First flight is in

The first flight of stairs is installed, complete with 11 drawers.  I've made a mental note that next time (next time?) that making such a unit in three sections would be better than two.  It nearly killed us moving it from the workshop onto the trailer and then into the house. 

Total time to build this flight of stairs....drum roll....59 hours including making the 12 "secret" drawers.  (They're not really a secret now I've told you!).  I should charge by the hour.

Next steps (excuse the pun): build the second flight; make the very first step, clad the landing wall and make a door for entry into the Harry Potter suite.

An unlikely marriage

When I was in Scotland at the Chippendale International School of Furniture in 1996 the principal, Anselm, introduced me to the Black and Decker powerfile.  This tool can best be described as an unlikely marriage between a belt sander and an angle grinder.  It’s been on my list of “tools to buy” ever since I’ve returned and last Saturday my patience was rewarded when Nette gave me one for my birthday.

 

I have high hopes for the powerfile when it comes to fitting the drawers, tidying up some of the ratty edges on the beams and generally “making things fit”.  I’ll report back in a few weeks on how it’s performing. 

Meanwhile in the workshop I've finished the first flight of stairs, including using the powerfile to fine tune the fit of the drawers.  All going well I'll be installing the stair unit this weekend.

TIMBERCRETE - love it

We chose to build our house with a product called Timbercrete.  Their website is amazingly useful and, based on our experience, true to its word.  I really can’t praise the product or the company enough. 

For example, when I was drafting up the house plans (which I did in Microsoft Word - but that’s another post perhaps)  I emailed a copy to Timbercrete for their input.  They came back with some ideas which greatly simplified the brick laying and reduced waste.  Based on my plans they also estimated how many bricks we’d need, including bricks with power points already installed, bricks for lintels, bricks with horizontal and vertical service channels and even half bricks.  The wastage was incredibly small and their estimate very accurate. 

As for how it looks….love it.