Hurco update:
[A tumbleweed slowly rolls across the screen as crickets loudly chirp in the distance.]
With the Hurco update out of the way, what else has been going on? Thanks to a week of too-hot-to-get-anything-done sunshine giving way to too-wet-to-get-anything-done rain, I have a bit of time to play catch-up, so let's hop into the Wayback Machine and go all the way back to December, when I decided to start (and ultimately give up on) yet another grand gesture birthday present for MGT. Too many years ago to remember, we moved the laundry downstairs for a couple of reasons. The first was that we were tearing every wall of the former laundry room out to reframe and side, and we wanted to be able to do laundry in the interim. The other reason was that it would be nice to have an actual mud room for hanging coats, storing shoes, etc. The ultimate ultimate dream for this room, though, was for it to house a large pantry cabinet, something our house has always lacked, leading to... creative kitchen storage concepts.
The "mud room" has been sitting there waiting for some love for an amount of time that I've already established is too painful to contemplate, and I decided MGT's birthday, coupled with giving up on my lower back ever feeling "good," was proper motivation to get started.
The first step, which I didn't take any pictures of, was hanging a few pieces of drywall to fill in the gaps from prior construction. Then I had to mud and tape the corners and seams that would be inaccessible once the pantry were built. Didn't have to make it look pretty, just sealed.
Finally, it was time to start actually building something. I decided that the cheapest, easiest, and most space-efficient form of a pantry cabinet would be to just frame it in place with standard framing lumber, panel it with melamine inside, use some leftover birch ply for floors and shelves, and face-frame with cabinet grade materials.
The framing was pretty straightforward:
I realized as I was building this that I was OVERbuilding this, but that's fine. If "The Big One" earthquake hits, I'll have my family hunker down in this closet...
In keeping with cheap-and-easy, here's the melamine paneling and birch bottoms installed:
Coat and backpack hooks, shelves, and face frame installed:
I chose poplar for the face frame only because it was the only wood species that had enough in stock in the right lengths that I could get the whole job done. Eventually, it's going to be painted anyway. Unfortunately, this was also the one huge mistake I made with this build. It didn't occur to me until I'd completely finished that I measured/cut/installed the rails and stiles backward. No way was I going to redo it all, so it's just going to have to be "custom"...
Doors installed on soft-close hinges and drywall screwed onto the left side:
With it then early February and with construction complete, all that was left was finishing the room. You'll notice a 2x4 at the bottom of the last few pictures, disappearing off to the left. This was part of a little scheme that I thought was pretty clever:
I needed to do a lot of mudding and taping and texturing way up at the top of the stairwell, so I framed up a little platform from scrap that I could slide along those two rails that are screwed into the studs. It really makes getting to the ceiling nice back there, and I only smashed my head on the platform once before learning to stand it up and move it out of the way after every use.
With this mud room project, a couple machining projects, and the Hurco way covers going on all at the same time, the ping pong table became no different than any other flat surface in a shop:
Sadly, I have no pictures of the mud room finished. Because it's not. I got really busy, so I was only able to poke at the drywall work a bit at a time, then, in mid April, disaster struck. We got a combination of ridiculously heavy rain and strong wind, and apparently it was too much for our roof. A leak formed around the master bathroom fan penetration, which dripped down over time and pooled up under the paint in our bathroom. MGT called me in to point out a bubble in the paint that looked like a soccer ball was trying to burst through. I got out a razor blade and started peeling back the damage, water dumping down as I did:
Not going to sugarcoat it: this one broke me. I was already really stressing out about all of the projects piling up, and having another unexpected one dumped on top was just too much. It was all I could do to spread some schmoo on the roof and seal the leak, but I wasn't getting anywhere near drywall mud for a long while after this. Call it a mental health break. I knew that I had major house remodel work coming (spoiler: that's what I was working on when I got rained out this afternoon), so I might as well just do all of the interior work at the same time now that I had three rooms I'd be working in.
MGT--wisely--gave up on the mud room being finished and just started using it. Still an ugly construction zone, sure, but all of the added storage has been a major improvement to the house!
Anyway, still three machining projects, some car drama, and now some house work to talk about, so I'll be back at some point. I hope life is treating you all well!
