Get your jolly on!

Mesial, distal, palatal, MB1, bifurcated canal, periapical periodontitis. Now these are terms that make sense to me, it's dental lingo. So when my sister in law gave me a design world compliment, I actually thought she was saying something in Afrikaans . I was sharing some photos of my work in the bathroom of Fillmore and she said " Looking so good! Nice Jolly!" I wasn't quite sure how my jolly got into this but I was pleased that as a designer she thought the tiling was looking good!

After some joking she told me that the aluminium trim at the edge of the tile is called the 'tile jolly'. I learn something every day...
I knew I wanted a clean finish to the tile edge, and keeping with the colour scheme of white chrome and grey the 'jolly' was a no brainer. I mitred the corners and installed the jolly only to discover that I wasn't happy with the way the mounting screws sat proud of the trim. This would cause me grief come tile installation time.

So I took the trim off, and one by one counter sunk the screw holes.











This was much better, although there will be a slight transition of the first time, hopefully it should be barley noticeable.


























Things are shaping up, there has been a lot of cutting. then adhesive and applying, followed by lots of support screws!! Once all the little finicky tiles are in place I'll be ready for grout work. I'm a little nervous about doing the grout work. Bob from Flex Tile makes it look easy, but I have a feeling the anxiety level will be a little higher in  my corner when I'm trying to float silicone based grout and NOT get it all over absolutely everything.

The Handyman Song

 "Tile ,darn ya tile...." My buddy Randy was a musical savant
....you know a bathroom is a great room after all... OK he wasn't a savant but I used to like to call him that every now and again when he would demonstrate his musical prowess.
Tile darn ya tile, and soon enough we'll brighten up your shower stall...
It really was an opportunity to give him a poke, a backhanded compliment if you will.
Bathrooms are so tacky when they're painted, time for you and tile to get acquainted...
We sang together in a quartet for many years, and one of the songs that Randy arranged was "The handyman Medley" A smart number full of stereotypical barbershop originals which we parodied.
Make walls worthwhile!, com on and Tile Darn ya Tile!

I miss you Randy, but thanks for being by my side (and in my head) while I hummed your tune and tiled the bathroom.

 The day has come, the toilet removed the ducting re routed, the cabinets framed up. It was time to lay tile. I have never laid tile before, but when I was doing a test fit it became obvious the extent of cutting I would have to do.

 Measure, measure,mark, measure....

 And then finally cut

Fairly straight forward, most of the cuts are single cut straight lines....

 I spoke too soon....

 With a little patience and using the front and side surfaces of the cutting blade. I was able to make a round hole from a square peg.

It became clear that this was a refreshing job on a day that hit 27C(hot for here), a little messy, but I was happy!

 And progress was made! I had fears of crooked lines and screw ups, but by and large things turned out really well! Not perfect but, if all the lines were perfect what would you have to ponder on while you are sitting in the bathroom?

My cup runeth over

We all live busy lives, and that's ok, as long as we take time to stop and "smell the roses". Now, for some that might actually be a literal stop what you are doing and go over to the flower and take a moment to smell it. For others, it can be making sure that you take stock of all the blessings in your life. Like on my day off after I get the kids off to school and Michelle off to work, and I find myself with a pile of dishes. Rather than stew about the fact that I am pretty sure dirty dishes are like rabbits and when you turn your back they seemingly multiply in a VERY short order. I decide to release the urge to channel my inner greek and start smashing dishes to the floor while yelling "OPA!",and instead I revel in the fact that not every day do I get to watch a young doe nibble at the fresh spring shoots only meters away from me while I get dishpan hands.

A short while later, I thank my lucky stars to live where I do, as my buddy came rumbling over on his tractor when he heard I needed to move my storage shed, re contour the drainage on my driveway and lay down about 14 tons of drainage stone.

I am a lucky man, and my back thanks you Brennan boys!

Now that the big stuff was out of the way, I got to focus on a small job, about 9ft2 of floor space really, and that's being generous. I figure it is time to tile!

But of course, when you are ready to tile, you must make sure all your other ducks are in a row. And they were not. Why I did this I am not sure but, my master plan had a heating duct into the bathroom. Makes sense really, who wants to sit on a cold seat in the fall? What I can't figure out is where I ran the duct into the bathroom. Right behind the toilet. It would only heat up the small space between the toilet and the wall. So it was time to re route the ducting

Thankfully this went a little smoother than I thought, after a few measures and re measures I drilled a new hole through the cabinet and through the bathroom wall. Now the bathroom should receive heat and the drawers should still open and close!

Next obstacle to tackle was storage. As I have preached time and again, with no overhead cupboards and no under floor storage, every nook and cranny must be utilized . In many bathrooms medicine cabinets are used to increase storage space. They are often very shallow and compact....and built into or screwed onto a wall. So this is kinda like that except its not on a wall, and it will have drawers, and like everything else will be designed to be removable.

Why do I have to do this before tiling? because if this is designed to come out it has to be set up 3/16 of an inch at least to slide past the floor tile. Now I am ready to proceed to the tiling  portion!!

In my minds eye

In my mind I have a vision....yes sometimes it can be scary and disturbing in there, but a lot of the time it is relatively ordered and it makes sense. However, I have never been accused at NOT having an imagination. So, some of the details of my vision for Fillmore could be described as, uhmm incomplete. I always knew that the bathroom in Fillmore was going to have a 'certain' look. It's a very small space, so what it lacks in size I will make up for in unique style.
Some of the details of that style are tangible. I knew the look I wanted, it was a matter of finding the tiles that met that vision

On Friday, I made a trip to Sweetgrass Montana.On the way home I stopped in Lethbridge and found what I wanted. Tile for the bathroom. I had been watching different places and found what I wanted at home depot. The only problem was the stores at home had very little stock. Being that I had been on the road for 4.5 hours, I was hungry and needed a stretch. Lucky for me there was a Home depot right near where I was eating and lone and behold they had stock of what I needed.

Now for the reason for the road trip. I'm not a tile guy, but it didn't take me long to think of how a tile can pop loose or grout crumble away when there is some slight shifting in your house. My vision for the bathroom in Fillmore has always been tile, the incompleteness of my vision was HOW was I going to put tile into a moving shaking,vibrating bathroom? After many hours over many years of procrastinator style research  I found what I wanted...Flex-Tile
This is a silicone based(flexible) adhesive AND grouting material. I may live to regret my decision, but if it does what they claim, we have a winner!

In the meantime, not wanting to be the guy with only one iron in the fire, I needed to produce some templates for Suu at Ariewest Upholstery

He is going to make me some wheel well covers in carpet so as to give me a cleaner polished look to the area

Water wars also continue. I found and dealt with the leaks I had now it was time to put it all back together.

Water?.....check

Cupboards?....check

It was nice to see more checks on the page....

Coming out on top.

 It;'s not about winning, it's not about the medals, it really is all about what you set out to do and achieving your goals. Perhaps most importantly is how you conduct yourself on your pursuit of those goals.We've all seen it, you can have one team who are winners who you love to cheer for and another who have the same stat sheet but you can't stand them. The difference is how they win, how they conduct themselves and how they treat their opponents.
Jeff's Volleyball team set some pretty lofty goals earlier this year. Enough so that it raised a few eye brows from the coaches and bordered a fine line between lofty and arrogant. When Jeff told me what they had set for themselves, I too raised an eye brow, but deep down I knew it wasn't boastful arrogance but rather very matter of fact and ,yes, lofty. So you can imagine the joy of the players, the coaches and the parents when the boys did in fact do what they had set out to do. There were hurdles to overcome with injuries and hardships. But they banded together, never doubted each other and pulled it off with dignity and grace. They met their nemesis in the gold medal match and were in control from the start. I know they are proud of their achievement, only to be surpassed by the pride of their coaches and parents for staying true to themselves. Well done!

 A bit of a stretch trying to segway between winning a provincial title and working on the water system on Fillmore, but here goes..

 Last summer after numerous road trips Fillmore had his maiden camping trip in which he performed admirably. The major wrinkle that we ran into was the water system. Yes we had running water which made camping oh so luxurious, but only cold. When I would charge the hot water system the bypass valve on the hot water tank would open and all the water would simply discharge out the bottom. I wasn't sure what was going on, but on my list of possibilities was a faulty by pass valve and I was not looking forward to that.

 Over the winter I did a fair bit of research into possibilities, I learned how to descale the system and what would be involved with dropping the furnace down and taking it apart to access the valve. I'll be honest I decided I was not doing this in the winter and this remained a spring project. So the time is upon us.To start I took apart the system and found that I had a minor leak where the supply enters into the unit. A very simple oversight and easy fix. But that still did nothing for the by pass valve.
Then the other day at work I was reading the online version of the operators manual for the Dual Top(Furnace/water heater) and I came across a line in the manual "for all sanitary water pumps capable of creating a pressure up to 2.5 bar". What peaked my interest was 2.5bar. I couldn't remember the coversion to psi. As I looked up the conversion (34.5psi) I became excited in that I may have just stumbled upon my solution. My pump, a Shure Flo 4008-101-E65 is rated to shut off at 55 psi. So if the heater bypasses at 34.5psi then I need to regulate the pressure into the heater!!

 I love the internet, within 24 hours I had found what I needed and it was in my hot little hands!!

A little flush and test, and adjustment to the proper pressure

 I had to change my water lines, and then find a place and way of mounting my new solution.

 In the end, hot water, no leaks and cold beer in celebration!

X marks the spot

When you have all the room in the world, and inch means nothing. But when you are trying to squeeze every usable bit of space, an inch can mean the difference between OK and luxurious. Alright I will admit that perhaps I am overthinking things a little but, once again I found myself in a battle between form and function. The lounge seats have been put into position previously. The rear facing seat mounted on top/side of the forward wheel well on the drivers side,. This process required mods to the wheel well, so it's position has long been determined. The forward facing seat was then temporarily mounted in position relative to the paired seat, maximizing space, position relative to the window, and reach to the planned foot rest. Easy! Right?

Wrong...Houston we have a problem.
 I want...no I need to have the isle side leg mounted in a steel support. And I am  off my mark. Looking at where the bolt was temp mounted (red circle) and the x is where I need to be.

Mapping out where I need to be and where the mounting bracket is, you can see I would have to move the seat forward by two inches. Again when you have all the room in the world, two inches is nothing, but in this set up it will make getting in and out a wrestle.So if I can't move the chair....then I have to move the mounting bracket!

Time lapse makes everything look quick and easy.

 Probably the most nerve wracking is drilling the pilot hole through the new floor....I know where the cross member should be...

Thankfully everything went as it should. Next step was to mock up the seat extension/ottoman.the overall size is good, now we have to custom fit it.

 My ever popular scribe line....

 Test fit of the mock up is promising.. My plan is to section the top an inch or two left of the scribe line and place a hinge on the lid so the ottoman can be used for storage.

Now that I'm happy with the mock up, it's time to put it all together!