is a before and after photo for you to put the kitchen into context...

 

Kitchen before

 

Although the photo below looks promising and I am happy with the overall look and size of the kitchen cabinets, I made some stupid planning mistakes.

Kitchen after

Long story short, I need to custom order some new upper cabinets sizes and take down some that are already installed. This sucks. And too add "fuel to the fire", the largest 60 inch sink base (correct size) was completely split down the side. I didn't notice the damage until I unpacked the box. I should have checked at the store, but needed the cabinets boxed for hauling up to the island. Yep, I had to lug it back off the rock!

Good news is that we were able to salvage the two "over-an-appliance" cabinets by installing them in the laundry room instead.

Utility room cabinets

 

As always when I am working up on the island all weekend, I miss some family time. My baby girl lost her first front tooth and I wish I was there to see it happen. Love you Sophie!

My baby girl Sophie

 

Next steps...

• Install the 60 inch sink base
• Install butcher-block counter tops (and backsplash)
• Relax for a minute 

KI Neighbor Party in Geneva

This year we moved the KI neighbor party from Sawmill Creek in Sandusky out east to Geneva wine country. Every year we get excited to open up the cottage for the season when we meet up with the wild neighbor crew.

Bonnie and me headed east to spend the day touring different wineries in the Geneva-on-the-Lake region.

Girls at the Debonne Winery

Good times as usual, can't wait until the ferry starts running to get the cottage project moving along. Big plans this year! Hopefully, I can finish the interior by end of season. Check back in November, right? 

Happy New Year!

Happy 2014 to everyone!

Funny, every year at this time I start to get the island itch. I was very happy to close down the cottage back in November, but now that the holidays are over and the winter weather is here to stay for a while, I am already thinking about this upcoming cottage season.

Another big year!

The inside of the cottage really took shape this year! I am extremely happy that we can now "stay" in the cottage anytime - since we have working heating/cooling, plumbing, toilet, sink and shower, HDTV and a few beds. The absolute best is having a live working thermostat (furnace and a/c) to control heating and cooling. This may sound funny, but with the crazy weather swings from 20 deg and frigid to 95 deg and humid, this is so important for the cottage in the middle of an island in the middle of the lake.

Big thanks to everyone who helped throughout the year...

• The drywall crew - Albert, Al, Gary, Ken, Andy, Scott and Brad
• KI Neighbors - Chris, Tim and George

Special shout-out to my uncle, Al Stenger! The heating/cooling installation would not have been possible without all of your help, hard work and advice (including multiple trips to Menyhart in Cleveland).

Here is the final exterior photo of the season. I was hoping to get the lot grading finished, driveway gravel added, and grass seed planted. However, the focus this year was on getting interior items up and running. Therefore, this photo does not look much different from last year.

 "Our House" - November 2013

Check-out the interior progress made in between November 2012 and November 2013. Biggest improvement is the installation of the drywall and wood ceiling.

November 2012

November 2013
 

Here is a nice shot of the sunset from Portside Marina early Saturday evening. Notice the empty dock.

Sunset from Portside Marina

Sunday morning, I finished cleaning up and winterizing all of the plumbing. I used the air compressor to blast pressurized air into the lines right below the pex manifold. This is a two-step process, first concentrating the air downward to blow out any water left in the well pump and then second blasting air upward to blow out any water in the pex manifold, hot water heater, and ultimately all of of supply lines. I then poured anti-freeze into all of the traps and plugged in the heat tape for the sump pump and water main line to prevent freezing over the winter season.

Well, this is the last post for 2013. Looking forward to next year.

Neil

Last working weekend of the season

Well, all good things must come to an end and island season is no exception. I made the final trip up for the year last weekend. The plan was to work on any low intensity projects and then winterize for the year.

Friday night, I framed out the attic access that was just too big of an opening for what is actually needed like the space around the future access door for trimwork and clearance for the nearest ceiling fan to be installed.

Opening re-framed

Drywalled

Mudded

On Saturday, the Arnold brothers arrived late in the day to work on Chris's cottage. We met up later on the Arnold's new lot to make a huge fire and drink some beers. After going downtown for dinner at the Pump, we came back to re-stoke the fire.

Big Tim

 

Sunday, I started early with organizing and winterizing. I had to make the 12:30 pm ferry to get back in town. I spent most of the morning cleaning up and organizing my tools before starting on bleeding the water lines.



Great room - ceiling done!

Made it up to the island just for Friday night with the plan to leave mid-day Saturday. The goal was to finish the ceiling and work on a few other odds and ends. Chris and Tim were cool enough to join me and were critical to wrap-up the ceiling work. On the way, we had to stop at Menards to buy more ceiling boards and miscellaneous trim pieces since we did not know exactly what we needed until we got back at it.

Around 9:00 pm on Friday night, the ceiling was looking good and nearing completion. We did not have time to pre-stain the final wood planks so we hung them unfinished and then I stained them later in place.

Chris measuring up the trim approach

Representing the "last spike", very similar to the completion if the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, here is a photo of me putting in the "last nail" of the ceiling project.

Putting in the LAST nail

Here is a fresh photo from Saturday morning after staining the final boards. This great-room ceiling is really the first finished surface in the entire cottage so far. I am super happy with the results.

Looking good

At the peak of the ceiling where the two adjoining surfaces meet, there is no easy way to trim this out due to the weird angles and trying to avoid making long thin rips of the ceiling boards. We decided to use 1 x 6 pine, cut them to length, and nail between the fan boxes already in place. The fan boxes were great because they had a nice flat square surface to match up.

 The final final!

Saturday morning, I managed to slap up the last few pieces of drywall in Anna's room that close off the plumbing exposed behind the main bath shower. You'll notice I had to "piece together" several scraps of drywall. I realize the drywall pictures are not very exciting, but this was the last open wall and I was able to use up and put away all the remaining sheets of drywall and scraps.

Anna's room - drywall done

This season is rapidly coming to a close. Next trip up will be the last for the year. I plan to winterize and close up the cottage for the season.

Stay tuned.

Water test passed - Erie county certified!

Great news!

Monday morning, the Erie County inspector came to take a water sample and inspect the total water system installation.

All good - passed!



By Tuesday (10/22/13) late afternoon, I received a call stating that the test results came back and we are good-to-go. By Thursday, we got the hard-copy in the mail. One more thing completed and checked off the "to-do" list...