As I mentioned in my post last week, the countertop people, who were supposed to install the countertops this week, postponed us until next Tuesday because their whole shop came down with the flu.

The plumber was supposed to come out Thursday and do what he could do without the countertops being in.  But on Wednesday evening, he called me to let me know that he forgot about us and had not ordered any of the stuff he needed to complete our job.  I have to say, I was not too upset about the plumber since he needs the countertops to be in to get all of his work done, so that would have necessitated another trip.  So, no harm, no foul.

The plumber also does all of the propane hookups, so I was asking him about hooking up the furnace.  He mentioned the HVAC guys should have hooked up the furnace to the propane.  They did not.  (You may remember my mentioning back in June, the HVAC guys are a couple of dopers that surprise me that they can even tie their shoes in the morning.)  The plumber said they needed to install a propane conversion kit on the furnace.  I have no idea if that was installed or not, so I called the builder (who hired Cheech and Chong).  He did not know either.  So the builder called Cheech and Chong, but of course they could not remember.  So we had to take a picture of the model number and serial number of the furnace to send to the retards Cheech and Chong so they could check with their supplier and see what they bought for the job.  This all happened last Wednesday.  As of today (Sunday), we still have no idea if the furnace they installed will even work with the propane system for the rest of the house.  GRRR!!!

The electrician was supposed to come out on Thursday or Friday or Saturday and finish up the last few items remaining on the electrical.  Thursday and Friday came and went with no electrician.  At about 9:30 Saturday morning I called him and asked if he was still planning on coming by.  He said he was, but he had to stop by “Marilyns” and finish a few things for her.  Who Marilyn is or why her money is more green than mine, I have no idea.

He finally showed up about 11:30 with some really awful looking LED lights for the kitchen cabinets and promptly informed us that he had injured his back at Marilyn’s and could not do our work that day.  But he promised to come back today (Sunday).  Of course today, he never showed nor even called.  GRRR!!!

Tina and I finally came to the conclusion today, the electrician has until next weekend to get our work done or I will do it myself.  There is nothing we are asking him to do that I do not know how to do myself.  But it will take me 2-3 days to do what he can probably do in half a day.  But we have been asking him to do this work for almost 2 months and he cannot seem to fit us into his schedule.  Screw him!

For our part, we got all of the drawer glides installed in the kitchen cabinets.  That does not sound like much, but it was a very time consuming process to make sure everything was matched up perfectly and drilled tight.  I am sure we got a couple of them not quite perfect, but how I drilled them, I gave us some wiggle room.

I think I came up with a good way to keep the drawer glides at least within the ballpark of being accurate on each side; clamp a piece of scrap to the bottom of each cleat and set the drawer glide on top of it for drilling and screwing.

We also got some more door moulding done.

Tina has all of the vertical pieces finished.  So I got a bunch of those nailed up.

The blue door in the orange “Trump” wall does not look quite so hideous with a moulding around it.

At the same time, I cut the pieces for the tops and Tina started finishing them.

And I got the top pieces she finished last week nailed up.

So was it a good week?  No.  But we have a plan moving forward.  It may not make us popular with our new neighbors, but it has to be.

This was one of those week where we just did not accomplish a whole lot on M. T. Acres.  I spent the week in Phoenix for work and I picked up a nasty cold there.

Tina went out to M. T. Acres on Wednesday and finished grouting the shower in the master bathroom and got some more mouldings varnished.

I especially like how the front of the shower came out.  That part had me a little worried about how it was going to look when it was just red bricks.  But once she got the grout in, it looks pretty dang nice.

The electrician finally came by on Friday.  He did not actually do anything other than make a list of the supplies he needed to pick up to finish the job.  Supposedly he is coming out this week to do some actual electrical work.  We’ll see…

The countertop people were originally scheduled to install the countertops on January 23rd.  They called this week to tell us their entire staff was out this week with the flu.  So they rescheduled us for January 29th or 30th.

But the plumber is still planning on coming out this Thursday as far as we know.  He will not be able to plumb the kitchen until after the countertops are in, but at least he might be able to get the gas hooked up so we can use the furnace and maybe even get the hot water heater installed!

As I said earlier, I got home from Phoenix about 8:00 o’clock Friday night and was sicker than a dog.  So having a few extra days to get ready for the trades to finish their work really did not upset me too much.

Saturday I had an easy day.  I drove up to Tucson and returned the extra wall tile from the bathrooms.  Then I picked up the door moulding they had shorted us on the original order.  That took most of the day, so I really did not do any building on Saturday.

Today, we also took it easy, doing only as much work as we had to do to get ready for the plumber.

First, I installed the drawer glides on the vanity in the master bathroom as I figured it would be easier to install them before permanently fixing the top on.  Then I got the top screwed down and got the whole assembly permanently attached to the wall.  Finally, I drilled the holes in the top for the sink and faucet.

Drilling the holes, while very easy to do, was an exercise in stress.  I really did not want to screw up and have to remake the top.  As it was, it went quickly and came out fine.

Then we went through the same process, with the same result, in the guest bathroom.

In mounting the guest vanity to the wall, we just put a bead of silicone on the edge of the top an pressed it into place.  I am not sure if that is going to be strong enough to hold it in place or not.  When we were leaving, I checked it, and it seemed to be pulling away from the wall a little bit.  I think we will add another bead of silicone between the top and the wall to fill in any gaps.  I hope that is good enough to pass inspection as I really do not want to have to drill holes in the floor.

When we got back to the rental house this afternoon, we discovered the furnace had quit working.  This is especially frustrating since tonight is forecast to be the coldest night of the year so far with lows in the teens.  Also, the fact that we went almost a month with no air conditioning last summer in the rental house has both of us pretty pissed at the landlord.  It will be nice to be out of this dump and permanently settled at M. T. Acres.

I keep thinking, wouldn’t it be ironic to have lived the first 49 years of my life in the snow and cold of Minnesota with no ill effects from the cold other than some frostbitten ears and cheeks, then die of hypothermia in my second winter in the Arizona desert?

Tina earned the title of “The Grout Queen” this week.

She started by grouting the base tiles around the floor of the guest bathroom.

Then she moved on to grouting all of the wall tiles in the guest bathroom.  I was really pleased how the grout hides all of the mistakes I made when laying the tile.

We are both really pleased with how it came out looking.

My primary focus this week was getting the wall tile up in the master bathroom.  I started by doing around the tub.

Like in the guest bath, we decided to put a trim line around the middle.  But this time we chose to use all glass tiles and they are quite a bit bigger than the glass tiles in guest bath.

These were a nightmare to install.  Like the mix of glass and granite in the guest bath, they need to be cut VERY carefully or the tiles shatter.  Plus, because they are all glass, they cannot be installed with the same thinset (mortar) as the ceramic.

The thinset for the glass is mixed with some kind of chemical, rather than water.  It is caustic as hell and burns any skin that it contacts.  Plus, it has a very short working time.  From the time I mixed it until when I had to have the tiles all set and the excess thinset cleaned up was only about 20 minutes.

So I had to make sure I had everything cut and fitted perfectly before I mixed the thinset.  I found cutting each piece and fitting it into place with blue tape worked about the best.

Once everything was exactly how I wanted it, I carefully took each piece down and made piles with everything in order.  Then I could mix the thinset, apply it and quickly set the tiles and clean up.

The chemical that is mixed with it also stinks to high Heaven.  It is the kind of smell that makes you nauseous for a day afterward.  All in all, it is a very unpleasant thing to work with.

But once that was all done and dried for an hour or so, I was able to move pretty quickly on the top half of the wall.

I was very proud of myself that I remembered to keep the tile pattern constant as I moved from the tile below the trim to the tiles above.

We let that dry for a day, then Tina grouted the tub.

The finished, grouted version really came out looking good.

Meanwhile, I continued tiling the shower in the master bath using the same crappy process of fitting the trim exactly before attempting to set any of it.  The shower also had the additional challenge of trying to not make too big of a mess on the finished floor.

But we got it done.

The shower actually went pretty quick once I got up above the trim.  I measured and cut the tiles, then Tina would mud them while I climbed the ladder and got into position to set them and clean up.  It was a physically brutal job, but it did go pretty quickly with the two of us.

We ran out of energy today to grout the shower.  So Tina will go over this coming Thursday to grout it.  I will be out of town all week on business.

Beyond that, we did a bunch of “busy work” this week. Tina finished some more mouldings and she got the last coat of varnish on the vanity top for the guest bath.  I got the island cabinet permanently positioned and glued in place in the kitchen.

Finally, I got the guest bathroom put back together and ready for the plumber to come back and finish it off.  (Yes – I know very well how to do basic plumbing.  No – I am not going to do it because I want the plumber to come back and hook up all of the propane anyway.  Since I absolutely HATE doing plumbing, that is a problem I am happy to solve with my checkbook.)

But I did reinstall the toilet so we are back to being a “two-flusher” household.

The next 2 weeks should be pretty exciting at M.T. Acres.  We will be getting a lot of work done and we will not be the ones doing it for a change!  Next week, the electrician is supposed to come out and get the kitchen wiring topped off as well as getting all of the data line connected.  (Do not ask me about the data lines!  It is a requirement by the county that I have the entire house wired with Coax and Cat-5 even though I will not ever use either of them!  GRRR!!!)

The following week, they are coming to install the countertops and the plumber will be out to finish his part.  After the plumber is done, all we will need to do is a get load of propane and we will have actual hot water!  WOO HOO!!!

Now that the cabinets are all built, with the exception of doors and drawers, we are back to doing the miserable work of tiling.  At least this time it is wall tile which is MUCH less physically demanding than floor tile.

Tina is also into her busy season of finishing.  As I mentioned last week, we got most of the case moulding, but she also has to finish the last of the cabinets.

The vanity for the guest bathroom really came out good.  It has the full 4 coats of varnish on it.

The grain on the top is really starting to show well also.

As of this picture, Tina still has one more coat to do.

She also has been working on the moulding for the doors.

She is about 1/4 of the way through the skinny vertical pieces.  She is not doing the horizontal pieces until I cut them as there will be end grain that needs to be finished for each door and since we decided to do “cowboy” style moulding on the interior doors it is easier for Tina to finish them after I cut them.

The joinery for the mouldings looks really simple, but it is actually more difficult than doing a standard 45 degree mitre because any length on the side pieces that is off or any mitre that is off 90 degrees, even the slightest, shows up badly.  Even though it looks simple, this is a really tricky joint to get right.

Then you get into the “modified” cowboy joint…

I only got 3 sets of the vertical cowboy mouldings hung today.  Those suckers are a bugger to do!  Most mouldings are 1/8″ thick on the inside and 1/2″ thick on the outside.  So if you need to bend them to keep them straight, it is not a big deal.  Then moulding we are using are 5/8″ thick on both the inside and the outside, so they are a monster to bend.  It was not fun at all.

I also got all of the wall tile done in the guest bathroom.  I started with a bullnose that we are using instead of wood baseboard.

It is actually the same color as the floor tile.  I am not sure why it looks dark gray in the picture.

Then it was on to the walls.

The trim piece around the middle is actually a mix of granite and glass.  The tiles come on a sheet that is 12 X 14 inches.

These things are an absolute nightmare to cut!  First, they require a special blade for the wetsaw, which cost me $65.  Second, even with the special blade, the glass has a tendency to chip and the granite shatters.  The only way I found to be able to reliably cut them without them exploding and sending shrapnel all over is to wrap them in 2-3 layers of blue tape before cutting them.

Even then, I had to feed them into the wetsaw extremely slowly.  The trim strip you see in the photo is about 5 inches tall.  The fastest I was able to cut reliably was by taking over a minute to make each 5 inch cut.

I think Tina’s idea of changing the orientation of the tiles on the top and bottom of the trim line makes it look a lot more interesting.

Doing around the window was especially bothersome, partially because I forgot about it when we bought the tile and did not buy enough bullnose and partially because it was just a tedious task.

On Saturday, we went back to the tile store in Tucson and got the tile for the master bathroom.

These should at least go faster than the tiles in the guest bathroom since these tiles are 8 X 20 inches.  But you will also notice on the top of the pile is another box and a half of bloody glass trim tiles!  GRRR!!!

They do not make a bullnose in either of the tiles we are using for the walls, so we have to use an extruded aluminum piece called Schluter for the finished edge.

For whatever reason, I have a mental block on the name Schluter.  Unless it is written down in front of me, I cannot remember the name.

While we were in the tile store on Saturday, after we had picked out the 3 different tiles, the grout, the different thin-sets we need for each different tile, etc., I looked at the sales-gal and said, completely innocently: “Now we need to see what you have for wide sphincter”.

It took me a second to realize what I had said.  I felt terrible for the poor sales-gal.  She was about 24 or 25 and just stood there looking at me with her mouth agape and completely red faced.  Another salesman, who was assisting our sals-gal because she was new, was doubled over laughing.  Of course I apologized profusely and once they figured out what I was talking about we got our Schluter, tile and other stuff and left.

Needless to say, it has been a fun week at M.T. Acres.

Happy New Year Acrettes!

Part of the problem with “living” at a half-built house is the food.  Until last week, we were limited to what Tina could cook in a cheap microwave oven and a camp stove or barging in on our good friend Eve to use her kitchen.  But now that we have the Big Green Egg at M.T Acres, we can pretty much do anything.

And let me tell you, until you have had dinner rolls baked over mesquite charcoal, you have not lived!

Tina got the vanity for the master bathroom completely finished and it came out looking GREAT!

The photo does not show it very well, but the varnish on the quarter-sawn oak really makes the grain stand out.

Since the top is solid wood as well, Tina decided to do 6 coats of varnish on it to make sure it is well protected from the moisture.  She still has one coat to go, but it is looking outstanding too.  The picture of the top shows the grain a little better than the photo of the front of the cabinet.

For my part, I built the vanity for the guest bathroom.  We wanted it to look like an old farmhouse table rather than traditional cabinetry.  So we chose to build it from black walnut.  Since it really is more furniture than cabinetry, I used mortise and tenon joinery for the whole thing.

We were also really lucky to get ahold of some really nicely figured walnut for just under $5 per board foot.  Unfortunately, walnut is a wood that does not photograph well until it has a couple coats of varnish on it, so please take my word for it, the grain on this is really something special.

I started by cutting the legs as well as the stretchers.  I built a wide stretcher around the top so we have room to mount a toilet paper holder.  The narrower ones around the bottom will hold a shelf.

I stupidly cut the tenons on the stretchers before cutting the mortises in the legs.  More on that in a few minutes.

Then, I cut the tapers on the legs as well as cut the mortises and dry fit all of the parts to make sure everything fit perfectly.

So far, so good…

Tina bought 2 cloth boxes on Amazon to put towels, etc. under the vanity.  So we needed to build a shelf to hold the cloth boxes.  In keeping with the farmhouse style, I decided to make the shelf with slats.  So I planed down some stock to 1/2 inch thick and made 11 slats and carefully cut the mortises and tenons.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I like mortise and tenon joinery a LOT and I am pretty good at it.  And these were some of the best joints I have ever cut in my life.  They fit nice and tight. They were perfectly square.  The shoulders were nice and tight against the mortise.  So I rounded over all of the corners and glued it up.

I do not think I had ever glued 22 mortises in one glue session before, but we planned it well and worked fast and got it done.  Once the glue dried and I measured it out, everything was absolutely perfectly square and the correct dimensions.

Fortunately, before we did the last 2 glue ups, I decided to try one last dry fit of the legs and stretchers with the shelf.  We put everything together (without glue) and I quickly discovered the mortises on the legs were 1/8 inch too far apart!

When I build things in my woodshop, I do not work from a blueprint, but I do keep copious notes on every part I make.  I do all of my math on paper and I ALWAYS check it at least once.  So went back to my notes and checked the length of the slats against the length of the stretchers and the width of the legs.  I checked my math 3 different ways and it ALWAYS came out correct.

So, I started measuring parts.  The slats were correct.  The tenons on the front and back stretchers were correct.  The mortises on the legs were correct.  Then I discovered I had gone full-blown retard and cut the side stretchers 1/8 inch too long, even though I had written down the correct length on my cut list!

The problem was solved easy enough; trim away an 1/8 inch on the stretchers and recut the tenons, but sheesh what an idiot I was!

After getting a good dry fit on the whole thing, I glued up the two ends.

Then the rest of the body.

Lastly, I glued up the top.

Then, sanded and sanded and sanded.

I even had to “test” it with the sink.

The grain on this baby is so amazing that I believe once Tina gets done working her magic on it, it will look like you can put your hand right through it.

The moulding for all of the doors also came in this week.

The narrow ones will be the vertical pieces and the wide ones will go across the top.  Rather than doing a traditional miter on the corners, we are going to with more of a southwest style.

Tina got a good start sanding that down for finishing.

I have to say that I am not real happy with the mouldings.  I had to special order them so I could not pick out the individual pieces I wanted, rather I had to accept what they shipped.  In looking through the pile, several of them have knots (which might look kind of cool) and a lot of tool marks (which NEVER look cool).  Also, when I placed the order, I specifically told the salesman, I wanted 8 foot pieces.  When we picked them up, there were several that were 16 foot pieces (which I made them cut down) and several that were 9 or 10 feet.  If they measured by linear feet, rather than total pieces, I am going to end up short.

Fortunately, the profile of the moulding is simple enough I can make a few extra pieces if we need them.  But I sure do not like this idea of “take what we give you”.

This coming week, I am going to step back from the woodworking for a while to get the wall tile up in the bathrooms.  That and a few minor clean up things (making doors for the furnace closet, etc.) are the last that we need to do to get ready for the final “move-in” inspection.

The plumber and electrician still have quite a bit to do, but they needed me to be done building cabinets to do their part.  So we are cocked, locked and ready to rock on that front now!

We picked up the wall tiles and trim for the guest bathroom on the same day we got the mouldings.  So I will start those tomorrow.  We are still arguing out the details of what we want in the master bathroom, so we have not yet purchased those.

Finally, we took a walk around our land a few days ago and discovered that we have a true Arizona Christmas tree!

It is a mesquite.  And the wild gourds, which are growing everywhere, grow up the trunk and out the branches.  The gourds hang down like Christmas ornaments.

There are even a couple that are hanging down 2-3 feet!

From Tina and I to all of you, have a Happy and Blessed 2018!