Change Table / Dresser

Dave has been working on a changing table / dresser for the nursery, and it's almost finished. He has to do a little sanding before painting it, but the top is a piece of Corian, so he's got a bit of sanding to polish that up to the right finish, too.

We picked up the hardware from Lee Valley, and it looks very nice on.


We've picked a colour to go with the purplish Corian, which will make repainting the nursery (when we get there) a bit of a challenge, but we'll figure something out.

Naturally, the piece is full of little details that just make it so beautiful, and of course, beautifully crafted:

So exciting!!

Renos Progressing

The original house layout was this:

A few years ago, Dave constructed these beautiful built-ins at the window end of the living room:


This year, Dave's built a pair of china hutches to go into the dining room:


Then in October, Dave framed in the new walls between the dining room & living room, to house the new built-ins, and installed them:


Here is the new layout of the house:


Along with framing the walls to house the built-ins, Dave moved the entry from the hallway into the living room down towards the other end of the hallway from it's original placement:


This has already improved traffic flow and has made the living room both physically (because it's blocked the draft from the front door) and psychologically more cozy. A huge side benefit to all this construction is the addition of a "hall" closet (it's actually in the living room, but close enough).




Dave has a beautiful piece of furniture that he'd built to hang jackets and store shoes on; however, it takes up a huge chunk of the hallway. Now, we can move all that stuff into the new closet when it's completed, and repurpose that furniture piece somewhere else, thus opening the hall even further.

Bathroom Progress

A considerable amount of work has been done on our bathroom since my last update about it. Dave ripped out everything except the toilet. Literally everything. Plus a couple of walls.

The bathroom today

There is now a pocket door between the hall and bathroom (although the door currently hung is temporary; we do actually have the real thing sitting waiting in the hall, with the brass fittings set in by our master carpenter), and also somewhat finished walls on all by one part of the room (behind where the tub will go - that has to be special water proof drywall). Thanks to help from Uncle Steve, we have electricals installed (new fan, moved overhead light (we've purchased an actual fixture from Restoration Hardware), two lights installed over where the vanity will go (again, actual Restoration Hardware fixtures, but they'll be installed at the end), as well as a GFI wall plug also just above the vanity). Also thanks to help from Uncle Steve, we have some plumbing moved and replaced (the taps leading to the vanity have been shifted to the other side of the stud they were on originally, with new valve turn-offs). We've purchased a sink and faucet. Dave's got a length of solid-state counter top, courtesy of Uncle Steve. And, what I think is stunningly important, the beautiful new piece of cabinetry is basically ready, including the brand-new hardware in chrome that was just installed today.


The vanity, while quite lovely in wood, was made to be paint grade (the wood doesn't match). I'm getting excited about colours! Quite obviously, there's still a ridiculous amount of work to be done, but in between going to Mom's and doing stuff for my family, and doing stuff for Dave's family, and hunting, and travelling, and maybe fitting in some other actual wood working projects (oh, yeah, and producing about 30 frames for me, at last count), it's actually remarkable that Dave has managed to do anything on our bathroom!

As an aside, he's also built a little access door for the crawl space in the ceiling at the end of the hall, which he also just installed today. That should help keep us a little warmer - the crawl space has been open for about 3 months now. Plus, it looks beautiful, and is, of course, over built! But then, it wouldn't be Dave and his brilliant wood working skills if it weren't.