House Renovations Already

All the canning that has been keeping me busy for the past couple months has caused an immediate renovation project (to a new house). Closet Maid shelving is easy to install and easy to keep clean and is fairly durable in most circumstances. Holding many jars of food is not one of them.

Besides the fact that I'm out of space (a couple dozen jars are on the kitchen counter still) these shelves are sagging to the point that I just know I'll wake up one night to a huge crash.

Over the weekend I gave my daughter the choice to put in new wooden shelves or to slice and peel apples for apple pie filling. She chose shelving. She found the studs, measured everything, predrilled holes, screwed the braces into the studs, leveled everything both directions, cut the shelves and reorganized the jars.

This afternoon she is using the last of the shelving to add one more shelf and eventually all the Closet Maid shelves will be replaced. Since the new shelves are closer together there will be more room to store food.

Just for the record she is 17 and yes, I am just a little proud of her.

The star of the garden this year has been sweet potatoes. These two potatoes alone weigh 5 pounds and there were a couple dozen between 1 and 2 pounds, not to mention the dozens of smaller potatoes. Even though they are huge they are still tender and delicious.

How to Build a Window Seat

I thought I would go back to an earlier post and show how I built the dormer window seat in the loft. All the wood used for this project was scraps left over from building the house so they aren't pretty, but they are covered up and eventually I'll paint them. The pictures are pretty poor, but hopefully they illustrate what I'm trying to describe.

The first step was to cut a 2x4 to fit across the wall under the window. You can see this at the back of the photo. Place this at the desired height, level it and screw it into the studs with long deck screws. Remember you probably have 1 1/2" of 2x4 and 1/2" of drywall, so make sure there is enough screw to secure this board well and make sure to hit the stud. I would recommend a 4" screw. This seat is almost too high, because the window is so high. It's good because it gives me lots of storage space for blankets and fabric, but it needs a step to actually sit in it easily.

After that I built the front wall like a regular framed knee wall on 16" centers so that I would have studs to nail the cedar to and plenty of support to hold people. The total wall height equaled the height of the first board placed. I placed this wall 3/4" inside the loft wall because I wanted the cedar facing boards to be flush with loft wall.

Then I cut 2x4s to fit along the side walls. Line them up with the front wall and the back ledger board and screw into the wall at the studs. If the height measurements were correct these 2x4s will be level. To support the seat I also nailed a 2x2 in the center between the knee wall and the back board, but this is probably overkill and would only be needed if your seat was wider than 48".

The top is made up of three pieces of wood. First, I covered the framing with a 1x4 along the back wall. (This board is under the cubbyholes, so you can't see it.) This board was joined to the lid (which was made from a scrap of Advantech flooring) with a zipper hinge and a flat handle was attached to the lid. They probably make better handles, but this was all our local Lowes had in stock. The front of the top was finished off with a piece of cedar mitered on the front edge to provide a more leg friendly surface. I left 1/8" between the lid and the front cedar to allow the lid to open and close without rubbing.

Cedar was nailed on the front diagonally to match other cedar walls in the house and was trimmed with thin strips of cedar rounded on the router and mitered in the corners.

The original plan was to cover the entire seat with a cushion, but then I found out that the foam only comes in 24" widths. To make up the difference between the cushion width and the actual window seat width I put together a cedar cubbyhole to hold books, pencils, paper, etc. This is the one item I would redo, assuming I get another spurt of inspiration. It works, but it could be refined to look better.

Hopefully this will help someone build their own window seat. Questions are welcome and I'd love to see the end results if you build a seat.

Window Seat Finished

Can you tell I'm sitting in a hotel with nothing to do? I just looked at Flickr and saw my latest photo uploads, so I decided to blog them.

When I started this blog I meant to chronicle the building of my house, but it seems so far away that it just doesn't seem relevant. But I have lots of little projects that I want to do and I can blog them as I finish them.

The house has two dormer windows in the front. One is just open to the living room, but the other is open to the loft. The area is so small it really isn't useful, so I decided to build a window seat there that will double as a storage chest.

Before the project began this is what I had. This is actually the window open to the living room, but I didn't take before photos. I haven't decided yet what to do with this window, but it does need something.

This is the completed window seat. The cushion hides a handle and a zipper hinge which provides access to the storage space underneath.

When I went to buy foam to make a cushion, I found out that the only width I could get was 24 inches. That wasn't enough to cover the handle and hinges, so I decided to build the cubbyholes behind the cushion. They hold books, quilt blocks in process, notepads and pencils.

The face and cubbyholes are cedar to match the handrails and newel posts on the staircase. The only change I need to make is to take off the baseboard and replace it with a step. You have to jump to get on the seat.

My youngest daughter uses this space to curl up and read. I usually use it to make to-do lists or to draw out my next project and make materials lists.

The next project will be to add book cases on either side of the window seat. Maybe then I can get all my books out of boxes.

Finding a House Plan

One of the hardest things to do was to find a house plan that fit the picture I had in my head. I knew that I wanted 4 bedrooms, lots of storage, no hallways, and a dormer window with a window seat. I had to have that to curl up with a book, of course. I wanted a finished, walk-out basement and 2x6 walls for energy efficiency, but I didn't want (couldn't afford) a huge house.

I bought house plan books, borrowed books and looked online, but couldn't find what I had in mind. Years ago, when I bought the land, I had cut a house plan from Progressive Farmer that I liked. Unfortunately, that was before I had children and the floor plan didn't work now. Since I really liked the exterior of this house, I started with that and designed my own floor plan.

What I ended up with was a house that looks tiny on the outside and huge when you walk in, with about 1900 sq.ft. of living space. There is a large storage area under the eaves in the attic and under both staircases. The basement stays cool all summer and the back deck is our favorite room in the house during the summer.

Where to start?

The first thing to do was get organized. I got a large notebook and dividers and started putting in brochures and ideas I had been collecting for years.

With that done I needed to know how to build from the ground up. At this point I didn't realize how much building I would be doing myself. I just wanted to know the process, so that I would be familiar enough to talk to contractors without sounding like a complete dummy. Needless to say, I did this fairly often even with all the research and studying.

I started with a Google search for building houses and found a great page that went step by step through the building process.

http://home.howstuffworks.com/house.htm

The author discusses each step of the building process, showing different options for floor and roof systems and more. He also includes lots of pictures of all steps of the construction process. This page was printed and added to the notebook.

The author of this web page recommended George Nash's book Do-it-Yourself Housebuilding : The Complete Handbook, which became my bedside reading for almost two years.

Building on a Dream

Since I really don't know what to post in this blog, I thought I would start out by pulling together the photos of the process of building my house. For those of you who don't know me, I have owned a 16 acre piece of land for about 20 years. My plan has always been to build a house on it, but it took about 18 years to be in a position to begin this dream. Even then I knew that to get the house I wanted I would have to do a lot of the work myself. I just didn't realize what I was getting into.

To learn the process of building, I started volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. At the same time I started looking at house plan books and talking to a friend about the costs of building.

This photo was taken during my first hour on a Habitat job site in September 2004, so it is truly the beginning of my homebuilding experiences. It isn't the greatest, because it was scanned from the newspaper, but it's all I have.

The man in the photo is Terry. He works for Habitat and without his help and friendship, I could never have finished this project. Of course he won't admit just how insane he thought I was when I started, and now he'll never let me forget just how stubborn he thinks (knows) I am.