Projects end and start

I have been wanting to make one of the round corners for the skirting and the hall way was my opportunity, I started by gluing a few 20mm pieces together to form a block as a way to give it strength then used a hole saw to cut the internal radius then used the drop saw set on the 45 deg to cut the outer faces with the bench saw set to 10mm I cut the inside faces the outer radius was achieved on a disc sander it then had to be fit to the shop bought skirting and that was the difficult part, the corner has a long leg on it so it was not such a small piece to handle and the shape on the top was put on by hand with a lot of sanding, I had painted the walls first so it was all done very gently then pushed into place on some glue and a final touch of paint, I think I have 7 of these to do and now I have done one I don't want to do any more????
I finally had a window delivered and could get on with laminating the jamb I had to do it in 2 pressings as the long side of the window is 2560mm and my vac bag sheet is 2.4m so it went corner to corner and just fit, I have used a .8mm plastic laminate with a dotty type pattern its nice its easy to clean and no painting required I used biscuits in the corners with epoxy.
It was good to be putting paint on the walls and fixing the wardrobe permanently in place, the totara draws I made so many years ago seemed to be perfect for the space in the middle, then some curtains  and all that remains is the bed needs making, we would like to see more of the wood floor but the carpet is warmer when getting in and out of bed and we see enough to know that it is all real wood.
My mind had been on the outside the roof over the back door it also extends over the ranch slider to the bedroom so on those warm nights we are able to leave the door open and if it rains, well it can, the cedar beam I showed a few posts back I cut into 4 pieces and are fixed to the facing below the gutters I have strengthened the area behind the facing as the wind could do damage lifting this, in the photo the whole roof is in the garage on the floor having the corrugated polycarbonate sheeting fixed and cut to length, since this photo it has been disassembled for painting before it is reassembled in place, I didn't have a firm plan when I started this just an end picture in my head so the details have grown as I have gone along and that I can tell at the moment I am pleased with the look, it has

involved more in the painting, the pieces that are not exposed to the weather are being oiled and will show the grain the pieces that will get the sun and rain are to be white to avoid any heat absorption, its the heat that makes the timber move and the paint to crack then the water gets in, this nice rolled purling end is designed to shed the rain so it won't travel back along it and onto the oiled cedar.
I will endevour to show pictures from underneath when it is in place.

Two weeks ago

Two weeks ago I got out of bed and pulled all the ceiling in the hallway down, I took the rubbish to the tip then bought some Rondo steel ceiling batten, by the end of the day it was all battened out and 2 pieces of gib board in place, the next day I framed out the new roof access hatch and completed the gib boarding, I stopped the ceiling and sanded before I started to do the coving, it took 2 days to fix all the coving, then its been the slow process of painting and going back to stopping when I thought I could see irregularity in my stopping, all the walls have been replaced in this part of the house so apart from my stopping not being to a professional standard but I think its very good all the gib board is new so the paint job is good and that has been the goal and I am so pleased it has come out so well.
These last few days I have been fixing architraves to the door frames and then decided I would put thresholds in 2 of the door frames to the hot water cupboard and the laundry as there is a wooden floor in both rooms, I should have put the threshold in before the frame went in but it will be put down to experience of lack of it, now I wanted to get a perfect fit of the threshold around the door frame and the architrave that is on one side, to do this I taped around the area then cut an m d f pattern roughly allowing about a 5mm gap that I filled with builders bog that is a quick setting filler that will stick to the mdf but not the plastic tape when the filler was well set I pulled out my pattern its a perfect copy of what is there, I had glued up some old oak flooring to make the threshold from, I cramped the pattern to the oak and used a copy cutter in a router to copy my pattern and I have a
perfect fit now I can get all the architraves on.
I came across a curved cedar beam 4.6m long 90mm thick and 250mm deep, cut in half length wise and I will have what you see here, this a a pattern cut roughly to see how it would fit, I think it will be a little lower than this so I can get a fixing into the fascia I will beef up the wood behind the fascia and use bolted steel brackets, I have also experimented and managed to cut one half of the beam in half length wise so I will have 4 at 40mm thick that gives me 4 beams at 800mm spacings over this area, I now need to

find a corrugated plastic sheet that will bend over this curve.
There are the curved beams hidden and I can't wait to get at then and see what becomes of them. 
I was offered some old wood and could not resist it, there was far more than what I show here as I have started putting it away we need the carport for the car, there are about 6 long lengths of hart rimu 100mm X 75mm that was removed from under a house when it was lifted 30 years ago there are nails every 400mm and lots of shakes, I am thinking kitchen cupboard doors I need 11 of them and some draw fronts there will be a lot of rubbish from it?
What is shown here are long lengths of oregon again about 100 X 75 I now realise it has some wood worm and I don't know how much is affected, is an oregon parquet floor too much in the kitchen with rimu doors that is what is going around in my head, in this pile are also some big pieces of douglas fir that may yet get used for that roof they will look good with that cedar.       

Getting fancy

My high light is being able to use the inlays I created so long ago, I also like to take a bit of time to create something a bit special in each area of the house I deal with, this came about partly from what I had done in the previous house, partly from what I was left with after removing the fireplace then some thought about what material I had available as I threw so much away when I made the move to this house, the block at the bottom is made of 5 pieces of wood the piece above is made of 12 pieces and I am not going to count the pieces in the post, the bottom block is repeated at the top.
The bare wood panel and cleat behind the post will eventually be painted the same colour as the walls, the only clear finished wood will be the floor the posts and the pine front edge of the shelves which I hope will make the post prominent, under the two lower shelves will be a hanging rail so each side will be a his and hers and in the center area will be a chest of draws I made some time ago that will fill that space.
I have a little more to do fitting these shelves then it will all be taken out and into the garage for painting to an almost complete stage and during that time I hope to install the window and gib board that wall then I am able to paint the whole room and another coat on the floor.   

Mud

I am waiting for a window so can't work on that wall, I have the other walls gibed and taped with the first coat of stopping, I will get the final stopping on the walls before I put any gib cove up around the ceiling, I have used a metal corner to the internal corners and fiberglass tape to the joints, I have put the old underlay on the floor to protect it from damage now I have to remember not to drop tools as I finish with them.
This is where the new wardrobe will be, I have pre-fitted some timber to take the top shelf and 2 vertical divider boards but will now get the wall painted and cove in place, there is a small block on the floor where one of the posts will be and this will be repeated at the top but with a smaller block and the inlayed post between them, I have the ply for some of the shelving cut and in the process of being painted in the workshop / garage and will progress with that while I finish the stopping and first coats of paint.

I will pre-finish all these posts before I install them and they will be in bits so I can get them between the floor and ceiling without damage I hope.   
 

A floor a door and fancy bits

A lifetime ambition has been to use a floor sander, it finally happened, they said it was easy to grind holes in the floor but I thought I had done well and achieved a good finish that was till I put the polyurethane on it, now I think it looks better than it did before it was sanded I think in this photo it has had one coat of polyurethane and is a bit furry due to using a cheap roller, I put in 2 hours of hand sanding and after the second coat it is so much better I did use a better roller the second time, most of the floor will be covered with either bed, rugs or furniture so the hollows I created
will mostly be covered up, I like the look of the door threshold as a break between floor and carpet it also covers up many nail holes from carpet being fitted, I had the door frame pre painted with 2 undercoats and the door is totally finished so it was just an hour and a half to get it fixed in place with knobs on I now need another rare earth magnet so I don't need to drill big holes in the door.
I came across a large curved cedar beam on our local auction web site and won the auction so today we drove down country to pick it up, at over 4 and a half meters long its as long as the car but being cedar it is light to carry, I have half a plan to use it over the back door to give us some rain protection as we step outside.
The inlayed post I showed 2 posts ago have had some attention and now have feet and hats, there will be 2 posts as part of the wardrobe and each post will have one of these at the top and one at the bottom, these blocks are about 90mm wide and 60mm deep, the colour is a bit pale but will be better with some polyurethane on them, I will get better photos very soon of these.
 

His and Hers

While I have been busy banging and crashing around the house the other half has kept her sanity by burying her head in knitting, and this is her latest creation a wonderful baby wool shawl, if the colour is lovely the patten is out of this world, its length would be more than 2 meters so there is plenty to keep you warm, I would guess there would be more than 100 hours labor knitting in this shawl, I have a lot more banging and crashing to do so I expect there to be a lot more knitting done and as her confidence grows who knows what could be next?

I was not banging and crashing as I painted the ceiling and one wall, it's only a gib board sealer to protect the face from aging and so I can see any blemishes that need filling, this photo is of the wall that had the fire place, the ply on the floor is covering that concrete block that was the foundation to the fireplace and is now to be the floor of a new wardrobe, the posts of inlay are going to be used to divide the wardrobe into 3 bays, the posts going from floor to ceiling and the wardrobe covering the whole wall, it will be an open wardrobe (no doors) so I will use the same ply as on the floor and finish it as the floor is so it is pleasing to the eye, that wall at the end with the pink batts is awfully bent, the white strip in the corner is my attempt to cast plaster to the stud that is straight and plumb now I have to tinker with the other studs to get something to fix the gib to and fixings for the wardrobe shelves, there is no end to the excitement and fun the days fly by.

New Ceiling

It has been a dirty dusty few days, now the old insulation is gone the new has had a shake the Rondo battens are all in place and three and a half sheets of Gib board are glued and screwed in place, those ceiling joists are all bent and there is a general sag to the center of the room I think the strong back is bent too, I did consider taking it our and turning it over but thought it would probably then sag again so chose the leave all alone, the rondo system is so wonderfully straight and quick to fix, the supplier I use lent me a gib board lifter this is the first time I have used one and now I know the lounge

ceiling is also possible as that too will need three and a half meter sheets, I have chosen to use 10mm gib and put the rondo battens at 400mm centers they are in fact less than that at about 380mm and used plenty of glue, I have started to do the stopping and feel good about my ability to get it right with such a good surface to start with.
A long time ago I put together some different coloured timbers then cut them up and joined them back together again I have had 3 lengths in careful storage always looking and wondering what I

could use them for, today I machined 2 posts that will form the front of the new wardrobe and the inlay will be the feature of the room, the post will have a base using the same coloured wood and a hat, keep watching for the developments on this one.