More moving moments

OK, so now we had new furniture, and the white melamine stuff had to go. Of course we only figured this out after we’d returned the trailer and all.

So on Sunday Tanya and I loaded the lighter unit in the Rand-Lover and the bloody heavy one on to the roof, took them through to Kommetjie, and returned with a Welsh dresser which is almost but not quite too big for the space we have. And five chairs, which are lighter in colour than the ones we had, and as such blends in better (I’m told, I’m ovary-deficient).

I don’t have a picture, I’m afraid, so I shamelessly stole this one from Tanya.

I need to modify (using a wood chisel and hammer) the trim around the top left corner of the door, so that I can move the Welsh dresser a few centimetres to the right, lose that white stipe poking out. Don’t stress, a previous owner pre-modified that whole area, I just need to finish what they started.

Then on Monday we took our four dark wood chairs through and returned with the sixth chair.

We’re getting there…

2009-04-14 by House 0

So there we were, four against a piano…

… fortunately the other three fellows are strong.

Friday, we loaded the old living room furniture and the washing machine on Frank’s uncle’s kick-ass trailer.

Then we went to the in-laws’ soon-to-be-ex-place, where we unloaded the furniture and washing machine and loaded what used to be their living room furniture, a washing machine, a display cabinet, a bed, and a pot plant. And the piano.

And then we drove back to Fish Hoek rather slowly, and unloaded the whole mess.

The new furniture carries the contented kitty seal of approval.

Tanya had to unpack and repack all her cats to move the lounge display cabinet.

Ended the day by driving through to Bellville and having supper with my folks. We stayed over, because some damn fools were running all over the mountain Saturday morning, which means that we’re effectively isolated because of road closures, and we wanted to go to the Bloemendal bubbly & oyster thing. Which was lekker.

2009-04-11 by House 0

Happy Anniversary

Today, a year ago, we took possession of the house. It’s been… a journey. A long one, and we’re still on it.

Maybe it’s time for the long awaited kitchen sink backsplash post. Frank finished the tiling and grouting last Friday, but I’ve been somewhat busy, so blogging had to wait.

Drip tray hardware from A&D Distributors in Maitland.

We invited some people over on Saturday evening, so the rush was on to finish the bathroom shelves (only way I get things done, invite people over :-)

These rods are also from A&D…

..and this is what they look like installed. Since this particular wall consists of tile over shutterboard, I just drilled a hole and used a 6mm bolt from the other side to hold the rod to the wall.

For the shelf on the other side, I used two lengths of 12mm aliminium angle, cut and filed and drilled. This is where I noticed that the whole thing is completely out of square, the tiler could have done a lot better.

I still have to change the bath… *sigh* but it’ll be nice when it’s done. And Tanya wants “her” light on the same circuit as the downlighters, there’s a DB in the ceiling, I just have to get up there…

I would have liked to go and see the Kontiki rafts, but driving to the Fruit & Veg in Bellville to buy snack-ey party stuff, and putting up the shelves, took my whole day. OK, I also spent an hour at the range early on Saturday but that doesn’t count :-) Found a pretty good 7mm TC/U cast bullet load. Subject of another posting, maybe.

Monday evening sunset, straight off the camera, no Photoshoppery.

2009-04-01 by House 3

Goofing off

I’ve been spending more time on fun & games and less time on the house. Naughty, naughty me.

This is our silhouette range at Atlantis. If you look really closely you can see the Koeberg Nuclear Reactor poking out towards the right hand side of the picture, behind the flagpole.

This is the view from the False Bay Gun Club.

This is the hard work that I need to do so that I can go and enjoy the outdoors at the abovementioned venues.

And that is why nothing’s happening around the house.

OK, I promise to post pics of the completed drip tray cupboard above the kitchen sink as soon as the backsplash is tiled.

2009-03-24 by Guns 3

Drip tray over sink, part 2

These are the top and bottom sides for the wall units from Lansdowne Boards. No mistakes or inconsistencies here (for once), this is how they do it.

Of course, if they put the slot for the backing board on the other side, the holes for the cam system would end up on the outside of the unit. Which won’t be visible. In this design, the cams end up inside the unit, which is visible.

Doesn’t look too bad though.

I still havn’t figured out how to avoid holes in the backing board. Using their hanging system, one ends up with two holes in each upper corner, and two holes across the bottom. Using what I did here, I ended up with four holes. I guess bodyputty and paint is a solution…

2009-03-09 by House 1

Drip tray above kitchen sink

The drip tray hardware comes from A&D Distributors in Maitland. It comes with instructions, but I decided to ignore their recommended dimensions in favour of centering the (222mm deep) drip tray in the (300mm) deep cupboard unit.

I want the backsplash to extend up behind the drip tray, so I sat with Julian and designed a unit with a cupboard at the top and a backless bottomless area at the bottom.

I also realised that this would happen, and told Julian how I wanted it done. (Because of the curve of the saw blade, getting the slot for the backing board deep enough on the top (left in the picture) of the shelf means that the cut extends. I was quite prepared to have the cut stop above the shelf, I would then route the last bit by hand).

But as we say in Afrikaans, “‘n Halwe begrip het ‘n goeie woord nodig.” In the case of these guys, I think the good explanation has to be punctuated with a baseball bat for things to sink in, though.

Looking good…

2009-03-05 by House 1

Dealing With Idiots, part five thousand and … something.

So I ordered the last of the kitchen cabinets from Lansdowne Boards. These took a while because we were still deciding what we wanted to do, and I had to wrap my head around the drip tray that I got from A&D distributors.

Collected the stuff last Wednesday. Found that they had only supplied two of the three units (but all four doors). No wonder they gave me a large, unexpected off-cut — that was of course supposed to be the third unit.

Returned the offcut to them for making into unit #3.

That was last week.

Over the weekend I found that the double doors for the Colossal Cupboard were too small. The formula is : door width = cupboard width divided by two, less 4mm. Taking the 1mm edging into account, that means the wood for a door for a 750mm wide cupboard should be 369mm. The drawing shows 369mm, the cut list shows 369mm, but the measuring tape shows… 365mm. This creates a rather unsightly gap between the two doors, of course.

Took that back on Monday, nicely asked the fellow to have my kitchen unit ready by Wednesday.

Wednesday came around, I phoned. Nosir, maybe by Friday.

Are they nuts? I ordered this stuff weeks ago. They stuffed up. All they need to do is to quickly cut and edge a unit, one unit, and that will keep the customer happy. So what do they do? Sweet Fanny Adams.

And they’re still sitting on the replacement shelves for the one bookshelf where they got the holes skew. Something to do with them having to buy the chipboard for the replacement unit, which of course they are loathe to do. I suspect they can just massage the replacement white units out of someone else’s order, but few people order mahogany…

*spit*

/me goes back to listening to Lily Allen with a vengeance.

2009-03-04 by House 1

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