A few months ago, my wife and I began the arduous task of completing our house.  Just like the plumber that fixes leaks in every one’s house but his own, or the carpenter that repairs doors and windows in every one’s house but his own, I have worked on every one else’s house buy my own.  We’ve lived in it for 30 years, having built it ourselves.  The problem is that we’ve never finished it.  We have the exterior nearly complete, but the interior has much work left to do.

A couple years ago, we acquired a cabinet unit from an church building in Claremore, Oklahoma.  It was a double island affair, about 9 feet long.  It sat on our porch for a year, then I stripped it of its innards and rebuilt it to fit into our kitchen.  Last month, I completed the project, complete with concrete countertop (not something to be approached with a casual attitude), and 13 drawers with full extension, self-closing slides; a honey of a cabinet. Well, the wife likes it and that’s all that’s important.

We have now moved upstairs to our master bedroom and bathroom.  Well, the bathroom doesn’t exist in a state that resembles a bathroom.  it is merely an empty space with tape on the  floor to mark the locations of future walls.  At some point during the construction of the house (after 30 years, it’s hard to remember all of the screw-ups that I made) the floor dips about an inch over half of the floor.  After all, it is a log house and we tackled it knowing very little about log houses.  I devised a plan to correct the floor.

I figured we would have to do that before we did anything else, such as installing plumbing risers and building walls.  Our clothes must also be relocated, since they are in a temporary closet in this area.  So, I am building a closet in our master bedroom first to get our clothes out of the way.  As usual; one things leads to another.

We have 16 feet of wall space to accommodate a closet.  I plan to put a 2-foot drawer and shelf unit in the center with rods on either side, all of it enclosed with two sets of double doors.  We looked at the closet systems available in commercial stores, but we didn’t like the finish or the quality.  Under hard use, I doubt that they would last more than a few years.  And I don’t care for that particle board or pressed wood crap that so much of contemporary furniture contains.  We found a kitchen base cabinet with drawers the same depth as the closet (24 inches).  I am building a shelf unit to surround it and extend to the ceiling; birch plywood and oak facing, stained to fit our bedroom.

So far, things have gone well.  We have obtained a bathtub, an old dry sink to convert into one of the two sinks we will have in our bathroom, and an old armoire for storage space.  Buy wife is trying to decide on the tile to use in the large shower, and some kind of laminate for flooring.

We decided on the strain to use for the closet unit and a design for the doors.  Maybe I’ll have that ready by next week.  Oh, joy.

The next step is to level the floor in the bathroom area.  Until the next post, happy renovating.