Interior renos

We had a bit of a crazy summer so I'm way behind in posting progress. This summer, after the kitchen, we tackled the ceiling and painting. We are still desperately in need of art but we will get to that next year. 

We sourced the v-groove pine from the Home Hardware building centre in Westport. Those guys are great. I was told I would have to live with random lengths (which is only fair) but when it arrived I had a nice selection of mostly 12-16 foot boards. Pulling down the ceiling was a messy job - shingle residue everywhere and about a million staples and small nails. 

We were a bit torn on which way to run the ceiling. Our natural inclination was to have the ceiling run parallel to the floor. The concern was that the kitchen dining room area is already extremely long and fairly narrow and we were worried we would get a bowling alley effect. Also the furring for the previous ceiling ran in a way that to do it the other way would have required completely re-furring the ceiling...

The before shots...

The after shots...

Benjamin Moore Cloud White on the walls.

Notice the hutch is now a sideboard. Opens the space up nicely. Also, painting out the trim around the windows and removing the blinds opened the space visually. You now focus on the lake, not the window...

Munch in a rare at rest moment

We were at a bit of a loss to come up with a way to light the bedrooms. We decided the best visually would be ceiling fans. We like the look but more importantly it allows us to control airflow. Cross ventilation is pretty good already but the fans help when there's no wind (pretty rare on Crosby lake) but in the spring and fall the fans really help move the air around when heating with the wood stove. 

Before... 

After...

Our neighbour Dawn came up with the great idea of taking the upper portion of the hutch that came to the cottage as a bookshelf in the second bedroom. Sheila painted the both portions using Benjamin Moore Aura self priming paint. 

Painting Kitchen Cabinets

The kitchen was pretty rough when we got it. Cabinets were solid but it was that old brown oak cabinets you see in houses from the 60s. It was a prime candidate for a makeover.

This was a picture from the listing website. It wasn't exactly like this when we took possession but you get the idea.

I surfed a fair bit to try to figure out the best way to paint the cabinets. I really struggled but in the end I found an excellent description on younghouselove.com. 

First thing I did was take the doors off and bring them home to work on them. I found a super degreaser called XIM Gon. Nasty stuff but it worked super well. Stripped off 40 years of grease in no time. I sanded 120 grit to rough up the finish and remove some of the varnish. 

Oak is an open pore wood and I didn't want to see the pores in the paint surface. I found an excellent product called Timbermate wood filler http://www.timbermate.com.au/products/Timbermate+WaterBased+Wood+Filler.aspx

I mixed it with water to create a slurry and painted the surface of the doors with a foam brush. I let it dry and then sanded through 120 then 180 grit.

I also used it to fill the holes left by the old cabinet hardware. We liked the knobs themselves but not the ornate fixtures that came with them. We kept the hinges as well. They did look pretty good with the knobs.

After that it was a matter of priming and then painting. After one coat of primer I used 0000 steel wool to really smooth down the doors. A quick vacuum and once over with a tack cloth and I was ready to paint. 

 I used Benjamin Moore's Advance for the finish coat. It's a waterborne alkyd and it's claim to fame is excellent self levelling properties. It worked quite well. Three coats with steel wool/vacuum/tack cloth between each coat and I got a pretty impressive finish. You really have to move fast though. I brushed the details, used a roller for the flat surfaces and backbrushed to eliminate any bubbles. I had 18 doors to do but only enough flat surface in my home shop to do 9 at a time so the entire process took 10 days.

The colour we wanted was the famous French Grey from Farrow and Ball. Turns out Kilkarney from Benjamin Moore is exactly the same colour. I used their Pearl finish which was the lowest sheen available. 

For the cabinets I followed exactly the same procedure. A little trickier because I was working vertically but it turned out fine.

I didn't even have to empty the cupboards:-)

I used Ikea wood countertop to fill in the corner left by the position of the old stove. There was a baseboard heater that prevented moving the cabinets to the left of the new stove so we had to remove that but other than that there was very little electrical work needed. I got the drawer pulls from Lee Valley. I got a jig from Home Depot but unfortunately Lee Valley spacing is metric and the Home Depot jig is imperial so I had to drill my own holes. Bit of a pain and it took two jigs to get the spacing right as I missed on my first try. 

The other very pleasant surprise was how easy it was to replace the faucet. The plug and play setups they sell these days make it painless. Literally - no blood and no swearing:-)

All in all we have what I think we wound up with a well laid out kitchen with some pretty good cottage style. Still needs paint and a new ceiling but that's another post. 

Romain

Building a better shed

One of the most challenging things about a small cottage is the utter lack of storage space combined with the need for an unbelievable amount of stuff. I am amazed at how this city boy now owns a wheelbarrow, a chainsaw, a weed eater with a brush cutter attachment (basically a circular saw on the end of a stick), the making of a small woodshop - the list goes on and on. 

The cottage came with one of those old tin 6x7 sheds that your grandfather used to own. It wouldn't have been so bad except that the screened in porch has these big winterizing frames to keep the snow out (not sure they actually are worth it) that, when stored in the shed, take up half the space. Clearly a new shed was a priority. 

Perhaps not the finest shed 

I rather misguidedly figured I could build a shed from scratch over a four day extended labour day weekend last August (Sheila calls me the master under-estimator). 7 weeks later I finished the painting and I still have the stairs to do but in the end the Tajma shed is looking pretty good. We based the design on a shed in a Taunton Fine Homebuilding shed book. If you haven't seen these, look for them at Home Depot. They are awesome.

The one really great find was the LP Products SmartSide reverse board and batten panel for the exterior. It comes with a 50 year guarantee, eliminates the need to skin the shed in ply and doesn't cost much more than the ply you would use under any other siding product. It is pre-primed to boot. I got mine at the Home Depot in Carleton Place at somewhere around $25 a 4x8 sheet. The Home Hardware in Perth quoted me somewhere around $40 so shopping around is worth it.

The other thing we learned is that if your angles for your rafters are greater than 45 degrees (which they are for the 10 in 12 roof pitch) then don't try screwing around with your mitre saw. Draw the line and cut it with your circular saw. Much easier and way more accurate.

The window was made in the woodshop at home using half lap joinery - pretty easy actually and much cheaper than ordering something. Some pine and a couple sheets of clear acrylic.

The outer dimensions of the shed are 9 x roughly 11 3/4 to make sure the total area came in under the 108 foot maximum for building without permits. The next step will be to build the stairs and to outfit the interior with benches/shelving etc to try to keep the thing organized.

Finally - some steps to the lake

The people who owned the cottage before us must have been part billy goat. The lot is steep from the cottage to the water (there are stairs) but the path from the lower deck to the water was a small cliff with a couple pieces of wood to hold dirt stairs and a big root across the middle. Once you figured out the way down and what foot to start on it was pretty easy but guests, not having the luxury of practicing every weekend, didn't much care for it.

We had been setting aside larger rocks suitable for steps for a while and when the ladies went of to Westport I convinced by buddy Al to lend a hand. Didn't take too long at all and in the end we wound up with a natural looking but obvious way down to the water. Just a few steps but what a difference it makes.

Almost one year on Crosby Lake

Sheila found a listing for a cottage in February of 2012 on Crosby Lake's North Shore. We had started looking for a cottage in earnest after spending a lovely weekend at a cottage on Big Rideau. We had stopped looking (it was winter) when she happened to be poking around on realtor.ca and found the listing. We went up as soon as we could and put an offer in a day later.

The cottage itself was in solid shape with updated electrical, newer footings, decent plumbing and a fairly new roof. It's not big and it is not fancy but it has 115 feet of deep clean waterfront. Everything else, we figured, could be fixed.

A Fendock that's actually in better shape than it looks but so wobbly...

Coming up to the cottage from the car 

View from the lane