Construction Update January 7-13

I have a lot to be grateful for this week... not the least of which was watching some incredible golf on TV. This week started and will end with golf tournaments in Hawaii.

It was 1995 when Shirley and I played on the Plantation Course where Steve Stricker won the Sony Open this past weekend.  What a wonderful golf course!  To see the scenery again on TV brought back some wonderful memories... like the birdie on No. 2 par 3.

This weekend it is fun to see more of Hawaii... the Wailea with it's famous #16 fairway.  I took this off the TV since it reminded me of the very first movie I ever saw in a theatre as a teenager... "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World." I never have laughed so hard in my life... but it is under this Big W that the treasure is hidden in that movie.

On Monday I bought 64,000 pounds of coffee.  No, I don't plan to take delivery... it was on the advice of my futures broker, who told me that there is a seasonal opportunity on coffee, so I picked up a few contracts.  On Thursday he called me and said he thought we should sell it since it had gone up so fast, we should take profits and could likely buy it back for a lot less and still enjoy more lift... so we sold it all and I put in another order to buy it back at $10 less.  Sure enough the order was filled after hours Thursday night... so we are hoping it will be good for another run.

What a crazy business.  An old farmer living on an island buying and selling coffee on the telephone... and he never drinks any of it.  Does that make any sense?  ...128,000 pounds of coffee in a week!  I'm guessing that would be over a dozen grain trucks full of coffee beans.  Can you imagine how many pounds of coffee Howard Schultz buys for Starbucks every year?

Trivia:  Did you know that in the last 50 years the stock market has gone up 57% of the time on Friday the 13th?

This year it went down.

This week in the mail my Kreg Jig tool arrived... and it couldn't have come at better time.  I bought if off one of those TV Informercials that run in the middle of the night... i saw it when we were in Kelowna... and it finally came... it sure works slick.  I love it!

Here I am putting together the frame for a cabinet that goes in the pantry.

After drilling the pilot holes it is pretty easy to join pieces of wood with self tapping screws.

I put in all these shelves using the Kreg Jig system... and in less than five minutes after the shelves were in place Shirley was putting stuff on the shelves.

As you know Shirley's word for the year is "Patience..."   and mine is "Faster."  She needs to a little more patience... and I need to go a little faster!

I invented a hidden hatch latch this week.  Since the hatch is mostly under the cabinet, the latch to lift it would not look very pretty in the middle of the floor where we always will be walking.  So I made a simple latch that attaches to a wire the both hide in the crack along the side of the hatch lid.  There is a 10-inch drawer just under the counter top... so when we need to go down there... which is likely next to never... we can remove the drawer to give a little more space, howbeit still pretty skinny access.

The guy who put the stupid access hatch there didn't know there was going to be a cabinet over it.  We had a totally different layout in mind in the beginning... but Plan A didn't work.  Neither did Plan B or Plan C.  We are on Plan D now.  Why is that Plan A never gets built?  I guess we all have to start somewhere.

Another first for me is the aluminum L-trim that I put to keep the tile and grout in place when the hatch lid is moved.  This will keep the grout from getting chipped away if it gets bumped in handling when opening or closing.

On Wednesday we picked up our new refrigerator and freezer for the pantry.  I also brought 15 bags of insulation... and here the cowboy is roping them all tightly together for a safe trip home.  Every time we bring home another load I am thankful for our truck... it has done a lot of work for us.

On Thursday we were thankful to take delivery of our windows.  We had the liners stained... but since I neglected to specify the stain be sealed, we had them delivered into the cabin where we can Varathane them.

There are 36 windows in all... and at this point we have about 16 of them done.  That cabin has been a real blessing... it is great to have a place where we have heat and space to work.  Next year we hope to have heat in our garage... but that doesn't count for this project.

This is the bathroom window on it's side for sealing.  Vented windows take twice as long to do.

On Friday I ordered a granite countertop for the pantry cabinet... and just to be sure we get the same colour match, we are going to do a new laundry counter at the same time.  We did a lot of shopping for various countertops with pricing all over the place between $380 to $2,000 for just the pantry top in either Corian or granite!  No we didn't buy the $380 one... it was a remnant and not Tropical Brown... but it sure was tempting.  It just wouldn't have matched the rest of our countertops.

On Wednesday when we were in Victoria I just happened to see this place called Stone Trends in Sidney.  So I stopped and invited them to quote on our countertop.   I had just been to Capital Glass to have them fix a leak that we thought was coming from around the windshield.  Turned out the leak was because of a plugged drain hole in the sunroof.  Did you know that sunroofs have drainage?  Me either.

This next week I hope to see our pantry completed.  We will pick up the cabinet doors on Monday... which we will have to stain and then lacquer.  I have two drawers to build and install... and the floor tile to set and then grout.  I have most of the tiles cut out to fit... just seven square feet not yet done and that is the part under the refrigerator and the hatch access door.

My quote of the week is very appropriate for me.

"Some mistakes are way too much fun to make only once."


It seems far too often I find myself doing things twice or three times to get it right.