More wood

Today I wrapped up new shelving in our Well Pump House, loaded up the Little Boxes from yesterday and started cutting wood for a under the stair closet shelving.

And just think all this stuff was piled on the floor.  Last September I installed our water softening system in the pump house and had to remove the old shelving unit. Never liked the old shelving anyway and had always planned on replacing it.

Little boxes in place and starting to get filled.

We live in a small place and like a boat need to use every inch, within reason, this is not a boat.

Snap together.

Now it's on to shelving under our Alternating stairway and then I will enclose with two 12" bifold doors.

Little boxes

It seems that my woodworking project list keeps growing.  These little boxes are for our closet and will be used for an extension of the medicine cabinet.  Nice to be able to use up leftover scrap plywood.

Now it's on to another closet shelving until and a shelf extention for an office cabinet.

Ramada

Check out this cool screened in ramada with observation deck on top. Today we drove 2 1/2 hours to visit the owners, architect and builder. I have been consulting a bit these last few month advising on building details for straw bale construction. Plan is to hire us to lead workshops for the bale rising, interior earth plasters and earth floor.  The tower is a shute for a fire pole for the grand kids. Never seen one of those before.

Furniture

Cabinetry and furniture, better known as work working. My latest projects almost completed. Odd that I always find myself doing multiple projects at the same time. Multi tasking? just busy.

Today I finished installing our kitchen maple drawers and sink cabinet fronts. 8 days after picking up the lumber. Unfortunately my Spar Varnish left over from our Sun Room bar counter tops was too old to use so I will have to take them off again for the finish.

Another fun project has been some small earth tables. We bought the two sets of three a couple years ago in Las Cruces at Sutherland's. Step one was to adhere 1/4" cement board over the tops. Next I milled up on the table saw edge trim out of some extra Brazilian Mahogany and then went to work basically making delicate picture frames which yesterday I glued on to the cement board. Today I finished sanded and gave the wood one coat of raw linseed oil. Now it's Satomi's turn to systematically install the earth tops.

When we bought these tables the plan was to finish and then sell. Now I want to keep them for our buildings. We can always by more.

Counter Tops

I'm back in the saddle again, I think that's a line to an Aerosmith song. Meaning here is a blog post. I know it's been a while, sorry about that.

Not that I'm in a saddle, rather we purchased one of those cheep ergonomic kneeling office chairs to try to improve my posture. Satomi says it is working.

Yesterday we finished up two Earth Counter Tops for a designer house. The process took 5 days. Not that it was 5 days of work but the drying stages between processes had us going out to the job site 5 times.

Yesterday was our last visit, a 29 mile commute. We sealed the earth with Raw linseed oil, cleaned up with Bio Shield citrus thinner, met the cabinet maker, watched some other sub contractors frantically trying to wrap up their tasks and then headed back home.

The owner is arriving for a two week stay with his family so the builder/contractor was in clean up mode and trying to wrap things up. Over heard he fired the tile guy. I would be a bit upset too. The master shower was not complete along with various other tile areas nor the brick on sand patios and grand entrance.

Had I know I could have brought my tile saw.

At least we finished our commitment.

Master Bedroom Desk.

Office Desk.

The other big commitment is for us. We have now spent the last 9 nights sleeping up in our  "New" place, showering too. Love the big shower and especially the endless hot water from our Rinnai on demand water heater. Today I will finish installing the kitchen drawers and doors and continue with the process of moving in. All but the kitchen.

We had a nice 24" deep refrigerator all picked out and were going to order it up when Satomi caught wind of high altitude issues with the brand. One phone call to the Tech department confirmed their models do not work in New Mexico or Colorado. Now what are we going to do?

Good Progress

Ran out of finish lumber so it's time to drive down out of the mountains to Las Cruces. At least 8 stops planned plus lunch, gas and grocery shopping. 50% chance of rain.

So the progress was in our bathroom and kitchen. Last October work on the shower floor haulted, 9 months later it's finished. Really looking forward to that first long hot shower!

Someday for a grand we will have a double glass door. For now it will be a curtain.

Now what did I do with the cover. 

Moving on to the kitchen, here is where I ran out of wood for the drawer fronts and sink cabinet doors. Hope to find this tomorrow. If not it's El Paso or Albuquerque.

You are looking at what is called a 4 drawer stack. 9 ply Birch plywood boxes with 12" full extension, soft closing, ball slides from www.DrawewrSlides.com

Yes that's tile and epoxy grout under the sink.

I will try not to forget the drawer pulls, on the shopping list for Home Depot tomorrow.

I'm about out of beer too!

Cloud

Our summer rains have started. One of the great views in Kingston during this time are the cloud formations west over Emory pass.

Late evening.

Guatemala

We received an email from a a builder in Guatemala with a question on earth floors. I asked him to send me pictures thinking of course those pictures would be of the floor but instead in came pictures of the building.

Bamboo, Earth bags, Bottle walls and Earth floors, how cool is that.

Nice Earth Bag (tubes) work.

The structural beauty of large diameter bamboo, maybe Moso.

Personally I think bottles should be recycled and I might have done something differnt for these interior walls but none the less,  nice clean work and maybe they don't recycle in Guatemala.

Nice looking home.