We had a spider

Morning light on the stairs

A few more small parts and we'll be done for the short term in the kitchen

Another view of the stairs

Hooking up the sink and dishwasher plumbing

My efforts have continued in the kitchen the last few days, mostly hooking up the plumbing, making a back splash for the counter and enclosing/installing the dishwasher. Once the dishwasher was in and a last little bit of cabinet filler was installed on it's right side, we were able to move the refrigerator in from the yurt and finally have all our major appliances and fixtures in and operating. It is not much short of a miracle once again to be able to get water, heat it, make coffee and have refrigerated cream all right in one place and easy to access. I know it's normal and all that, but we've lived for a long time with water out of buckets and all that and now it's just so easy; it almost feels like some sort of embarrassing luxury.

One more coat of finish on the cabinet doors and drawer fronts and we'll call the kitchen "done", at least for a short while. I'll be building an island as soon as we are finished with our obligations to the bank, which should be soon.

Adam finished up a few days ago and now I'll be on my own finishing up the last few projects before we call it good.

Fun stuff

The sink looking all tidy with fixtures and an mineral oil finish on the counters. Note plumbing pieces in the cabinet underneath--water will not be flowing until tomorrow

Fitting the counter and creating necessary openings

This is the counter upside down--making the cut away that goes over and around the lip of the sink

Shaping the opening for the sink. The curved piece in back is a template that I used to router the curved edge

The last two stairs in place. Adam did a really nice job here

I've been working hard on the counter top project, which naturally leads into installing the sink, plumbing the supply lines, and hooking up the dishwasher. It all dovetails as the work progresses.
Shaping the counter tops was careful work and took some time, but it's looking excellent and fitting really nicely, so I am quite pleased. I spent most of today on the plumbing work and tomorrow I should have it all operating. Having our sink, stove, diswasher and fridge all hooked up and running will be monumental.

Adam came back yesterday evening and started up again today. He installed the last two stairs and they look great. Signs of finish everywhere!

Day by day

Envisioning how I be fastening the maple pieces together for the countertop

The ripped stack of maple

The arced bottom step. The next one up will be similarly arced, although you can tell that from the photo

Adam cutting the radius on the bottom step

Adam is at work shaping the last couple of steps coming down the stairway. These are distinct because the leading edge is curved and they have curved risers underneath coming up to meet them. It took some effort but now they are off to the paint shop (a couple of sawhorses upstairs) for their finish work and then they'll go in soon to finish off the stair project.

I've been working on the counter top project and am making good headway. I took a bunch of 2" x 8" x 8' maple boards, planed them to smooth and then ripped them down into 1 3/4" x 1 3/4" pieces that again had to be planed. The next step is to cut them roughly to length and start gluing them into counters. I'll be doing that tomorrow.

A sign of near completion? Today the technician from the gas company came and hooked up our gas cooktop. We can now cook in our home. Whoo hoo!