Monday

The girls decided to head back home to the city on Sunday evening.  They joined that exodus of people heading out of the mountains after the long weekend.  I understand that the traffic wasn't too bad... I guess because the volume was spread out over a day and half, with some people already starting to head home on Saturday.

I decided to stay for an extra day and tackle a couple projects in the guest cottage.  I woke up at first light on Monday, around 5:30AM.  I laid around for a little while, but not long and was quickly up for a shower and breakfast.  It was pretty cool outside, with a temperature of only +8C.  It was overcast, foggy, drizzly and threatening to rain.  I was a good day to buckle down and get to work.

I ended up putting in about ten hours in the guest cottage.  My first job was to finish applying lacquer to all the aspen boards I had brought out.  By luck I had just enough lacquer to finish the boards that I had.  There was only a splash left when I put the last of five coats on the boards.  I do one light seal coat on the back of the boards, then a light coat on the good side.  That first coat gets a light sand to knock off the wood fibers that are raised by the first coat.  Then, I give three more coats to put a heavy layer of finish on the wood.

With it being so cool and damp I had to get a fire going in the wood stove in the guest cottage to get the chill out.  This also helped to dry the lacquer a little faster.  I'm using a water-based lacquer, which is much slower drying than the typical solvent based finish.  The next time I come out I will bring more boards... I have around 100 left in storage... and my last five gallon pail of lacquer.

Once the fire was going I cleaned up the mess around the wood stove.  There was all sorts of kindling and firewood that had just been dumped there, and now I needed it out of the way.  I swept and vacuumed the floor in the bathroom and extending out to the woodstove.  

Then I turned my attention to assembling and installing the shower enclosure that I brought out some time ago.  We have a trap door down into the crawl space in the middle of the bathroom.  This really limited the size of the shower stall that I can put in.  The only option was to use a small 32" x 32" shower with a corner entry door.  I didn't like the way the manufacturer recommended installing the unit so I changed things up a little.  I think this well make for a better and more watertight installation.  I bonded the plastic panels and the molded corner section to the walls.  Then I installed the aluminum frames on top of the edge of the panels, instead of beside them.  The adhesive has to cure for at least 12 hours, so next time I come out I will bring some caulking to seal all the joints and complete the install.

Once that was done I cut and fitted a couple of pieces of subfloor to fit in the bathroom.  I got this all glued down and screwed into place and the cutout done for the heat register.

Then I moved on to the wall paneling.  I installed the paneling to the fourth wall to complete the bathroom.  This one was a little slower as there were a couple of electrical boxes to fit around.  I also installed the trim around the top where the walls meet the ceiling. 

With this complete I am now finished all I can do in the bathroom for the time being.  I will move on to the other rooms in the cottage and then come back to the bathroom once I can start the flooring.

It felt good to get so much work done and as tired as I was by the end of the day, I felt a sense of accomplishment.  I had been a bit nervous and was avoiding that shower, because I didn't like the recommended installation.  The way I put it together seemed to work well... and I think better.