Water Lines

Well it took at little longer for Ikea to come through with the missing parts for the cabinets. But it turned out good. I oiled the butcher block counter top and installed the faucet. And now I wait for the plumber to finish everything else.



I finally got the water line in. All 1800 ft. of it. I don't plan on posting any pictures of that but it looks like a long hole with a PVC pipe laying in it. I'll finish covering it next week sometime. Then it will just look like the ground.

Delays and Showers

I guess I can't expect everything to go as smoothly as the rest of this project has. I had the wall mounts for the microwave installed and was ready to hang it when I plugged it in. Nothing happened. A quick call to Best Buy and they are delivering another one next Wednesday. I'm still waiting for the parts from Ikea to finish the wall cabinets.



At first I was hesitant of tiling the shower myself. Even with the instructions of a friend who has years of experience at this, I thought this wasn't going to be easy. Turns out it's no where as hard as I thought. The tile went on the wall fast. And grouting the next day was fairly easy too. Of course the end result depends on how much attention you pay to what your doing. For instance I made sure I didn't have any thin set on the tile or in the cracks between the tile. The thin set bonds the tile to the wall. And it should be covered by the grout. The grout should be consistent between the tile through out the surface. This can take some time and a lot of rubbing with the clean up sponge. But the end result makes it worth it. Next is the shower door and glass.




Next week is looking like it might dry up after nearly a month of rain. I'll finally get to trench for the water line and sewer line. Then I'll be ready for the plumber to finish up and move in.

Cabinets

Cabinets are almost complete. I'm very happy with how they have turned out. Had a problem with parts not being included with the two horizontal wall cabinets. That is keeping me from installing the glass doors on them. Ikea is shipping the parts direct from Sweden. Should have those by the end of next week. The refrigerator and microwave showed up. I'll work on mounting the microwave tomorrow.

Ikea Kitchen

I'm finally getting around to installing the cabinets. I had heard that it was difficult to put these together but so far it has been fairly easy. It does take some time to make sure everything is lined up and level. The refrigerator is suppose to show up next Wednesday. I'll try to have the cabinets finished by then.

When researching other container home projects I was disappointed in the blogs that seem to drift off towards the conclusion of the projects. I'm beginning to see why. For some reason all the details of finishing the project start piling up. The concrete and framing seem like mile stones in the project but they turn out to be minor steps compared to the work that goes into the job of installing the flooring, the cabinets or painting the trim. Since the garage apartment is just a part of the container house, I'll be getting back to it soon and the updates will be a little more frequent.

Time..

Finally the air conditioning is installed and running. Of course it hasn't be over 85 degrees since. The "front door" is in but needs a handle to finish it. And the wiring is finished, in the apartment at least. Still need to caulk and paint the baseboards before the cabinets can go in. Hopefully all of this will be done by the end of the month.



I read about a smart home system in Popular Mechanics some time ago and thought this would be a good project to test it in. The system works by replacing the switches of a normal house with multi buttoned units that communicate with the other switches of the house. I decided to replace a few light switches that will allow me to turn garage lights and outside lights on and off from the living room or bedroom. It also allows me to set up all the lights on one button so I don't have to worry about any lights left on when I leave.

Bamboo...

The bamboo flooring is going in fairly easy. I'm sore from carrying the boxes up the stairs. I didn't realize that 750 square feet of flooring weights more than a ton. I found this bamboo at Lumber Liquidators. The bathroom is Tiger Strand and everything else is Natural Strand. The strand bamboo is harder than the vertical or horizontal boards. And noticably denser. I'm really happy with the look. I've got to figure out how to take a picture of the bathroom. I also plan on writing about the way I wired the apartment. Things will slow down once I get the air conditioning installed and the trim painted. I'll have more time to write about the details I've left out lately. Have a good week end, I'm taking a vacation from this until tuesday.

Getting There

It is taking so long to paint. I'm having to do three coats with the dark color. Going to start putting down the flooring today. It's bamboo.