Scattered Thoughts . . .

O ur outdoor shower project is coming along slowly but surely.  I am almost finished at this point.  I only have some touch-ups to do and some finishing touches.  I definitely wish this project moved along much more quickly though! As you can see in this first photo, I have stained all of the wood and added a roof and lighting.  Don't mind the rest of the back of the house.  That room just beyond the outdoor shower will be our last big project, inside and out.  There will be a set of French doors and a window and then I will add siding the match the rest of the house.  In the meantime, this outdoor shower is looking good and is helping to block that view of the one unfinished corner of the house.     Inside, this shower enclosure is rather spacious!  Actually, this is quite a bit nicer than our current bathroom! These two shelves were added yesterday... I installed the bench this morning... The wet area under this bench was from whe...

I had a very rare, very productive day yesterday but I'm left with excruciating  spinal pain from my lumbar spine all the way up through my thoracic and cervical spine (I have significant injuries in all three areas).  The pain was so extreme last night that it was taking my breath away!  My extensive spinal injuries are still inflamed even today but down to moderately tolerable levels.   Today I plan to do a bit of plumbing work if my body cooperates. I managed to get the entire shower and dressing area enclosed which made for a really good day.  I even made a door and hung it!   The day involved a lot of cutting, ripping and making rabbits on every piece of wood.  All of these piece fit together nicely.   The hot and cold spigots are installed.  Today's job is to connect these spigots to the house water supply.  I already have the wall inside the house that adjoins with this back wall of the house completely opened and ...

I've been a little bit busy this week with a new project... finally!  I've been putting off a bunch of projects lately due to ongoing rainy, hot and humid weather, poor health, and medical appointments for both Sheila and me, but mostly due to the absolutely abysmal weather we've had this summer. I needed to get going on at least one project before the snow flies! I decided to start on a to-do list of about 20 items (most of which I'll never get to this summer) with building and installing a garden window over our kitchen sink. We've been talking about buying a garden window for quite some time but the prices are absurd so I opted to design and build my own. That's my answer and resolution for most things, actually... but this garden window is something new to me.  At this point, I have most of the wood cut and painted with at least one coat of white paint. I still need to cut some wood to length for the frames of the glass panes for the sides of the wi...

Since I haven't been able to tackle any larger home renovation projects due to our daily visits to the hospital, I have decided to attempt to tackle a few smaller projects around the house. My theory is... as long as my health is stable enough to allow me to get some work accomplished, it doesn't matter what I do as long as I simply keep busy and do something. One such relatively small project was to design and build a timber trellis-type structure at our back door to the house.  I sketched out a few ideas a few days ago and Sheila liked the idea. We stopped at Lowes after leaving the hospital yesterday to pick up some lumber and galvanized lag bolts. This little project didn't require a whole lot of supplies since most of it is being built using scrap lumber from previous home renovations. The first thing I started with today was transposing my sketches to full-size cut lines on the lumber. Once I was happy with this transposed design, I got busy with my new jig...

This morning my health was stable and I felt well... and the weather was beautiful for working outdoors (it is already raining though)... so, I pulled out all my power tools and got to work finishing up trim in the new walk-in closet. Next, is to lay the flooring... an ebony stained hardwood floor (yes, real wood, not plastic) which will run through the entire bedroom. Before I can install this flooring, however, I need to paint the room. I don't want to get any paint on this new flooring so I'll do all the painting before I install the flooring.  Here are some photos of the walk-in closet... That is some of the hardwood flooring being used as spacers.