Search Results for: cork floor
the loft ladder: process
Most of our undertakings here at chezerbey follow a typical design process. First we brainstorm ideas and sketch things out on paper. Then we test out those ideas in SketchUp. When we’re happy with the design, we detail it out in AutoCad (not always necessary, but it was for a detailed assembly like the loft ladder).
Since we started out sending the design to local steel shops, the drawings were very detailed. After we decided to DIY, Kyle used the shop drawings to accurately measure and cut the various pieces (the design also changed a little bit in between). Unfortunately, I didn’t capture the total construction process. For one, cameras and molten steel don’t really go together. Second, while Kyle was welding, I was holed up in the basement trying to bring order back to the space. After six months as a storage unit and studio apartment it was stuffed to the gills. And then, it threw up on itself. Or at least that’s what it looked like. But that’s another post, back to the ladder!
Kyle started off by cutting the various pieces to size. In the photo above, he’s using a metal cutting saw to cut the steel rods for the lower and upper portion of the ladder.
Next, he used a grinder to bevel the edges of the rods and his drill press to slightly pre-drill the side rails, that way when he clamped it all up for welding it stayed in position.
Once the pieces were cut, the basic frame was welded together. We ended up swapping out tube steel for channels for the side rails. This lightened the overall weight and well, channels are just sexy and cast more interesting shadows. Don’t you think? Next, the rods and treads were installed. The treads had to be a precise angle so when the ladder is in place they would be level with the floor. This was probably the trickiest part of the process.
Kyle also pre-drilled and pre-counter sunk holes in the steel plates so he could later screw the wood treads into place.
I knew the carport would come in handy someday! Here, Kyle is grinding his welds to get a smooth joint.
After the ladder frame was complete, he moved on to the handrail assembly, comprised of 3/8″ diameter rods and 3/4″ square tube steel.
More grinding!
But it really did make a difference…the above shows a good “after” and “before”.
After the ladder and handrail assembly were complete and welded together, it was time to paint. Originally, we were going to have the steel powder-coated. However, we decided that since it’s not exposed to the elements and the steel portions won’t be regularly touched, a simple and durable paint was more than sufficient(and it would save us a considerable amount of money). After trying a half-dozen paints we settled on a dark grey paint used in the auto industry for painting motors. It sprays like a fan instead of a cone (like typical spray paint) so it goes on much more even.
After the paint was dry, Kyle applied a clear coat in a satin finish for a little extra protection.
For the wood treads, Kyle cut 2′-2″ lengths from 5/4×6 vertical grain fir boards (actual size is 1″x 5 1/2″). He then beveled the outboard edge and notched the underside to fit over the steel treads (detailed photo below). Where needed, he chiseled out the underside of the board to fit snuggly over the welds at the joint between the steel channel and plate.
For the handrail, he ran 2×2 fir pieces through the table saw to create the notch. At the bottom of the handrail where the steel ends, he used a chisel and hammer to complete the notch.
Where the tube steel turns 90 degrees and connects back to the channel, he used a small saw and chisel to notch out the wood.
(The photo below shows the completed handrail detail.)
After the clear coat was dry, we moved the steel portion inside and secured it in place with lag screws at the bottom angle and top flat plate (both sets of screws go into structural members so this thing is solid). The angle at the base also covers the exposed edge of the cork flooring. The gap between the ladder and the wall meets code requirements while providing enough space for the future barn door to slide past.
Bailey still doesn’t get it.
All in all, the ladder took about 6 full days of work but we saved a ton of money (even after you factor in the cost of the welding machine). This weekend we’ll apply the finish to the wood. We’re planning on doing a hardwax oil floor finish for the treads and a thinner polyurethane application on the handrails. At the same time, we’ll put the finish on the basement treads and risers (which are partially installed).
The big 2010 project is definitely stretching into 2011, but that’s ok.
2010 year in review
It seems like this week is all about year in review posts, so we’re jumping on the bandwagon too. This was a big year for us – we took on our largest project to date and lived to tell the tale. Here’s how it all went down…
In January we started collecting samples and finalizing the design for the kitchen/dining/living room. We also made a crazy Excel spreadsheet to help establish a budget. I’m pretty sure we don’t want to go back and compare it to how much was actually spent. Yes, it ALWAYS costs more and takes more time than you initially think. Still, we saved tons of money by doing the work ourselves and carefully choosing products and materials.
2009 was the year of the exterior, but by the time we were done painting we didn’t have the energy to finish the mudroom. So we gave ourselves an ultimatum to finish the space before we started demo in the house. Such a small space, but surprisingly a lot of work!
During March, we made final preparations for demo day and begrudgingly finished the mudroom (though we’re really happy with how it turned out, even if it’s still not 100% done).
In April, we DEMOED! We invited a bunch of our friends over to help and were blown away by their enthusiasm and destruction skills.
One of my favorite memories was watching the guys stomp out the ceiling from up in the attic. Lath and plaster dust for all! Sawing out the kitchen ceiling was not as poetic, especially when one chunk swung into the bedroom wall on its way down.
At the end of the day we had transformed our tired old house into…well, a barn.
We spent the latter part of April and most of May in framing mode, which included sanding and refinishing our 100 year-old joists and installing the painted MDO above to serve as a subfloor for the new loft. (FYI – the loft was not part of the original plan, but after demo we decided to just “throw it in”. This probably explains why it’s still not finished.)
Of course we couldn’t do something easy like flat ceilings…
In June, we focused on installing skylights, tension rods and rigid insulation in the vaulted ceiling.
Our friend Dustin spent several Saturdays helping us out and we were sad when he (and my sister) moved to Texas. So much for the “Everyone move to Seattle!” campaign.
July brought electrical rough-in, which is probably the most boring thing to blog about.
See what I mean? At the beginning of August it didn’t look too different. But this month was different, we were on charrette to meet our (revised) September deadline (charretting is architecture-speak for work like crazy and get little sleep until it’s done).
With the electrical work finally done, it was time to wrap our house in furry blue insulation.
We also installed the plywood vaulted ceiling and then the drywallers came to work their magic. Besides the Silestone countertops (which we couldn’t install ourselves), this was the one thing we hired out and it was worth every penny. (On a side note, the room seems especially narrow in the picture below. Weird.)
The first two weeks in September were spent priming, painting and installing the cabinet boxes, counters, lighting and appliances. We had planned a big party at the house for my 30th birthday and even though it wasn’t done, it was close (if you kinda squinted).
We kept working on the kitchen, but the big project for October was the cork flooring.
In November we focused on finishing the kitchen – custom shelving, plywood wraps, and a quick break for Thanksgiving (though thankfully, not at our house!).
It should be noted that Bailey was, for the most part, a real trooper and put up with all the craziness of this year. In the end, we learned that he didn’t really care what we were doing as long as he had a place to sleep and got fed twice a day (whether it was via two plastic bowls on the floor or a custom dog bowl holder).
And in December we finished the kitchen!
We also finished up the stair cabinet and decorated our house for Christmas. (Our new couch and coffee table were also delivered!)
As this year comes to an end, we’re finding more time to relax but also chipping away at the things that are unfinished. We’re hoping to wrap up the loft, loft ladder and barn doors in the next month or so.
So what will 2011 bring? We don’t have any more walls to knock down so we’ll be focusing on smaller projects. And really, we’re excited about that. We also have tentative plans to do some landscaping this summer. 2011 will also be about refilling our remodel penny bank so we’ll have to wait a bit to tackle the basement or the eyesore of a garage in our backyard.
Finally, a big thanks to everyone who reads this blog. Your comments and encouragement go a long way in motivating us to keep pushing forward. Seriously, how did people remodel their homes before the internet? Were there local support groups? Y’know…places where you could throw around words like Expedit and Akurum and people would know exactly what you were talking about? Regardless, we’re glad you all are out there and that we have this great forum for exchanging information and sharing ideas. Here’s to 2011 and all the projects it will bring!
stair cabinet design – part two
Forever ago (August), we posted part one of the stair cabinet design. A second cousin to the fauxdenza, our stair cabinet is a series of IKEA wall cabinets that are fastened to a plinth made of 2×4’s, wrapped in vertical grain fir boards, and backed with painted drywall. Primarily, we needed something that would serve as a guardrail to the new basement stair, but because every inch is valuable in our small house, we decided to snag 12 extra inches and create a guardrail that also doubles as storage and display space. The basic unit has been finished for months, but we spent a long time designing and redesigning the finishes, which was challenging because technically, it is part of the kitchen, dining room and living room. But good news, it’s finally done!
In addition to providing safety and storage, the cabinet has one other feature – it collects the return air from the main floor and sends it back to the furnace. With only 800 SF of living space on the main floor, we just needed one centrally located return grille, so the stair cabinet location made a lot of sense. And then of course we had to design the grille. The photo above shows the final product. The toekick is actually two pieces – the solid piece on the left is attached permanently while the piece on the right is fastened with exposed screws so we can remove it and access the plenum behind if necessary. The two sets of slits were made (very carefully) with a 1/2″ wide dado blade on the table saw. Because we were limited in height, the openings had to be fairly long in order to equal the amount of supply air serving the rest of the floor.
Kyle had the brilliant idea to install a mesh screen on the back to keep Bailey fur and other debris from finding its way into the return duct (and hopefully we won’t have to clean the filters as often).
To do this, he kerfed out some groves on the backside and installed the screen the same way you would on a screen door. (Fortunately, due to a party faux pas by a certain big-headed golden, Kyle has had some recent practice.) Below is a shot of the finished backside, ready for install.
Honestly, the biggest decision hurdle for this piece was the counter. In some ways, it made sense to match one of the counter materials in the kitchen, but we couldn’t justify shelling out the money for a surface that didn’t need to be as durable. Since it’s long and skinny, another thought was to buy a 10′ board and just paint it. This would be an inexpensive, easy solution but unfortunately we needed 12.5″ in depth to cover the doors and common boards are only 11.25″ at most. Finally, we came up with the idea to fab up a countertop out of three different materials. This entailed first buying a nice piece of 5/4 vertical grain fir and a piece of low-cost MDF and then biscuiting and gluing them together.
This way, the long and short edges of the fir would be exposed and the MDF would be totally hidden by the back of the cabinet and side pieces.
The third ingredient – plastic laminate. Now, p-lam can be a dirty word in the design world, but we think if it’s done right it can be an attractive and practical solution. So we bought a roll (about $80 for a 30″x144″ piece), trimmed it down (leaving a little excess on all sides) and covered both surfaces with contact cement.
After the glue was dry, we flipped the laminate over onto the boards and used a small hand roller (same one we bought for the cork floors) to press it into place.
Then Kyle used the router to trim the excess and get a precision edge.
For the “backsplash”, we covered the MDO (which serves as the substrate for the drywall on the opposite side) with extra cork tiles. This took about 20 minutes to install and adds a little something while still being subtle. (We could use it as a tackboard, but since its low and recessed I’m not sure it would be that practical.)
We debated whether to use the white or gray high gloss panels for this piece (one of the biggest challenges with a small open space is how to match things without being too matchy-matchy), but after deciding on a white counter the gray seemed like the logical choice and adds a bit more color and richness. At the exposed sides of the cabinet we cut pieces from a botched dishwasher end panel and screwed them in place from the inside of the cabinet. (With IKEA cabinets, you can buy various cover panels that match the cabinets and are designed to go on the exposed ends of cabinets but also come in larger sheets for whatever your DIY brain comes up with.)
Obviously, it’s feeling a little sparse right now. In addition to extra display or book space, the counter could also be cleared and used as a buffet for once-a-year events like Thanksgiving. We also have ideas about a mail organizer that could sit at the left end of the counter (I’m envisioning a lacquered tray in mustard yellow).
The exposed fir edges of the counter still need to be finished with some benite and poly, but you get the idea.
Three of the four cabinets are filled with books. I was overly optimistic in thinking that all of our books, photo albums and maybe even a few board games would fit. I know there’s room for purging but it’s (for some dumb reason) really hard for me to let go of architecture books. So I’m just going to shut the doors and not think about it for now – we still have the basement!
The fourth cabinet (closest to the kitchen) is the mini-bar/cookbook storage.
Finally, for the hardware, we used the same pulls as the kitchen but in a slightly narrower version.
So there it is, the little stair cabinet that could. Our 1910 house may have been cheated out of the charming early 20th century built-ins that come with most houses of this age, but now it has its own and it better be around for 100 more years.
loft ladder design
One of the last big projects to tackle on the 2010 list is the loft ladder. We always knew that this would be a custom piece – not only does it have to be a precise length and angle, but it also has to serve as a guardrail at the top and bottom.
The ladder is also the first thing you see when you walk in the door, so it has to be awesome. Naturally.
We also knew that in order to be awesome, it should probably be a combination of steel and wood. We’ve been toying around with the design for the last couple of weeks and have landed on an assembly of various steel shapes (welded together), with fir wood for the treads and handrail.
As the ladder extends into the loft, the handrail goes vertical and becomes the guardrail for the lightwell below. The horizontal members here would also be a good place for apprehensive ladder climbers to grab on to. The wood treads are notched and fastened through the underside of the recessed steel plate.
Here’s a SketchUp mock-up of the whole assembly. Since we don’t have welding equipment (yet), we’re talking to a few local companies that could do the steel work and then we’d do the wood portion. Truthfully, I think Kyle is trying to decide if he wants to spend the next couple of months learning how to weld or enjoy not spending every free minute working on the house.
Here is a detail of the top of the stair portion – the tube steel stringers are welded to a vertical plate which gets lag screwed to a glulam beam (now covered in drywall).
The handrail would be comprised of steel bar (welded to the tube steel stringer) with a fir handrail, notched to accept the steel bar. We like the expression of the wood and steel, plus the wood is more comfortable to the touch and occurs where your hand would naturally go as you climb up the ladder.
At the bottom of the ladder, the tube steel is welded to a steel angle that gets lag screwed to the structure below and covers the edge of the cork flooring. The round bars between the treads serve as a guardrail at the bottom of the stair. (Residential building codes require a spacing tight enough that a 4″ sphere can’t pass through.) The steel tab on the left serves as a guide for the barn doors to slide by.
We also talked about doing a ship ladder (with alternating treads), but we like the relative simplicity of single treads. We’re also not sure if we would use blackened steel or have it powder-coated (maybe a dark gray). We don’t really have any other dark steel work in the house, but I think that’s ok. We’ve also gone back and forth about the finish on the barn door track and if it should match the ladder. The track comes in a galvanized (hot dipped, not electroplated) finish, which doesn’t look too bad, especially after cleaning it up a bit.
A new loft ladder will also be good motivation to actually finish the loft. After painting the rest of the main floor, I only had enough sanity to get the space primed and since then – out of sight, out of mind. I’m sure by February or so I’ll have forgotten the torture that is painting a sloped surface at awkward angles.
progress report: week 21
Last week, the drywallers were busy mudding and taping. They are doing an awesome job and it was so rewarding to come home each night and see something new. Bailey, on the other hand, stayed home to supervise. Uh oh…who’s got drywall paws?
After a failed craigslist and consignment effort, the ol’ piano finally got rolled out to the carport, where it will await an unknown fate. Apparently, no one wants pianos. We bought the piano off craigslist (from a frat house no less) about 5 years ago. Kyle spent some time fixing her up, but since we bought our house she’s been pretty neglected. We also don’t have a good spot for it anymore and those tiny wheels would do some serious harm to the cork flooring. So Kyle fabricated a plywood pathway (on top of the existing plywood ramp – this thing is heavy!) Fortunately, there were no runaway piano incidents or piano maulings.
And here’s a glimpse of the mud and tape job, before sanding.
With cooler temperatures over the weekend, we rewired the thermostat to get the heat going and help the mud dry.
Kyle also re-plumbed for the sink and dishwasher (we had to unhook the previous connections so the sheetrock could go up). There was a bit of math involved, but like a good architect, Kyle just sketched it out on the wall. (Normally, we would have waited until the cabinets and sink were in, but it had already been two weeks without a dishwasher and I couldn’t store anymore dirty dishes in the microwave!)
Last night, I got the itch to start building base cabinets. I figured that if I build one a night, I’ll reduce the risk of incurring a particleboard cut or suffer from screwdriver fatigue. The frames are easy enough to assemble (I started with the corner cabinet), but I really hate installing the back panel. All those little nails! Seriously, who really uses a hammer and individual nails anymore? Kyle (who would, if given the opportunity, use only power tools to assemble IKEA products) recommended that I just use the brad nailer. It worked like a charm! One down, four to go!
Oh Bailey, I was just kidding when I told you I was building a dog house.
Well, maybe we won’t put the carousel in just yet.
We also started to gather up our painting supplies! Honestly, we are both still burned out from all the exterior priming and painting we did last summer, but as soon as the 2nd coat of paint is dry we can start putting everything back together and that is our motivation. Even though we will have a good chunk of masking to do, it should go pretty quickly since we’re doing everything in the same color (BM’s “super white”) and there isn’t much trim to work around.
So this week is all about prepping for the big 3-day weekend. Time to whip this house into shape!
