home(t)raveling: the side projects

 #4 - a steel & wood bookshelf for the livingroom

the desperately empty-looking dining-room, without a bookshelf. Sigh*

We're back today with a new side project for this never-ending home renovation of ours! Like the previous ones (check our previous home(t)raveling: the side projects #3, #2 and #1 respectively, clicking on the links), this project has been on our minds for quite a while now. I mean, look at this living-and-dining-room: what does it lack? a couch? well, not only! curtains? well, also. a giant TV screen? maybe not... a big, nice, kickass bookshelf? yes, thank you! The thing is: we never imagined we would end up doing it ourselves! We needed some shelving for the living-room. To put some books and CDs, plus some objects we like for the memories they carry and such...

So, basically, we wanted our bookshelf to:

 - reach the ceiling (the sky is the limiiiit, woooh!) to store a lot of our stuff, while allowing some "void" in between, and for stability too (impossible to anchor in the hempcrete wall) => tailor-made for the room and with a tight fit.
 - be "thin" enough, that is to say, not too dense visually to allow some hemplime seethrough => metal structure preferable. also cool because the stove, on the other side of the room is another nice black cast-iron thing.
 - still have wood shelves because, ye know, we like wood and it's cool if it can sort of match the kitchen island, homemade barstools and firewood bench => we designed what we had in mind and we'll see what to do next.

our project's final sketch with figures and storage capacity ; the four finished frames just back home ; the first try-and-set into position!

Look: we first thought we'd hire somebody to build it for us, from our design. Asked for quotes, got some 1500+ euro ones, said thanks and jumped to option 2: we'd pay for a welder to build the metal frames with our design, then do the rest ourselves. Asked for quotes, divided by two, still couldn't afford it, said thanks and did nothing since we had no option 3 to jump to. Until our dear R. appeared and offered to solve the equation: he'd get all the 4x40mm x6-meter steel slats we needed at cost price, take Futuna to a friend of his' metal workshop, help with the cutting, grinding, sanding and drilling with professional machines, then teach Futuna how to weld and mentor him through the process! Ah, not to mention, there was a "funny little detail" here: our hempcrete wall leant backwards, as stonewalls often do because they get thinner as they grow higher. Consequently, the ladder frames couldn't bear straight angles. We needed to weld every single horizontal piece at a 87,5º angle. To make things more entertaining! This, R. solved in no time. Engineers: they know how to deal with sh--! It's a pity we don't have pics from this crazy, busy and amazing day at the workshop (cause it was crazy and busy, you know?), but here's what we brought back home the same evening.

testing the ladder frames in situ and, meanwhile, finally (at last!) putting up the power heater on the wall under the window, just in case...

We knew where to put each of the ladders, as the width and height of each section was set beforehand - that's the thing with welding at a workshop 20km from home: either you do it all at once or... you need to drive back there again! Since the back wall was not a solid anchoring option, we needed an alternative. Of course, with the shelves leaning against a gentle slope, we trusted the structure would already be stable enough once loaded. But we sure didn't want a toddler, a kid, or even a person to climb, grab or pull a shelf, eventually being crushed under the whole thing! So we decided to: 1- anchor it in the ground with 10mm expansion bolts. Two pieces on each of the four ladders, to prevent them from falling to the front and 2- screw the top of the ladders with plasterboard anchors/pegs. Of course, these aren't meant to hold the weight of the structure from a 13mm plaster sheet! They'll just work at a 90º angle, to avoid any swinging of the top of the ladders in any direction. So finally, the whole thing is leaning against the wall, strongly anchored from the ground and just kept still from the top. I think we're ready to try'n'put some shelves and some load!

the ground, the drill and the expansions: before, during and after - with an beautiful, old, solid oak board salvaged from the barn*...

From there, things went pretty fast: measuring and marking the laminated oak boards, cutting them, sanding them, rounding the edges, treating and protecting them with antiquaire's beeswax, then finally working our way up the frames, screwing all shelves into position. Last piece of work was to improvise and build some little bridges, half-levels and stoppers with as many of the offcuts as we possibly could... Below are a couple of pics of the process, then pics of the most enjoyable part of it all: getting to some old cardboard boxes, some of them taped 7 years ago before we left Barcelona, digging in them to get some books, CDs and objects that mean a lot for us... Filling these shelves with our stuff we've lived very happy without for long, may seem pretty futile, but it's a lovely, enjoyable thing to do! It's also - mostly, maybe? - an opportunity to remember places, moments, stories, cities and circumstances...

building up the shelves ; waxing ; ready to put some load ; let the music play! ; almost there... ; with a little help from our friends ; coffee break!

Conclusion: we're really happy and proud of the way our bookshelf finally came out. Welding was fun, and only made possible by the amazing Tiercin sculpteur's fantastic help and mentoring. Thank you so much!

But we're even happier that these shelves can display some beautiful pieces of art and cratmanship from dear friends of ours: a warm thought for the beautiful souls who wrote that book, drew these pictures, sculpted that face or designed those loudspeakers: many many thanks to Mirko, Xavier, Riki, Mercè, Gonzalo and Blackspot Acoustics for walking part(s) of the way with us and leaving such beautiful footprint(s) along our path(s)...

So, with these and other friends on our minds, whose love and inspiration make our lifes a little bit brighter everyday (and since we're still on time for the new year words - look at that cool cue!), there's no better opportunity to wish you all a beautiful, wonderful and happy 2020!

Take care andLove to you all!
W., T. and F.

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About this beautiful, old, solid oak board salvaged from the barn: it was basically an abandoned pigeons' toilet buried in a corner ; pretty much looked like sh-- and was ready to go to the junk yard. But it was so freakin' heavy we immediately suspected it was gold! After grinding it for about 5 minutes, we retrieved this:

 

home(t)raveling: the side projects

#3 - the shoe rack and bench for the lobby

We're back today with a new side project for this never-ending home renovation of ours! Like the previous one and the one before that, it's been bouncing and spinning at the back of our heads for quite a while now (boing boing boooing!)

the lobby, just mopped and clean, waiting for a shoe-lution...

But it never seemed to be important enough for us to dedicate some serious time and availability to it... Apparently, there was always something more urgent to do first. Life's like a gigantic game of Go: you would love to put 3 or 4 (or more!) stones on the goban at the same time (and you desperately need to put at least 2 at once). Yet the rule is clear: you can only put one per turn, so you have to face it and make choices... Life lesson #1, learned.

Now, as you may have noticed already (well actually no: this is a terrible spoiler of a long due post from March... but it'll come. Eventually. And you'll be the first to hear about it!), we repainted the staircase and the ground floor lobby in a colourful way over the winter and spring. We also refreshed the closet under the stair and removed all the stuff that was piled around there (and this, you CAN indeed have a quick look at it here!). This side project was about designing and building a piece of furniture that would be both a shoe rack/chest/storage and a bench to sit on while putting on/taking off one's shoes. We wanted it to invite people to take their shoes off. And of course, we wanted it to be homemade with reclaimed material, to be comfortable and sturdy, as well as - according to our standards - to be good-looking aaaaand... to blend nicely in this little space! Was that too many wishes at the same time? Have a look:

putting the idea into practice: wine-boxing, measuring and cutting, wood-pegging and glueing, clamping and work-in-progressing!

First thing first, we tried something with the compulsory wineboxes. Each standard 6 bottle-case can fit 2 pairs of Wallis' shoes and, well, 2-ish of Futuna's. We decided to go for 3 standard and 1 double (12 bottles) boxes/drawers per raw and a 2 rows structure, so it fitted enough shoes but was still sittable on... All we used were some leftovers of 15mm OSB pannels (from the false ceilings and insulated double-wall of the 1st floor bathroom), some "white" wood glue and a handful of 6mm wood pegs. And quite a few sheets of sand paper too (old school, no powertool involved).

the structure of the shoe bench and chest, raw and ready to be framed.

We designed and built the body of the bench/chest without bothering with feet: just left them for later. Glued and assembled the first floor, then prepared the second and kept working. We decided to add and extra double-winebox drawer on the run, just before cutting and glueing the second side pannel. As always, we were more full of enthousiasm than real skill, we had to deal with small millimetric issues, minimal arguments with orthodox orthogonal-ness (??) and applied concepts of tight fitting-ism (???). Nothing new under the DIY skies. Well, under ours at least. After a few hours, it looked like this, though:

We then started to imagine the feet and had a very intense, nice and vivid dream of a frame with rustic joinery that would embed the whole piece and make a little armchair-like arm on the opposite side of the extra drawer. Sounds terribly vague when said like this, but Wallis understood and she saw the picture and she looked convinced. So we did it... Reclaimed pallet wood from our local seller of new, heavy double-glazed windows and sliding bays: these guys always have so many huge pallets and A-frames for the windows to be shipped safely. They do nothing with those, they have to pay to get rid of them and you get to salvage pieces with nice lenghts and sections, suitable for all kind of super cheap furniture and stuff. Nothing too fancy, just regular untreated pine or fir, but it's free, available and it does the job! So, we cut, sanded, fitted and joined. We tried it, made some adjustments, sanded and finished with a mixture of linseed and turpentine oils. Left some long feet to set the final sitting height at the last minute - and adapt to the tilted floor if needed...

the mortise and tenon frame: drawn, cut and pegged ; then mounted on the chest and ready for a little bit of paint and a proper seat.

Finally, we figured out how to deal with the seat: we'd use a few of the old floor slats we removed from the old water closet on the first floor: before building the (new) bathroom, we replaced the wooden floor from this area by 'hydrofuge' waterproof CTBH (and no Mr. Duck duck Go, CTBH does not stand for "Christian Temperance And Bible Hygiene", it's definitely a type of agglomerate wood pannels). We picked the nicest slats to replace some damaged ones in the two bedrooms, and kept the rest just in case, to be used someday, to burn on a Saint Jean's pyre or who knows... A few pieces were selected, sanded, cut to the desired length, asembled together, sanded again and oiled with the magic mixture before being screwed to the bench. Perfect, smooth fit. And a nice feel to it. We love it! How about you?

old slats sanded, oiled and screwed in place ; close-up ; finished bench with a few wine-cases oiled and a touch of wakame green!

EDITED JULY 7TH: and the last detail that you won't see today: finally, we needed to add some cool knobs/handles so the drawers would open easily. But we were unsure what material to use... A loop of thread or leather? wooden knobs? metal handles? We ended up with 2 nice options we're really happy with, but our camera has been on strike for a few weeks now (which is why the last 2 posts are illustrated with the smartphone's pics and some have low res and others are plain blurry... Sorry for this, btw. We're working on it...).

So, you'll have to wait until next post or until the next sunny day for a quick update on this! we've taken these 3 pics today and are very very pleased to share them: how do you like this touch of I used to rock-climb in the 90's ??

pieces of a retired, super-vintage climbing sling for the handles ; a few Catalan cava corks for the knobs, and voilà!

and that's all folks:
Take care
and enjoy the summer!
many hugs from F, T and W ;)

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home(t)raveling: the side projects

#2 - le TRUC mural pour les épices...

...dont on parle et rêve et qu'on imagine en songe depuis des mois en se disant qu'un weekend d'hiver au coin du poêle, on aura l'occasion (enfin!) de passer à l'action et à la réalisation. Et nous voici fin mai (déjà!), aux portes de l'été suivant, heureux et fiers de vous présenter le TRUC - sur des airs connus qu'on ne vous sifflera pas*. Non mais!

ça se passe tout à gauche, juste avant d'arriver au poêle et, preuve à l'appui, c'est là depuis le tout début: c'est le recoin où installer le TRUC.

Pour résumer le TRUC en quelques mots: quand on a posé la faïence et monté la cuisine, il y a à peine plus d'un an, on a laissé au fond à gauche, un petit dièdre de mur blanc: nu, nu, nu et contre le mur une échelle (ça non, non non).

Nous, on s'voyait déjà préparant des quiches, en dix fois plus beau qu'un meuble IKEA le TRUC s'étal'rait.
 On sentait déjà, les fragrances riches, qui de ses tiroirs se dégageraient. Voilà voilà. Bien.

Du coup, au vide-grenier le plus chic de l'Ariège, on a chiné dix tiroirs fatigués.

On a poncé, lessivé, tout l'manège - et au final: ils semblaient en noyer!

les tiroirs: au naturel ; décrassés et poncés ; traités et passés au mélange d'huiles de lin, térébenthine et essentielle d'agrumes.

Ensuite, on a ajouté dans le creuset du TRUC un petit bidule de cuisine récupéré pour 3 sous (littéralement) à notre Ressourcerie préférée. Le porte-rouleau de Sopalin® mural style archi-ringard très rustique, avec 4 petits tiroirs en faïence assez mignons. Il coûtait (littéralement) 3 sous parce qu'un des tiroirs en faïence et en question avait disparu et que le bidule, du coup, perdait beaucoup de son intérêt. Mais en jouant de la scie et avec un peu de confiance...

On a pris la peine, de le regarder, le bidule crotté, nous qui ne sommes pas capitaines (??)
Et on a vu not' peine, bien récompensée:

Sans le tiroir du porte-rouleau, sans son tiroir cassé, On a trouvé un beau bibelot et nous on l'a ach'té.

le style ringard rustique du bidule (un modèle sans tiroirs), juste pour donner le ton ; et quelques coups de scie plus tard...

Bon, celui-là, c'est fait. Hop. Au(x) suivant(s)! Finalement, il a fallu mettre tout ça en situation et commencer à faire des essais, projeter tous ces grands fantasmes de bois noble sur le petit dièdre de plâtre blanc, mesurer, mettre à niveau, faire des choix et - pour parler comme un entraîneur d'équipe de foot - être solides sur les fondamentaux et faire preuve de réalisme sur le terrain. Donc, peu à peu et pas à pas, on est arrivés à un TRUC qui ressemblait à ça:

Il suffit de monter le TRUC et c'est tout de suite l'aventure

Laiss'-moi empiler les tiroirs, ça fera un' jolie devanture.

L'herbamare et le cumin aussi, le persil, la sauge et la sariette

Rangeons-les, guilleret, guillerette: il suffit de monter le TRUC.

les morceaux du TRUC ; le prévisionnel du TRUC ; les étapes de la réalisation du TRUC ; et le TRUC fini en situation!

notre conseil: en cliquant sur la première photo et en les faisant toutes défiler très vite par pressions successives sur la flèche droite (→) de votre clavier, vous aurez l'impression de voir un court film d'animation en stop-motion. Et nous, on s'épargne le temps et le travail de le créer pour pas grand-chose. C'est qui qu'est intelligemment flemmard**, hein?

Bon bin ça sera tout
pour aujourd'hui, on dirait.
Ah non! Il reste cet autre
MACHIN mignon mais pas assez
pour un post entier à lui tout seul:
"Peaufining la kitchen", qu'il s'appelle.
Bises de nous 3

en voici toujours une, tiens! ; puis une autre tant qu'on y est, hein ; et pourquoi pas cette troisième, en attendant mon scalp?

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* à propos des airs en question: non et non, on ne les linkera pas ici. ce sont des classiques de la chanson française, c'est pas bien difficile, nom de nom! Demandez à Shazam ou à vos grands-parents. Débrouillez-vous... Nous notre bac, on l'a déjà.

** à propos d'intelligemment flemmard: il s'agit d'une expression tyipque empruntée à une prof' de mathématiques du lycée du Castella à Pamiers, aussi tristement célèbre pour sa méchanceté légendaire et sa gueule de porte de prison que pour son inégalable et apparemment inépuisable collection de pulls à glands, à pompons et autres flocons de neige. Si toi aussi tu l'as connue, laisse un commentaire et on t'enverra une carte postale exclusive "pull à glands"!