Last light

We finished! The last light installation – finally! We were set to do it in the fall, but a series of work things and weather surprises kept us from installing this last porch light. Last weekend, we had an unseasonably warm day (a little over 40 degrees – heat wave!), so we set up the ladder and got this light installed over the front steps. It made a huge difference – especially on these dark winter nights. Still to do: we need at least a week of 40 degree temps to caulk around the fixture, but that can wait until spring. We’re crossing this off the list anyways.

Placement, and cutting the hole.

And there it is!

Another angle.

Centered over the stairs.

It throws light on the whole flight of stairs!

And makes a welcoming entry.

 

Little hollow log

Little jobs are on the docket this winter. First, developing something to hide our last messy bit of infrastructure: a mess of cords and wiring that had to be in this location next to the pellet stove. Yes, it took me two years to think of an appealing, creative solution for this.

 

I was inspired by out pile of log slabs–cut-offs from mills, usually free or nearly free, that we burn for the hot tub but have found myriad other uses for. And I decided to build a fake little hollow log by matching up slabs and attaching them together with cleats, thusly:

Looked pretty good. Some log caulk will help hide the seams.

But what to top it with? Pondered a stretched bit of leather (like a drum), a metal cap, or a wood top, and then I happened across someone selling log “cookies” for a couple bucks each – perfect. I grabbed two (I’m sure we’ll find a use for the second one!) and scribed it to fit the odd profile against the log wall. And here it is! First unfinished, then stained so it blends in with the old log walls. One problem solved, a million to go.

 

Holiday projects 2017

We like to have a quiet holiday at home. Quiet except for power tools, the nail gun, etc. This year’s project was smaller scale than last year’s (we built the whole loft! Jeez, industrious). We aimed to build a console-type unit behind the couch, sacrificing 4.5″ inches of floor space to hide the ladder, a bunch of infrastructure, and add an outlet with USB plugs behind the couch. In a funny twist, even though we built in 8 outlets on the living room wall, the couch covered nearly all of them! So we got this handy little extension, bought one new board, and set to work. Besides the two new items and some $3 hinges, we had everything else we needed in the scrap pile or as leftovers from previous projects. Two cool catches we purchased for another project last year but never used were put into service, and they worked really well. One and Two.

We also (finally) added baseboards on all the white walls, so earrings can stop rolling under the walls. They really made the place look a good bit sharper too. FYI, mid-century style baseboard selections are fairly limited (either flat stock or something with a simple square bead profile), so we were stoked to find these in stock at the big box (though MDF is not a favorite material, everything else about it was right).

The parts: almost all salvage & leftovers

Where are the studs again? Marking it out.

X-Mas craziness!

A hiding spot for the loft ladder

The shelf is in! With outlet.

Used some old magnetic catches to make removable ladder door

Sans couch, view of the ladder

A panel now hides the router, cords, wink unit, etc.

And even better when trim surround is in.

And we added baseboards, at last.

Tight corners look pretty decent!

Meanwhile, outside…snow and temps hovering around zero all week.

Snow humps outside the bathroom window.

And dogs with cabin fever.

The punch list is getting shorter! But don’t worry, plenty left to do. And I still have some time off for break, so we’ll see what else we come up with.