Built-ins: Part 2

This is Part 2 of an occasional series on built-ins. Part 1 is here.

By the end of the first day, we had built and fit the boxes for the entertainment center (right) and window seat (center). The boxes themselves are made from 3/4" hardwood plywood, and trimmed with 1x1", 1x2", and 1x3" poplar.  The only disadvantage there is that for some reason I have it in my head that it's pronounced "POPE-lar," so now I have to be hyper-vigilant for the rest of my life (assuming, as I do, that these built-ins will long outlive me). If anyone ever comes to visit and--attempting small talk to ease the oppressive tension from some unforgivable gaffe I've committed--asks what kind of wood we used for the trim, I'll want to be able to answer "POP-lar, and, by the way, I'm so sorry about earlier."

We also had scribed the trim on the righthand side so that it would join with the baseboard trim. Though we could have cut out a section of the baseboard trim, that seemed a little unnecessarily permanent and irreversible. Who knows? Maybe placing televisions on top of things and people sitting under windows will be relics of a bygone era soon. You certainly never saw those things on The Jetsons, which I still think generally got things right.

Also, Paul insisted on sleeping next to the built-ins that first night, to "protect the structure from vandals."

"I'm just resting my eyes."

Just kidding. He's actually checking to see if the boxes fit well together, which they do perfectly. And far from sleeping, Paul led the whole project smoothly and expertly. I learned a lot just by watching him and following his lead. But there were other times where I apparently just stared off into space like an idiot, totally missing whatever he was doing:

You're blowing this, Harris.

When I wasn't having full-blown mental lapses, though, I managed to make myself useful. Here I am using the Kregg jig to make pocket holes in a piece of trim to be used on the window seat.

By the end of day 2, the fireplace was also starting to take shape.

Flush

Before we bought the house, we arranged to have some plumbing work done. Over time, the toilets, like aging hippies, had embraced the eco-friendly, “low flow” ethos to an absurd degree. There were also issues with the hot water and the drains in the tub. With two little girls who spend much of the day covering themselves in food, dirt, and magic marker, this just wouldn't do.

We agreed to use the same plumbers the previous owner had used. I guess people do this because we assume that, despite visiting hundreds of houses in the area, these guys remember the little idiosyncracies of each house, which will of course save time and money over someone who has to “get up to speed” with your particular sink. That seems rather presumptuous of us as homeowners, secretly proud of our unique pipes and deceptively simple spigots.

The job had been quoted several weeks earlier by someone who wasn’t there the day the work was actually done. It ended up taking a few hours longer than expected, and I gathered from several hushed phone arguments that the estimator had somewhat underestimated the work involved. Nonetheless, they stuck to the original quote, and were consummate professionals, never once making the easy “we’re taking a bath on this job” pun.

They were, however, anxious to wrap up and get out of there by the end, so some things weren’t perfect. For example, the new toilets ran incessantly. I did my best to tinker with the mechanism inside, returning regularly to turn screws a half-turn and tighten plastic things. After a few days of this patient, trial and error approach, my father-in-law Paul showed up and simply bent the rod holding the floating ball slightly, fixing it instantly. (A few days later, I was walking through the house and heard water running somewhere. My heart sank, until I realized it was the pipes leading to the sprinkler running outside.)

Another thing the plumbers did was install new drain stoppers in the bathtubs. The old lever-style ones no longer moved, so they asked if we were okay with a “toe kick” style drain stopper, the kind where you just push it down to close the drain and push it down again to open it, kind of like a retractable pen. We told them that was fine.

After Erin gave the girls a bath the first time, though, she told me that the stopper wasn’t working and the water was draining out. I asked every question I could think of.

“Did you push it down?” I asked.

“Yup,” she said.

I was stumped, but was busy with something else and forgot to go take a look. The next day, she told me the same thing had happened.

“Don’t forget, you have to push it down,” I offered hopefully. She assured me she had, and it seemed we were at an impasse. But unlike our ongoing, impassioned “it’s too hot in here”/“I think it’s fine” debate, maybe there was a simple answer to this one.

I went upstairs to check out the situation. I wasn’t really sure how to adjust the stopper, so I just started twisting it counterclockwise.

Sure enough, the whole thing came unscrewed and pulled out of the drain. That’s when I realized the top unscrewed, revealing an adjustment screw. Perfect! I grabbed a screwdriver and had that tub holding water in no time.

Screwdriver in hand, and somewhat emboldened by my success, I wondered what else I could tighten. Surely there must be a loose screw somewhere! The screwdriver and I roved the house, and it didn’t take long to find our next victim, a loose cabinet handle.

Before

We taught that screw the meaning of the phrase “tighten until flush.”

After

And just like that, the tightening spree was over.

Built-ins: Part 1

As I mentioned previously, I decided a while back to try to construct some built-ins for the new house. The only problem is that I had no idea how to go about doing that.

Our sister-in-law, Tif, is an interior designer and had some great ideas.  She sent us this sketch, calling for a television stand on the right, a window seat in the middle, and a bookcase outfitted with a faux fireplace mantle on the left. 

A guy who knew what he was doing would probably translate this sketch into a plan with measurements and whatnot, but I'm not that guy. At one point, Erin's dad, Paul, asked if we had come up with any plans. I just sent him the sketch. Probably imagining his granddaughters being trapped under a pile of collapsed plywood covered in saw marks and stray nail holes, he kindly offered to help with the construction.

He and Erin's mother, Karon, came up this past Friday and spent the entire weekend helping us. Erin and Karon did a ton of painting (more on that later), while Paul and I tackled the built-ins.

We loaded up on lumber on Friday night, and got started early Saturday morning. The first order of business was me learning what a "kick space" is. The next order of business was building a frame for the boxes to sit on to create a kick space.