Door to nowhere...

Once again I was inspired by the Winchester House and decided to make a door to nowhere. I like it but I imagine eventually Kerry will make me put stairs up to it. This will be a door into the garage in the future. The stairs will go along side the wall.

This is the door from the inside. It isn't in permanent yet. I have to figure out what kind of exterior will be on the outside wall. Right now it has a layer of aluminum siding, a layer of wooden lap siding, and a layer of cellulose insulation board. It really isn't very fun to find more stuff to fix. I will probably have to tear off all the exterior wall and put up just a layer of OSB.


Once Kerry got home she helped me build a new set of shelves. The lumber was 60 bucks for this but it is 2 x 8 foot and has 4 shelves. With the 3/4 plywood shelves I think it will hold just about anything we load it down with.

stud farm

I started the new wall today! It is always nice to see some of the framing start to go up. It makes me feel like I am finally accomplishing something. I am going to remove both these windows. The one on the left will just be a wall and the one on the right will be an exterior door. This wall will be facing the garage so it won't need windows anyway.

I put the second layer of subfloor down. It was 5/8 particle board. The floor height matches now in the little apartment. I now will have to match it with the existing kitchen. I think I can do it with 1/4 inch plywood. The platform over the door is going to be covered with plywood and will be the floor to a storage area. I am also removing this window. It will just become a wall.

Subfloor is down

Today I put in all the floor joists and glued and nailed down the stairs. The stairs now go somewhere.

I put down the first layer of the subfloor. I still need to put another layer of 5/8 particle board over the subfloor to bring it level with the old floor.

Here is a picture of the floor joists from the kitchen.

Tada! Another picture of the subfloor! I still have to build up a small wall and platform over the door.

Stair to nowhere...

I built a staircase just like they have in the Winchester House in San Jose, CA. It is a staircase that ends in the floor. Ok... I am going to cut out the floor though. The 2x10's are just set on the stringers for now. I have to get the last stringer in before I can nail them down.

Speaking of the last stringer... here it is. It is pretty easy to figure out how to cut out stairs nowadays. I just plugged the dimensions into a calculator online and it told me how many risers I needed and how big to cut them. Just to the right of this pic is the stairs that will be coming out tomorrow.

B4 and after

We went down to the houseboat to fix up the bathroom a little bit. This is what it looked like when we bought it.

This is what it looked like when we left there on Friday afternoon. I built a new vanity at home and brought it down and installed it. Before we installed the vanity we put up new fiberglass reinforced panels on the walls.

I put up a shower and shower curtain. It was Kerry's idea to use hooks instead of trying to figure out how to put in a shower rod. I am glad she thought of it because I couldn't think of a very good way to put up a shower rod.

We also replaced the outlet with a white one. I would like to put in a GFCI outlet but they don't work without a ground wire. I have switches on the side of the vanity for the water pump and the toilet motor. The pump for the bathroom sink and shower is in the vanity. I have a water heater on the outside of this wall but it wasn't working so I brought it home to see if the manufacturer has any ideas.

Pade N Full

I finally am getting around to posting about our trip to the houseboat last weekend. I put up the new sign I made for the name of the boat. Only focus on the right top corner of the picture... don't look through the windows and see all the junk that is piled up in the boat. We took it all with us... honest.


Here is a closeup picture of the sign. I ordered a router template to use but I got tired of waiting for it. I just printed out the letters and used the router freehand. It isn't perfect but it is better than the one we had before. (we didn't have one)

The main reason we went down was to move this light fixture over so it would not be in the shower when I rebuild it. This is the before picture...

And this is after. You might have to go back and forth a few times to see the difference. =) The new ceiling cover is really bright white fiberglass. It has a really nice texture to it. I really need to replace the light fixture now though.

This is the way we left the bathroom. There is not much left. I pulled everything out so I could put the fiberglass sheets on the walls too. I figured that while I had the sink out I could redo the laminate and make it look better also. It is amazing how projects snowball.

I am on my way out of the country now. I will be home around the 11th of March to start working on the house again.