We are nearly complete with the kitchen... if you count the kitchen as three walls. One wall contains the hoosier cabinet and stove, a second wall contains the rear door, the kitchen window, a sink, a refrigerator, and the pie safe. The final wall is the backdrop for the jelly cabinet and contains an additional window. Hmm, now that I list it all, maybe we aren't so close to being done.
Caren and I spent the weekend working on the rock and corrugated metal behind the stove and putting in the kitchen window...
After we installed the kitchen window on Saturday morning, we finished the rockwork above the stove and sealed the corrugated metal that sits behind the stove. A coat of varnish on the metal really brought out the beauty of the rust color. It was almost a shame to hide most of it with the stove. But we were really excited to get the stove into place and see how it all fit together. The ledge stone was a quick, simple process compared to the flagstone flooring at the front entry and around the fireplace... nice straight cuts! The only real challenge was getting the thinset mixed at the right consistency... too thin and it wanted to run down the wall, too thick and it was hard to spread. Wish I remembered to take a pic during the daylight hours. It is hard to see just how all the colors work together in the artificial light. All that is left on this wall is a little bit of trim work around the stone and some shelving in the right hand corner. I'll finish the trim work next weekend, the shelving will wait until we have the farmhouse sink in place on the right hand wall.
On Sunday we, once again, set up the trim mill in the front yard to process all of the trim work for the two remaining walls in the kitchen... pull nails, rough cut to size, plane, route, sand, oil, finish cut, sand, install, oil. This time, with Caren's help, it only took half a day. One never thinks about how many boards go into trimming a window until one has to mill all those boards... eight boards in all. If you count all the boards around the window, you will find that their are only seven. The final piece for under the sill came out just a little too short. I underestimated the total footage I would need before I started pulling nails. Hence the missing board. I ended up one and one quarter inches short. So, the final piece will wait until next time the mill is set up in the front yard... It may be a blessing however that we didn't place that last piece. This way we can get the sink in place and adjust the width of the final piece to accommodate the backsplash for the sink.
On this, the second wall of the kitchen, we still need to make a custom sink base. I'll model it after the island base that we purchased from Homewood Furnishings, but it will be a custom width and length to fit in the confined space. The wall also will get a custom cabinet fashioned out of barnwood from the Corning barn and a window we removed during the remodel of the Davis house. Add a little shelving and the wall will be done... on the inside...
This is what it looks like on the outside... because we are kind of going about this whole process bass ackwards, inside first then outside, we have to complete a lot of temporary work on the exterior to winterize the house. Next Spring, when the snow melts off, we will tear out all of that temporary work along with the siding and finish the exterior appropriately. But, for now, we have temporarily winterized the exterior wall. To install the door and window, we had to cut back the clapboard siding to expose the rough openings. Once the window and door were installed we put up the temporary trim (1x4 pine ripped to size) and caulked all the seams. This pic was taken about two-thirds of the way thru that process. Tom, the neighbor, suggested that we just throw a sheet of plywood over the door for the winter to protect it. Caren cringed when she heard that. She wants the light that it lets into the house. I'm still undecided. If it is a big snow year, snow will reach the second row of lights... that's a fancy term for the glass panels in the door. If I put up the plywood, I wont have to shovel the snow away from the door. If I don't put up the plywood, Caren will be happy, but I will be shoveling...
The third and final wall of the kitchen is nearly complete as well, We just have to install the windows. That means more temporary winterizing on the outside, and setting up the trim mill again for the inside. Sounds like another full weekend of work. Maybe next weekend, if we don't try to finish the fireplace instead...
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