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Gulf Island Building.

1M views 8K replies 149 participants last post by  Katie Cabana 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi all:
Since the summer of 1997, I have been building a cabin and house on our 1/2 acre lot here. Before I dive into that part, I am going to show a few photos to set the stage a bit. We are remote here. No services of any kind, except that which we provide for ourselves. So don't expect to see any paved roads with big trucks delivering any materials.
We live at the head of a small bay, which is both a blessing and a curse.
When the tide goes out, we have to clamber over hundreds of yards of rocks to get to our boat. When it is in, I can float logs right up to my little railway to move them onto the log deck. Well, not any more, but more about that later.
This is the bay in front of us.
 

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#7,224 ·
Funny, I always thought the same thing Mort. :)

Well, for the drawers, you really do need to have two parallel sides in the cabinets of course. So, anywhere that you see a drawer, that's what is done...two parallel sides.

I'll be having a go at getting the supports in for the shelves today, along with getting the inside of the cabinets painted.
 
#7,225 · (Edited)
Couple minor things...got a call from my good friend Randy over in town, his niece will be playing for your boss (B.O.) at the White House on the 17th of this month. Then she got an invite to play for the Queen, and I hear she's up for a Grammy as well...good luck Diana!

On a slightly lower keyed note, here is a link to my friend Brian who I used to play in a band with when we were just trouble making kids. Well, not really, but I have to make it sound exciting. Scroll to 3:45 and watch the next two songs. This is from 1989 at the Tivoli Gardens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q7iznD5674

And not to be outdone, it was another exciting day of watching paint dry here. Yes, that is only an undercoat...

The overhead clamps are holding an edging piece which is to go up against the ceiling on that valence. It will be a part of the cedar package that is supposed to improve the overhead look.
 

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#7,226 ·
Well, I am back from the beautiful Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island. As Keith mentioned, I was taking a look at a few properties out that way, including one on Ruxton. Came up empty (for now) but will be returning in the spring with more time (and money I hope!) on my hands.

As promised, I did take a photo of the big man, as well as a few snaps of the interior and Japanese garden. I didn't get a snap of the exterior (I wish I had, but needed to literally *run* to catch a ferry) - next time!

It's a beautiful little island with lush walking trails, small bays and a small wetland. It was actually quite busy on the island when I dropped in... I saw 4 people other than Keith! :laughing:

Ceiling Wood Beam Architecture Building

Looking up from the ground floor to the second floor

Stairs Spiral Wood Daylighting Ceiling

These stairs are going to look amazing when complete! Dizzy just looking at them from below.

Room Window Smile

The man. The legend.

Fence Garden Plant Yard Landscape

Beautiful gardens. Hard to believe that this was the last week in November.. in Canada..

Walkway Botany Tree Aisle Plant

And again.


Thank you so much for inviting me into your house. Was an absolute pleasure to meet you!
 
#7,228 ·
Well, I am back from the beautiful Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island. As Keith mentioned, I was taking a look at a few properties out that way, including one on Ruxton. Came up empty (for now) but will be returning in the spring with more time (and money I hope!) on my hands.

As promised, I did take a photo of the big man, as well as a few snaps of the interior and Japanese garden. I didn't get a snap of the exterior (I wish I had, but needed to literally *run* to catch a ferry) - next time!

It's a beautiful little island with lush walking trails, small bays and a small wetland. It was actually quite busy on the island when I dropped in... I saw 4 people other than Keith! :laughing:

View attachment 61547
Looking up from the ground floor to the second floor

View attachment 61548
These stairs are going to look amazing when complete! Dizzy just looking at them from below.

View attachment 61549
The man. The legend.

View attachment 61550
Beautiful gardens. Hard to believe that this was the last week in November.. in Canada..

View attachment 61551
And again.


Thank you so much for inviting me into your house. Was an absolute pleasure to meet you!
Thorpedo...can I call you Jon?

Thank you for your wonderful writeup! :thumbsup:

I'm afraid by the time you got here the weather had taken a serious toll on the poor garden. Pretty much everything was flattened by the torrential rains we have experienced. Although I must say that your experienced photographers' eye made it look far better than I could. Thank you for that.

But really...the legend? That's extremely kind of you.
 
#7,229 ·
#7,230 · (Edited)
Yup! That's Jen in her element. She's a bit of a surf bum who's loving the grand life in Tofino. :) She even managed to convince me to go cold water surfing in Cox Bay the early morning, with the frost still on the ground.

"Jon"works just fine. Thorpedo was given to me when I used to race big bicycles down steep hills ;)
 
#7,231 ·
Keith, all that hard work has kept you looking young buddy.

Jon, beautiful photos, you are every bit as good as Keith said you are and more. We appreciate you sharing with us.
 
#7,232 ·
Here's a couple of shots of the curved trim piece going around the valance.

First one is how it came out of the clamps rough...next one is planed down to 15/32" to match the rest of the bits, and also with three coats of Varathane applied. Still wet here, so it might look a bit off.

Should be able to do the install tomorrow morning.
 

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#7,234 ·
A couple of days ago my friend Al came over for a visit...haven't seen him for the past 5 weeks. So I sucked him in to wiring up my water pump for me, good thing I did, because when he opened it up even he wasn't certain which terminals to use because it could apparently be wired for either 120 or 240 volts. Anyway, it worked first try.

Other than a couple of taps that I hadn't shut off and the flex lines under the kitchen sink that weren't tightened it seemed fine. Until the pump shut itself off at 40 psi and there was this lovely gurgling sound as the water pressure went right back out of the incoming water line. NO CHECK VALVE!!!

Well, that was a good move. Just about everyone here uses the 12 volt marine type pumps which have a built in check valve. My new system uses a full size jet pump, which of course does not have it's own valve. You'd think I might know that having been on one of those systems before, but it never entered my feeble head.

OK, so off to town today for a check valve and one more fitting for it. Get over to the marina and some kind soul has stolen my back license plate. I didn't even notice it was missing until I was right up at the north end of town in the grocery store parking lot. Great! So I have to see an insurance office for new plates and call the RCMP to report the theft, which manages to waste at least an hour.

And to top things off, by the time I got back the tide had fallen too far to get in to my float, so it was a slug across the rocks with the groceries...again.

Just one of those days. :wink:
 
#7,236 ·
Not that bad Jim...I got a good load of groceries here anyway! And it looks like tomorrow I might even have real water pressure in the house now that I have the check valve here.

I've invited Al over for lunch just in case something fouls up. Hehe. :)
 
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#7,237 ·
Jim, we shouldn't have said anything about luck yesterday.

I finally got the pump all primed and started it up. It took a couple of tries before the water line was purged of air, at which point the water pressure rose rapidly to 40 psi which shuts the pump off. So far so good.

Then I very slowly opened the cold water line only to see a nice new shutoff valve leaking quite profusely. So I turned around to grab a wrench to tighten it up when BOOOOM, the line going in to the bank of filters blew right out.

Bear in mind that the new tank has a 10.3 gallon drawdown and had just reached full pressure! Naturally, as soon as the line blew off the pump started up again! I yanked the cord out of the wall, thus stopping the pump, but really it was a bit too late. Water all over the place, especially all over me.

Fortunately I did have a shutoff valve plumbed in to the tank, so I shut that off right away as well. At least the entire 10 gallons didn't make it to the floor...but close though.

I have to admit very quietly that I forgot to glue the very last fitting in to the filter. :mad::furious::censored::eek::(
 
#7,238 ·
Man, that is enough to make a grown man cry. I do know how you felt though, I have done things similar also. On the gluing deal, I had a friend, well not a close friend but a friend who did all of his son's plumbing for him. He did all the cutting and dry fitting everything together to make sure all was well. He was happy with everything so they poured the slab, of all things, he had dry fitted all the fittings and forgot to glue the first one. Talk about a sick ole boy.
 

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#7,239 ·
Jim...I was going to post a couple of pics with that last post, but for whatever reason my photos do not come up when I go to manage attachments.

I just loaded the latest mac O/S a couple of days ago, and I suspect that might have something to do with it. I'll keep working on it to see if I can get it working again. Sure hope so, because I must have a thousand photos loaded via Imagewell. :)
 

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#7,240 ·
Well OK. That was the sixth attempt to load a file.

So after I had got the repairs done to the water system, I checked every tap - one at a time - to make sure they all worked OK.

All were fine except my shiny new fancy dancy kitchen faucet. Barely a trickle of water came out, and I mean trickle as in a fast drip. Now I was pretty sure that the water was getting there OK as I heard it rushing through the lines when I opened the now repaired valve.

You see that nice little screen above? Well, the kind people who put the faucet together had put TWO of those in. Believe me when I tell you that all but stops the water dead in it's tracks.

Hmmmm...just tried loading another pic...no go again. :huh:
 
#7,241 ·
I hate that you are having problems loading your pictures, hopefully it will straighten out here soon.

I would have been a little ticked with the folks who made that hardware, did that do the trick taking one screen out?
 
#7,244 ·
Yay! It worked. Big change from the previous system

For anyone with a Mac and Mountain Lion O/S and using Imagewell to resize your pics, here's what worked.

It seems you can no longer load the resized image on to the Mac HD. Go to pictures, load there. Then when you hit browse from the DIY site, you will have to click through to pictures and load that way.

Looks like that worked again...this is the line that blew out.
 

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#7,246 ·
Indeed it does, and I got half my clothes washed in the process!

Big wind here this morning from the south-south-east. Only light rain so far. Good day to work inside again. :)
 
#7,251 ·
Only -27º, I thought you guys up there loved that kind of weather!

Now, as for that snow, you can keep it thanks all the same. I'm sure we'll be getting our share soon enough. :huh:
 
#7,249 ·
SIDEBAR:

Then I very slowly opened the cold water line only to see a nice new shutoff valve leaking quite profusely. So I turned around to grab a wrench to tighten it up when BOOOOM, the line going in to the bank of filters blew right out.
This got me to remembering......

A long long time ago in Texas I had teamed up with a plumber friend to do the plumbing on a large storage-rental construction project.

We did it all above and below ground. This project had a manager's apartment. The day came for a top-out inspection and when the inspector arrived we let'er rip and turned on all the water supplies.

The manager's apartment was also the location of the electric panels for the complex. These panels were located in the manager's laundry room directly across from the washer/dryer hook ups and supplies.

Well we hadn't finished the water supplies for the washer and the lines were open and without stops or caps. Of course the water shot across the hallway and drenched the electric panels that hadn't had the covers installed yet.

Pretty much shut down the whole complex right there in front of the plumbing inspector. The electrician was also on-site and pissed. No serious damage that I remember but we did spend the rest of the day with an air compressor and fans trying to undo our doings and profusely apologizing to the electricians.

Ah-h-h-h-h the good ole days.:)
 
#7,252 ·
SIDEBAR:



This got me to remembering......

A long long time ago in Texas I had teamed up with a plumber friend to do the plumbing on a large storage-rental construction project.

We did it all above and below ground. This project had a manager's apartment. The day came for a top-out inspection and when the inspector arrived we let'er rip and turned on all the water supplies.

Well we hadn't finished the water supplies for the washer and the lines were open and without stops or caps.

Pretty much shut down the whole complex right there in front of the plumbing inspector.

Ah-h-h-h-h the good ole days.:)
Bud...only YOU could pull a stunt like that and get away with it! :thumbup:
 
#7,253 ·
Bud...only YOU could pull a stunt like that and get away with it!
Yow, well, reflecting on hindsight it was a stupid thing to do for sure. I could of sworn we had checked everything before the inspector was called.:thumbsup:

It's kind of like trouncing-down on your accelerator when you think you have your truck in park and creating a new drive-thru at a convenience store.
 
#7,257 ·
When you use plumber's putty to seal something like a drain in a bathtub for example, is there a waiting time before you can use said tub?
No waiting time that I have ever been aware of. Notice the stuff has a kind of oily/waxy makeup to it? I think that's the secret to the stuff but don't know for sure, it wants to repel what little water it would be exposed to after it is compressed between the fittings.:)







I hope.
 
#7,259 ·
You guys are cracking me up.:laughing:
Keith, you can use the sink as soon as you wish after using the plumbers putty, I have never had a problem with it being water proof right away.
 
#7,261 ·
Something else about "plumber's putty" has just occurred to me. I suppose one should always use "fresh" plumber's putty for such projects.

Last year I replaced both sink-drain cups in my wife's kitchen sink. I had some plumber's putty in the garage that came from God only knows where. It seemed a little firm to me when I took some out of the container that it had been in for God only knows how long. So I had a flash of genius and I microwaved the stuff to soften it. Soften it it did. I installed the drain cups and went on with my life.

About three weeks later both sinks were leaking into the cabinet below.

So...I removed the cups (once again) and the plumber's putty was hard as a rock. Keep in mind we live about twelve miles from town so running to the local hardware store isn't always an option when time is of the essence, which is why I used the old putty to begin with.

So in conclusion I would suggest that no one ever cook the putty before using it. Cooked/microwaved putty doesn't seem to have any real life span at all.:)
 
#7,264 · (Edited)
Any of you guys good on water pumps?

New 1/2 h.p. jet pump is leaking between the pump body and the motor. One drip every 1/2 minute or so.

The two bottom bolts were loose by maybe 1/2 a turn, but that's all.

Do you know if it can be fixed with plumber's putty, or will I need to make a gasket? I haven't taken it apart yet to see what's inside for a gasket. Another bad day at the pump factory I guess.

Hmmm...not the best photo. Look just below the numbers on the side of the pump body, and you can just make out the drip forming.
 

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