Week#17 - Varnishing

Good morning everyone,
It has been a busy past few days. Last weekend we had our family reunion. I was hoping to bring Adrien to CHEO for a follow-up appointment but we did not make it back because we had some mechanical difficulties with our van. So I now have to head back to Ottawa on Friday for the appointment. Next weekend we have another family reunion.
This week I am planning to focus on varnishing the recroom. I'm planning to give 3 coats of varnish to the walls. The next picture shows the walls after the first coat of varnish.



Vanish - First Coat

The next picture shows the recroom with the second coat of varnish on. I can finally see a bit of a shine. I should be able to finish varnishing early next week.

Varnish - Second Coat

Week#16 - Knotty Pine (completed)

Good morning everyone,

I finally finished putting up the knotty pine in our recroom.  Unfortunately this week I haven't done much work in the recroom because we are getting ready for our Paquette family reunion.  In addition I'm off to CHEO with Adrien today and only coming back tomorrow night. At least I got my shop cleaned up.

I finished building the remaining 3 faux beam pieces. I've put danish oil on them and waiting the required 72 hours before varnishing them. The next picture shows where the beams are going to be mounted.

Missing Beams

Before I leave for Ottawa today I hope to finish putting up the wood filler on the nails. The next picture shows the recroom as it stands at this point.



Finished Walls

Next week I hope to varnish all of the walls and the faux beams. Alex might help me as he enjoys varnishing. Have a great end of week.

Week#15 - Day 3

Good morning everyone,


At first I was going to blog everyday but I decided that it takes too much time for me to write my blog and I want to do other things in the morning such as program in VBA. So I will blog once or twice each week.


Over the past couple of days I finished putting up the knotty pine in the corner of the West and North walls. It took at while because there was a lot of cutting and fiddling around. I also finished putting up pine on the South wall beside the woodstove. I have about one third of the East wall covered with pine.  I hope to finish putting up the pine on this wall by the end of the day today.  I have two more receptacles to cover and those take a bit more time.


I hope to finish putting up pine by the end of the week. Early next week I will build the remaining three faux beams. We plan on using the shop for a couple of family reunions over the next two weekends. If I can get most of the cutting done I won't have to clean it again for the second family reunion. The shop is an absolute mess right now as we haven't cleaned it in over a year. 

Once the shop is cleaned I plan on varnishing which will take 4 or 5 days. I will varnish all the trims prior to putting them up.  Once the varnishing is done I will put up the remaining faux beams and then work on the drop ceiling.


Below you will find a few pictures of the walls that I'm working on at the moment. Hopefully in my next blog I will be done with putting up the knotty pine.

Knotty Pine


Next week I need to bring Adrien to CHEO on Friday and plan to leave for Ottawa the day before to visit a friend of mine so I will not have much time to work on my recroom. We will probably spend one day cleaning up the shop.

Week#15 - Day 1 - Taking Off the Drywall

Good morning everyone,

I haven't blogged in almost 3 months because I haven't done much work on our recroom lately.

I'm finally on vacation and plan to finish this project by the end of my 6 week holiday. I have the following tasks to complete:

1. finish putting up the knotty pine
2. varnish the pine
3. varnish and put up the trim (corners, baseboards etc.)
4. finish building the faux beams
5. put up the drop ceiling
6. change the flooring
7. build a hole to bring in wood
8. building a cart to put wood in

Yesterday I removed the remaining drywall on the east and south wall. As you can see I made quite a mess. Below you will see some pictures of the job.

Drywall Mess

I also added a third receptacle on the East wall. Today I will work on putting up the remaining pine. I figure this will take two days.

Week#14 - Putting Up White Pine

Good morning everyone,

It has been a couple of weeks since I last blogged. We are back together as a family. Louise is home with Julianne and we have been busy. Below you will find some pictures of the recroom as of this morning. I worked about 3 hours yesterday. I might get some more done tomorrow as it's Easter Monday.

Recroom

Once again putting up the pine is pretty straightforward with the exception of the receptacles. I'm taking a week of holidays in about 3 weeks. I hope to have most of the pine up by then so that I can finish the beams and start working on the drop ceiling.

Close up



Week#13 - North Wall

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday I finally finished putting up the knotty pine on the North wall. The whole process was pretty straightforward. The only tricky part was the vacuum outlet which only had about a 1/8" clearance for the plate.  The next picture shows the start of the work.

North Wall

I used 16 pieces of 16' of knotty pine. Most of it was in good shape. I think I will have to buy some more because I only have 23 pieces left and have a lot of work to do still. The next 4 pictures show the recroom as it is at the moment.

Well that is it for this week.  I do not think I will get much done next week as we have a baptism and a birthday party to go to.

Finished North Wall



Week#12 - Electrical

Good morning everyone,

I didn't do much work in the past couple of weeks. I guess I'm tired and I'd rather take it easy because I tend to do a better job when I'm rested. The picture below shows the recroom as it stand this morning. As you can see we took down most of the drywall on the North and West walls.


Recroom so far

We spend the better part of three days connecting the new electrical circuit. I added 7 receptacles, four in the recroom, two in the weight room and one in the furnace room. The one in the furnace room will be used for our central vacuum. The pot lamps in the beams are also functional.  They add a nice atmosphere to our room. The picture below shows the new circuit along with the connections for each receptacle and switch.

Electrical stuff

Everything is now connected and in working order. I ran into some problems when I tried to connect an electronic dimmer to a regular 3 ways switch. I didn't realize that if you use electronic dimmers you cannot hook them up to regular 3 ways switches. This mistake cost me a new switch as I burned the circuit in my electronic switch.

The next step in this project is to continue removing the drywall on the bottom part of the South and East walls and then start putting up the knotty pine on the North wall. Hope everyone has a great week.