The warm Jaunuary winds

 What a day! For the end of January this is blissful. I grew up in Manitoba, northern Manitoba to be exact, where winter comes long and hard. The great side of that is you can plan your life, you can count on the weather to be cold in winter and less cold in summer. Seriously, it allowed us to consistently play in the outdoors. As long as we dressed for the weather we could do anything. Here... the weather in the foothills of the Rockies can be a little unpredictable. One day -20C the next +3C. It has it's pros and cons....but a pro that I still marvel at after 20 years of living out here is the Chinook winds and wearing a long sleeve t-shirt outside to work on Jan 23.

Like many times before and many more to come, today was a planned step back to move forward. After scribing my wall panels for the bathroom, I realized my eager stupidity when I was congratulating myself on how well the walls adapted to the plywood outer walls. It was then I realized there was another layer AND trim to be installed on the outer walls to bring them to their final profile. So down came the bathroom walls and down came the remainder of the outer skins. Then one by one I trimmed and cut the final surface layer.

 Of course while that happened it was the perfect time to place the sound deadening material from Soundproof Cow>. I knew I wanted to place it, and knew it wouldn't be difficult just time consuming...so like many things that fall into the "easy" category it got left out and essentially forgotten about. Until the moment was right.....and this was the right moment.

 Back to elementary school! Creative arts I think they used to call it, just like construction paper and a glue stick!

 There! very space age-ish, perfect time for the material to be tucked in behind the wall panels.

 Here we are, drivers side done. All inner skins of outer panels in place.

 I am swapping out the fasteners that attach the panels moving to a flat head furniture bolt like you would see with IKEA furniture

And now on to the passenger side...

Template Tempest

OK perhaps the term Tempest is a little strong. Nothing that recently happened was violent, but I must admit the use of mock ups, or templates has really stirred things up. I think my inability to adequately sketch my ideas onto paper without them looking like someone was finger painting with spaghetti is partially to blame as well. In my head I have an idea of what this will look like. When I try to sketch it out, it resembles my art work from kindergarten in Ms Puhatch's class........yes that name is correct....there is no typo......get over it!

After erecting the bathroom walls, I made a simple footprint outline of the Ikea sink I plan to use. This of course pushed me to ensure the final position of the toilet, which in turn required me to place the inner bathroom wall board up.

But....having curved ceilings and curved walls, means that each panel has to be scribed onto it's own separate template. I First used cardboard, thinking of course that this would be perfect....

It was not. There was a gap on the roof line that was inconsistent. Ranging from 1/4" space to binding the roof material. So I needed to get a better system for scribing. I tried the protractor, but you have to keep it level the entire way to keep the line consistent.



In the end, of course, the solution was the simplest design. A piece of 2x2 with a hole drilled through the body. This allowed me to be stable to the flat surface being scribed and perpendicular to it as well.

I could then easily have a line that was perfect to the roof line but would allow me to control the relief from touching the roofing material!

It wasn't much to look at but it held to the wall like a teenage couple in puppy love....minimal distance.

Now that we have the first wall template....it's time to transfer to the material to be used for the wall.

Nod to the Nog

I am both ashamed and glad all in the same breath of emotion. Like so many instances before this, I had significant visions of grandeur with respect to progress during the holidays. But as it has become all to common....it did not materialize in the way my utopic mind had envisioned it. And yet I am OK with that. What did happen was some great family time, hot coffee and reading by the fire with Ron while the rest of the world slowly stirred to life, outside splitting wood, playing in the snow and all around relaxing.

Christmas is full of surprises, usually in the form of presents!

This was a present I had given myself a while back, but a special order, and as such took a looooooooong time to come. But arrive it did. This is an Ocean Air sky screen for the "moon roof I installed in the rear bedroom area! It will allow us to leave the hatch open for air flow but NOT allow the pesky mosquitos! AND allow a block out screen so I can let the queen bee sleep in while I get up and make coffee!

Christmas is also a time for giving....like in giving up for the greater good. What I mean is I finally had to put my money where my mouth is. I finally gave up 1/2 my workshop space for a home gym.
This is the mayhem of me trying to reorganize the shop to allow for the loss of space.

Christmas is a time for celebrating. Celebrating the opening of my brothers Architectural design firm Boreal Designs

Aaaaaaand maybe having a little Sears catalog moment or two while we be goofy for the camera. Personally I thought he could use this in an advertisement brochure for the company. He didn't seem as enthused as I had imagined he would be...

Finally Christmas was a time for teaching an old dog new tricks. I still don't know if this was a real desire or just calling my bluff. You see the family went skiing one day leaving me(with a wonky knee) and my Mom to stay home and hold down the fort. After a lazy morning of coffee and cards, I said to my mom " I'm going out to play in the bus. You are welcome to come out and help, or you can stay in here and enjoy the fireplace." I'll be damned if she didn't reply " I'll come out and help"
And so she did. She was a guide to the bathroom wall mock up, she held  pieces in place and was my yes man when I needed one. She earned her Flxible wings however when she put power tool to metal. It took a time or two but she quickly mastered the pneumatic Riv-net installation gun! Way to go Mom! Thanks for the help!