cabinets – The Hermits' Rest

Are We Moving into the Pope House?

It’s beginning to look a lot like an office! Because Kathleen has a lot of stuff happening in the next couple of weeks, and because she was tired of looking at piles of stuff that didn’t fit into her Hermit Haus office sitting in the meeting area, she decided to get her new office set up this week, as I briefly mentioned a couple of days ago.

She spent a lot of sweat equity (especially so, considering that the air conditioning isn’t hooked up yet) putting together her beautiful office furniture selections over the past few days. Wow, she picked some wonderful things, and the color scheme is so restful and rustic!

The blue corner chair ties in with the door.

There’s enough seating in her office to hold our management meetings, too, so we will be all comfy and cozy. What a great job she did! Later it will have all her art and accessories, and it will look even more amazing.

Seeing her office looking so nice has all of us excited for when it’s our turn (Lee’s office is full of trim for the other two areas, and we still need to do the floors in my office and the main office…coming soon).

Getting Ready for Glass and Cabinetry

Another thing we are looking forward to is getting the glass for our interior windows and my office desk. Before they can install it, they need a template for the big arched window between Lee and Kathleen’s offices and they need the frame set up for the window in my office that looks out into the hallway.

The wood that sticks out is the frame for my office interior window. Also featured are nails that refused to go into the hard old wood. Time for plan B.

I am pretty darned impressed with this frame that Chris has made for the arch, which they will use to make the piece of glass. Curves are hard.

It’s nearly done now, but it’s in progress here.

It’s blurry, but there are two little open mouths in the picture.

It’s especially hard to work when there is a family of barn swallows right above you who are feeding their extra cute little babies. Who wouldn’t be distracted by that? We’re really enjoying them.

Anyhow, the cabinets are all painted and put together, so this morning Chris and I debated exactly where they are going to go. There’s a low electrical outlet that we have to take into consideration, and we need to leave the right amount of space for the refrigerator.

We hope to have a slanted end counter at the end here, if we can figure out how to cut it and put an edge on it.

But, I think we finally have a good plan and are ready to get the counter tops. Whew.

From the other side. The fridge goes in the gap.

I looked at the in-stock laminate counters, and I think there are some that will look just fine in here. It will be just fine.

For a bit of levity, I stood in for the refrigerator, like the guy in Maytag commercials. At left the door is closed. At right, I am storing food and handing Chris a delicious beverage.

We’ve even got a plan for when to get the big sander for the floors, and the bits of glass for the inserts are smashed to pieces. SOON!

Tubby Moved In

What a big day it was at the Pope house! First, Kathleen started unpacking and building her new office furniture 🪑. It was fun to see her desk, cow chairs, lamps, and more. I tried out her office chair. Ahh.

Besides that, Chris painted the break area cabinets. He first put a coat of Kilz on them to prevent more mildew. He also added some bracing to the flimsy construction. They will be fine.

Cabinets. The bottom one is braces to hold it together.

We have had trouble finding someone out here to cut our granite, so we’re just going to get a nice inexpensive laminate that we can cut ourselves. That will save time and probably money. We also still need a faucet. That will happen this weekend.

Trim for by the stairs got stained. Randy cleaned many of the windows.

Saving the Best for Last

But the most important thing is that Tubby got moved into the bathroom! First, Chris made some black wooden blocks for the tub to sit on. The theory is that it will distribute the weight over more area, so the tile won’t crack.

The floor got cleaned very well (that will be hard later). Then, Chris and Randy (in a most manly fashion) lifted Tubby up and carried it right in! Thankfully it went through the door. Tubby looks so white and gleaming!

The sink and toilet are ready to go in, too. Ooh. Ahh. We just need a few fixtures and the plumbers can come!

Shinier Tubby PLUS Cabinets!

It seems like a never-ending saga, but it is a saga that will eventually end and has certainly been great for keeping us busy during the pandemic and such. So, what’s been going on at the Pope Residence for the past few days?

Tubby has been getting all white and shiny. Chris has now applied two coats of porcelain paint, and plans to do one more, because he’s not real happy with the bits of texture that show up from using a roller on the second coat. I’m just happy to see Tubby standing up on those new black feet.

Standing up on Tubby’s four black feet!
The first coat finished. You can see brush strokes.
The second coat looks mighty good.
But if you look closely, you can see it’s not smooth.

Chris went into the shipping container and got our cabinets for the break area out. He was most disappointed to discover they had mold on them. It’s not surprising, since it sure has been wet outside, but we thought it sealed better than it apparently does.

Sanding off the ick.
Annoying mold.

Luckily, the stuff came right off, and the cabinets needed to be sanded anyway before they could be painted. While I’m glad to see they were made of sustainably harvested wood, I must also say that the construction quality is less than ideal. They are also really inexpensive, so what did we want, anyway? We will get them looking great before finding our granite and putting it on.

Proof that the cabinets are sustainably made. I believe that’s their best feature.

Other stuff’s been happening, too. The stairs are now curing away and look quite shiny and nice. While that’s going on, Chris is painting miles and miles of quarter-round trim. Whee.

Looking down the stairs. They blend nicely with the flooring, but aren’t exactly the same.

And Randy is back helping out! Today he is arranging things on the second floor to have furniture (new and old) in one room, wood and other supplies in another room, and who knows what in a third. The bedroom leading to our deck will get cleaned up and maybe a couple of pieces of furniture put in it for top-secret meetings (not in the summer!).

Furniture storage world. It has an air conditioner.
The room that will be emptied out and cleaned up.
The spare material storage room.

It’s a good thing we have so many rooms upstairs that we aren’t even using yet! We are tantalizingly close to being able to put the bathroom fixtures in and call in the plumbers…yay.