Powder Room

I love it when a plan comes together. On the weekend Michelle and I went to a friends house for a back to school house party. The kids may be sad but many parents are glad, frankly I like having them around so I'm kinda sad too. But hey! it was a good reason for an adult get together. While there I ran into Dave, whom I haven't seen in a year....sine the last back to school party now that I think of it. Dave and I share a passion for building things, woodworking specifically but generally being handy enough to fix/repair/build things that the household needs. As we were discussing his bathroom reno project, I realised we were birds of a feather when he said "sometimes I spend half the time just standing there running through the options, the order of business, what needs to happen and when!" It's been said I spend many an hour out at the bus....most the time working, but often it can be laying underneath looking at what needs to get done. There have been numerous early mornings when I feel I can't make too much noise with power tools, when I just sit in the bus and plan the  "the options, the order of business, what needs to happen and when". Most of the time it just remains in my head...some times I sketch it out on paper, or in this case a piece of scrap plywood.

The piece got shoved under the bench and was lost, until I was removing cabinets to run the furnace ducting.

 It's nice to see that the physical product resembles that of the concept drawing!

Next on the agenda is the bathroom, the back wall I actually cut some time ago, but now I want to include the rounded corners...

Of course, I'm a visual guy. I can draw it on paper and measure it out, but I need to see what it looks like and then do trial fit on test pieces. For example. After I did this little mock up, it was glaringly apparent that I needed to extend the corner to the floor.

This of course looks like I know what I am doing with the cut on the final piece. What I didn't show you was the two trial pieces that had a less than desirable final look to it.

So far so good. the walls are a little off set from each other so that you will see the bathroom door from the front, It adds and subtracts. What I mean is that it looks more interesting, but I give up a tiny bit of bathroom square footage. But come on, this isn't the Ritz Carlton en-suite bathroom....its Fillmore's reading room.

Jeff has been told time and again in his competitive sports to visualise your actions on the court, Although I applaud his thinking outside the box and applying skills learned in one arena to another......I'm not sure I needed to see this....

Cart before the horse

I will admit, I can be excitable. Hard to believe, yes, but it's true. Sometimes I can knowingly create more work for myself because I am so excited to see results. Take the cabinetry for example. I know that I have to pull it all out. I know that I have to tweak door swing and edging, I know that there is tons of work that needs to get done. So why would you ask would I not only drill all the holes for running the furnace ducts, but then install the ducting as well? I mean it's kind of like putting the cart before the horse! Yes, it really is just a big a jigsaw puzzle.  I designed it all to be  retrievable, but it's not an easy task.
But like I have said to Michelle many times over the years as she watches her little boy do death defying acts on his bike and or trampoline.....do not ask why my dear....but...."Why not?"

And so I did. Thinking that the inverter was going to share the space in the above photo, I even went as far as to run aerogel insulation and a second reflective coating over that to insulate the inverter. Upon reflection though I think the inverter will go elsewhere. None the less it's in there, installed to the ying yang, only to be taken out soon.

Speaking of inverter, it was time to bite the bullet and drill more holes. Nervous? why would you think I would be nervous to drill a hole in the body of a 65+  year old bus after I spent hours and hours trying to preserve every square inch of metal on it's bones?.

OK, perhaps I will settle for saying I was apprehensive. The best defence is a good offence, so I assembled my strike force for the operation at hand

As William Shakespeare penned , it was "All ado about nothing" Depending on your perspective it was kid of pretty really.

Keeping with the theme of completing jobs that will only have to be reversed.....cabinet hardware installed!

Friends Family and memories

It's been a while since I posted last. Not for a lack of activity but rather life just got busy and it wasn't all bus stuff. HOWEVER! there was some cool bus stuff that happened recently. If you remember a couple of years ago I connected with a good man Robert. Robert had been a previous owner of Fillmore and had cared for the bus for many(15?) years. He had always wanted to restore the bus back to it's original condition and purpose for the Intermountain transport company. Unfortunately that vision didn't come to fruition and after an intermediary, the bus ended in my possession. The good news is that thanks to the wonderful magic of internet searches, Robert found the bus from this blog and therefor me! after a few phone conversations and numerous emails, Robert and I mused about finally meeting one day, and guess what....the day has come.

With fall fast approaching, and therefor the gails of winter at it's heels, Robert contacted me and said "I'd like to come and see your beautiful country, your lovely family....and oh ya, of course, the bus!". It was wonderful. A whirlwind trip for him but it was great to spend some time together, talk about life, and things to be thankful for.

We spent the majority of the day just visiting, but managed to take a tour of the bus.





















And take the bus for a tour! I couldn't let the opportunity pass me and pulled over to tell Robert," Ok your turn!" It was a great day, and I look forward to our next one...perhaps we will take a wee road trip in Fillmore to Montana!

The next event was a kayak trip to the west coast. Michelle and I and the kids and my brother Shawn and Adele all travelled out to Port McNeil on the north end of Vancouver island. We hooked up with Kingfisher Wilderness Adventures and took off on a 4 day trip in  the Johnstone straight.

It was cool coastal weather

But it was filled with good people, good food,good laughs(mainly at Uncle Shawn)

And wilderness beauty every where you turned

Some days were longer than others, and some were able to keep up....and some needed old man naps

Our last day we were graced by a humpback named squiggle, who came so close to our camp you could smell his bad breath!

A little flavour of the past

At Jeff's last AVA beach volleyball tournament I got talking to one of Jeff's buddy's grandfather, who incidentally, is a bus guy. We started chatting and the next thing you know he was telling me about working for Brewsters bus line here in Alberta driving the sightseer coaches. We had a great talk and shortly after he sent a picture of a buddy of his with one of the buses. They talk about degrees of separation, and there wasn't a whole lot of distance between making a connection between his world and mine.

The tournament ended Saturday, which meant Sunday was a bus day! On my list of things to do was to finally get to installing the turning cameras. First I played with location, but in the end it was exactly where I thought it would go in the first place. Top right corner of the first window behind the driver.

I have to admit....THIS was a hard thing to do...drill into the beautiful side......ARRRRRRRG!!!

In the end it all worked out. Now I just need to get the electronics working.....add it to the list.

Call me a little sentimental, or maybe it's just dramatic, but I like to incorporate a little special connection with some of the pieces in the work I do. In our house we have leaded glass saved by Verna from a house being torn down in the 70's, our kitchen table is made from wood reclaimed from a factory from the west coast sourced from my childhood friend Cam. Today I decided that the 'end table' top was going to be made from some beautiful clear Fir that Ron and I salvaged years ago from his fathers farm. The wood if I remember correctly was salvaged years before from a church floor from the area. Weather it's knowing where something came from or that it's something that has a special connection to you.....it's kind of like salt....you don't NEEEEEEED it....but just a little here and there makes the dish that much more memorable.

Ill have to spend some time to get the surface nice and smooth, but the wood is full or beauty and character!


















While I wait for the glue to set, it was time to prep the area, and the cabinet for install.

The good news everything is a really nice tight fit.....the bad news is, everything is a really nice TIGHT fit....

A slow burn

 My good buddy Trevor's son Mitch came to town this past weekend. He's been road racing on a team based from Victoria over the last 6 months. It was great to see him, a real genuine feel good kinda guy, always smilin'! Anyway, filled with dread that he would kick my butt up and down the mountains, when he came, we went for a mountain bike ride. Both Mitch and my son Jeff were extremely gracious to me. Never once did they tease or mock me at how slow I was, or how loud I was wheezing. They simply would wait at the top of a climb for me to show up, and then quietly wait for the gasping to slow to a quiet rattle in my bronchi, or my 'exercise purr' as I like to refer to it. On one climb in particular Mitch called out from the lead "feel the burn boys!" And a burn it was, slow and steady. Just like the coals in a bonfire, the drama of the flames are gone but the fuel burns slowly and steadily.

When all you see is coals soldering away you don't think a lot is happening, but there is. I seem to be playing a lot with wood these days and like the coals in the fire, I continue to burn through the 'to-do' list, slow and steady. Sometimes it feels like an uphill battle like chasing Mitch and Jeff up a mountain, but progress is made.




















Now that the cabinets for the fridge are roughed out. It was time to wire and install the fridge. A seemingly simple task, but required me to splice into the 'coach 2' wiring harness, travel sub floor and then up under the fridge for the 12V source.(the fridge is purely electric but runs off of 12V or 120V if plugged in to shore power.

you may remember last time a good start was made on the "bedside table" we'll call it. Slowly, progress has been made on this front too. It will double as a arm rest for the U shaped chouch that will have drink holders, charging station, and storage drawers.




We had to map out the furnace ducting, which affected the lower drawer design.

With a little help from my friends,I made drawers  while "Hefe" began to hang them in the cabinet.

I get teased by the kids that I have a bit in my mouth like a horse....but it's the best way not to loose my woodworking pencil. My ears are too small and delicate to hold the pencil behind them.....

Artist's Wipe out

Have you ever watched a painter? I'm not talking about a house painter...although a good one of those is worth the watch, but I'm talking about someone who is painting a portrait or a nature scene. They start with a blank canvass, start adding the layers. At first to the observer it looks a bit futile, they seem to be doing a lot of brush strokes with not a lot of "meaty" results. But then with time you see that they are layering and building a foundation of visual texture and forms begin to take shape. To the observer you go from a sense of puzzling frustration to a general feeling of ease when things begin to take shape. Then an odd thing happens. Just when you think, you have things figured out, the artist begins to wreck the order to your world. I liken it to watching your child make an impending wipe out on a bike. You know it's going to happen, you know it has to happen, trying to stop it from happening only delays it from happening. So you let it unfold (usually in slow motion) before your eyes and trust in the order of the universe. Your kid gets up, maybe a skinned knee, better for the experience just a the painter continues with her brush strokes going from order to chaos back to a richer deeper visual order, just as you trusted she would.

So, this is my bike wipe out, my brushstrokes of saboteur. After spending so much time getting the curved edges and the mitred corners, it was time to create some chaos for a richer result!

If you remember the creation of this cabinet, was to grab some extra vertical wall space for "storage". Well a cabinet without doors is like Ferrari  with the keys locked inside. Nice to look at but it might as well be a picture because if you can't use it, it ain't real!

I had considered making the cuts in the front frame before I put everything together, but decided this was the best way to go....at least for me.

Of course there was touch ups and nail holes to fill

...and sand

But the end result is what I had envisioned. I will have to spend time and get the doors just the way I want.

Next step is the cabinet below.....