All the Comforts of Cottage...

In my previous post I mentioned that it is getting a whole lot more comfortable on our weekend treks tot he cottage to complete the finishing touches on the inside of the cottage.

The weather has been fretfully cold these past few weekends - getting as low as -31 Celsius!

But with the baseboard electrical heating in, and working, and a lovely wood stove, it is quite comfortable. Top that off with an almost functioning kitchen meals are less like camping these days.

As you can see we have a functioning fridge and also a stove (hidden to the right). With no running water yet, we bring up a couple of jerry cans of water each weekend. It provides enough water for drinking, cooking and a few flushes of the toilet -- a welcome luxury for the better half -- yep! that's her in the picture....

Related Posts:

Installing a Cottage Kitchen - Oct 26, 2008

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It's Not all Work Now... More time to enjoy

Now that the cottage has the very basics complete, it is a bit more comfortable staying up there, while still getting the finishing touches complete.

The wood stove is a real joy!

After a day of completing various items of the to-do list, it such a pleasure to sit by the wood stove, in my big old leather chair (See), and warm my aching bones.

It is times like this that make the effort all worthwhile.

;-)

Installing a Basement Subfloor: another tip

Get yourself a pair of knee pads!

They will be a life safer!

If you are going to be installing a subfloor and/or a finish floor like the laminate we put in, you are going to be on your knees for a good part of the time. That will be hours! I estimate that the subfloor took us over 12 hours to do. It would have been a very painful 12 hours without the knee pads!

I am positive I would not be walking today if it was not for my knee pads...


Related Posts:

9 Tips for Installing Laminate Floor - Monday, January 12, 2009
4 Tips for Installing Basement Sub-Floor - Wednesday, January 28, 2009

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4 Tips for Installing Basement Sub-Floor

Here is your author, hard a work installing the Dricore subfloor panels.

I was installing the panels left to right except for the course you see me working on in this picture. The reason is that I wished to make sure that the panel crossing the threshold of the bathroom door (behind my butt in the picture) was positioned just right.

In order to free up as much floor space as possible we stuffed all the items we were 'storing' in the basement in the bathroom. I intended, and eventually did the next day, to return to complete the subfloor in the bathroom - once the rest of the basement floor was complete and hence had a space to move the contents of the bathroom.

Simple but not Effortless
Installing the Dricore subfloor while a relatively simple process was not without a lot of effort and much more time consuming than I expected. The 2'x2' Dricore panels are tongue and grove but they don't fit with simple placement a light tapping. Plus unless your room(s) are completely square and have only simple 90 degree corners, there will be lots of special measuring and cutting.

6 Tips for Installing the Dricore Subfloor System

1) Get and Use the right tools - You will need:

• A rubber mallet - avoid using a hammer
• Create from scrap Dricore panels or purchase a plastic tongue and grove pounding tool
• Measuring tape and pencil
• A 4-foot level
• Crow bar
• Jig saw
• Table Saw - a circular saw will work in a pinch but a table saw is much more accurate and FASTER
• Safety glasses
• Broom
  

2) Groves against the wall: Lay the first course of panels starting with the groove side against the wall AND the first panel in the corener should have both grove sides against the wall.


3) 1/4-inch Spacing: Use 1/4-inch material as a spacer between the wall and the panels - on all walls.


4) Use the 'wall' spacers as a Wedge Assistants: Use 1/4-inch material that is at least 6-inches high on the wall where your last piece will end on a course. I found that I could cut the last Dricore panel to fit 1/4" shorter and then pound the panel in piece using the 6" high spacer as both a protector of the wall and as a guide for the panel. Remember to remove the spacer once the subfloor is in and before your install the finish floor as it will be very tight and difficult to get out

5) Measure twice...: and cut once! Cutting panel pieces for the last row and/or around corners can be very tricky. I found that placing the panel in the same orientation as its eventual placement, measuring and that transferring the measuring to the panel made the process much faster and less prone to mistakes. It is better to cut the piece too big than too small...

6) Check for imperfections: I found that some of the difficulty of inserting the tongues into the groves was because of broken or bent tongues. Always do a quick check and remedy imperfections before trying to pound them together.

Related Posts:
Installing a Subfloor in the Basement - Saturday, January 24, 2009

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Birthday Celebration....

Lucie celebrated her 50th birthday two weekends ago.

I surprised her with a party, and 30 of her brothers and sisters, friends and even some on my side helped her celebrate. We held the party at Local Hero's on St. Laurent Blvd in Ottawa.

Here she is in all her jovial self, smiling, joking and making everyone feel like a million dollars.

This post is a bit of the topic of this blog except in one respect. My dream of the Cottage on the Edge would simply not be possible without Lucie's encouragement and her help during many construction voyages.

I love her to bits, and can't wait for the spring when all the major construction will be complete, and the travel to the Cottage will be more for relaxation and spending time with loved ones than wielding a hammer.
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Installing a Subfloor in the Basement

We started to install the subfloor in the basement last week.

We are using this prefab material from Dricore. This material is a complete solution to covering the basement floor and creating a dry and warm subfloor that is ready to accept finishing.

The Dricore has a built-in vapour barrier and comes in 2 foot x 2 foot 'tiles'. You basically use snap the material together.

Coming Up:
...More Installation tips for Dricore...

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The Kitchen Construction Site

The kitchen is still a bit of a construction site...

As you can see in the pictur:

• the cupboards are installed but the door handles are not.
• the countertop is installed but the sink is not
• the stove is installed but the range fan is not

Plus there are a few more finishing touches to complete:

• The trim around the window
• The side finish on the wall cupboards, and
• We hope to put in some ceramic tile as a back splash...
  

Coming Up:
We are up this weekend to hopefully complete some of these jobs and more...

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More Video of the Cottage on the Edge

I took a few more videos of the Cottage back in late November. I thought I would share another with you.

In this one I walk up the driveway and walk in the from door. You will notice that by this time we had plenty of snow.

Coming:
I will post posts that show you some of the interior in later posts.

Related Posts:

Video at 11.... - Dec 03, 2008

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Installing a Kitchen Countertop: A few tips...

This past Saturday we installed the counter top to complete our installation of the IKEA cabinets. I purchased the counter top material at RONA, and used their cutting shop to cut the counter top to size and create the 45 degree as well.

The RONA service also provides the connecting hardware to secure the two parts of the counter together. We just squirted on some glue and bolted the two halves together. The hardness part was flipping the unit over and putting it in place -- it was an exact fit hence it took a bit of grunting to get it in place.

With a few supporting blocks in strategic places, and a handful of screws, the counter top was solidly in place.

It kinda' looks homey doesn't it!

A few tips:

• Walls are never completely straight nor square - Always take this in consideration when measuring for the countertop
• Measure every conceivable dimension for the countertop! Often your cupboards are not square either!
• Remembers that you need to have each exposure end of the countertop finished. For instance, where the stove goes.
• Make sure you have enough support under the countertop. This usually required 5/8-inch material.
• Make sure you have the screws of the right length so as not to screw through the countertop

;-)

My Old Comfortable Chair...

This weekend we arrange some of the furniture we moved in two weeks ago to the Cottage -- just do make it a bit more livable - let's say civilized.

My greatest pleasure was screwing in the legs on my big old leather chair and sitting in it - in front of the wood stove. I savored the moment!

It was a moment of I hope many to come.

Coming Up:
I keep promising lot's more to come and I have many posts planned, however, both work and continuing tasks at the weekend have kept me from posting. I promise much more will be coming - for those following I appreciate your patience!

Related Posts:

Cottage on the Edge: 10 tips for packing a PODS Container - May 09, 2008

Waiting for Spring... - Jan 07, 2009

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9 Tips for Installing Laminate Floor

I found an absolutely great deal for laminate flooring from Dale's Home Building Center in Otter Lake. I paid under $1 per square foot, and the stuff was absolutely wonderful to work with.

Attributes of the Laminate Floor:
The flooring was a great quality and has the following attributes:

• 8.3 mm in thickness
• resistant to burns, scratching, fading and stains

Easy to install:
This laminate required no glue! In fact the material just snapped together.

Tools Required:
All the tools that I needed were:

• A hammer, although a rubber mallet would have been better
• A table saw, although a circular saw would work

Ascetics:
Be sure to lay the planks so that is looks right in the space. Here is a few tips:

• Lay it so that it length ways as you come into the room. We laid ours so that it was laid in the direction that you entered from the front door.
• Try to avoid ending at a door but rather run the laminate though the doors to other rooms. It is easier to just run to the door and then put a T-molding to cover the restart of the laminate in the next room - but it just does not look as nice. More work - but a great result!
• Do the flooring before you install the interior doors - that way the laminate will be under the doors frames - hence no ugly gaps!
• Be sure to stagger your joints!
  

9 Installation Tips:

1. Use a scrap piece of laminate plank to use to hammer (with a mallet) - this avoids damaging the tongue and groves.
2. Be sure to put 1/4 inch spacers against all the walls to create the required expansion space, AND to protect the walls from the pounding with the mallet.
3. Always install the laminate in the direction that is easiest. In our case it was left to right. It just just snaps together MUCH easier!
4. Make sure you create at least a 1/4-inch space around all obstacles like pipes.
5. Get and use Knee pads!
6. Make sure the entire floor is clean prior to laying the laminate - scrap and vacuum all bumps - fit any voids
7. Use a vapour barrier - underlay material. When you lay it do not overlay the material.
8. Measure twice! You are going to get tired - mistakes happen.
9. Use the piece you cut at one end as the starting plank on the next run - it often is exactly the right piece to create the right stagger - and your waste will be next to nothing
   

Coming Up:

Related Posts:

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Waiting for Spring...

On Saturday January 3rd we passed the milestone of moving my furniture that was stored in storage at PODS to the Cottage.

We are not yet finished inside but sufficiently finished to accept furniture. This way I save the storage charges, thus freeing up cash to devote to the Cottage.

In the picture you see the garden bench I had in my garden in the front of the Condo I sold in May. ...and as the title suggests I can't wait for spring to enjoy it again!

Coming Up:
As you can see I have been away from the blog for a few weeks. The blog has been a casuality of the Christmas holiday and spending most of the time up at the Cottage doig the final touchs so that we could bring up the furniture.

Over the past three weeks we have accomplished much which I will share with you over the next few posts - possible a week of more of posts - I might even have to do multiple posts per day. We will see what my work schedule allows. We accomplished the following:

• Installed laminate floor on the main floor
• Installed vinyl floor in the main bathroom
• Installed the IKEA kitchen cabinets
• Installed the bath tub, the toilet and the bathroom vanity and sink.
• Completed the plumbing for the bathroom in the ceiling of the basement.
• Started the railing for the stairs downstairs.
• The taping and plastering of the drywall was completed, and primed.
  
• Painted the ceiling and walls of the main floor
• Installed the refrigerator and stove
• Installed the microwave oven
• The electrical was completed including all the baseboard heaters, switches, outlets, and light fixtures (some temporary)
• Started on the baseboard trim.

In the months of January and February we hope to accomplish the following:

• Install the baseboard and window trim on the main floor
• Install the interior doors
• Complete the hand railings for the stairwell
• Install the closet doors on the main floor.
• Install the subfloor in the basement
• Paint the walls and ceilings in the basement
• Install the laminate floor in the basement.
• Finish connecting the plumbing in the basement
• Connect up the gas supply to the tankless water heater
  

Related Posts:

Cottage on the Edge: 10 tips for packing a PODS Container - May 26, 2008

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