Saturday, August 29, 2009

Staying Home & Making a Vanity

After Steve's tiring week at work (3 days in the city, installing cabinetry) we decided to stay home this weekend. We still haven't made a vanity for the farm bath, so that is what we are doing today. We are starting with rough sawn hickory, leftover from a job we had a couple years ago. The people had it cut down so Steve could make a piece of furniture for them. They didn't want the extra wood so now we get to make something from it. It will be a mission-style vanity with a laminate (left over from another job)top. We purchased a sink for $5 at a re-use it shop in Elgin. I did order a new faucet though. We couldn't find one that we liked used. Here is the hickory.

Steve is cutting it as I write. I will help him sand it & apply the laminate later.
It will be so nice to have a working sink in the bathroom. We use the basement utility sink for all of our washing right now.
This week I emailed & talked to Center Stove & Fireplace out of Richland, WI about getting the wood stoves moved before winter. We bought a used soapstove stove last fall. We have a soapstone one in the area we live in right now & want to use that one in our new living area. The used one will go in it's place. We will be building a base for the stove after we get the electric run in that area & should be ready for the wood stove then. We will probably wait for spring to put stone on the walls behind it.
The windows we ordered came in this week. We now have enough to do the whole barn. We were going to wait but there was a great sale so we went ahead with the order for all of them. Maybe by winter, we'll have the front ot the barn done. It will look so nice!
We have also been discussing what to do about heat when we aren't there. Right now we have 2 hot water solar panels that take care of the needs for the house. We would like to have radiant floor heat too but don't want to spent the extra money right now for 2 more solar panels. We are talking about using the existing panels for the floor heat in the winter & switching it back to the water heating in the summer. We have a hot water heater so that shouldn't be a problem. We'll have to talk to Johnny Murphy from Greenhome Solar .
He put in the other panels.
Tomorrow we hang out with family at my brother's house for my niece & nephew's birthday.
I'll post more pics when we get the vanity done.
Have a great wekend!

5 comments:

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

That will be a nice looking sink I think! Hickory is such a beautiful wood.

I´ve never heard about a soapstove before and there were only two pictures of it on the internet, why is it called so?
Over here solar panels can´t heat up a house during wintertime, our days are to short and often very cloudy then, but with the climate change who knows how long it´ll take until they work here too.

Have a great day now!
Christer.

angie said...

Barb,

Please keep us posted on what you guys do regarding the panels and heat. We are having these discussions now too.

Did you buy your windows locally? Can I ask where and what type they are?

Barb said...

Hi Christer...it should read soapstone :-). It radiates the heat better than cast iron.
Hi Angie...the windows were purchased at Menards. They are Jeld-Wyn double hung. We got clear glass for the south side of the barn to maximize the solar gain. the others have low e glass. Let me know any other questions.

Anonymous said...

Your lucky that Steve is so handy with cabinet making and no doubt a whoe lot more. Sounds like you are coming right along with all the windows! Speaking of the Big Red Barn...I miss your header with the Barn....debbie

Barb said...
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