Pool House Expansion Project, Day 102 - 08/02/16

Vanity Cabinet, Toilet, Shower Tiling and Grouting, Vanity Mirrors and Clips, Granite

Day One Hundred Two, 08 February, 2016

It's getting very near the end, as they say. Remaining tasks are small but numerous, and some, although small, are time-consuming.

The Vanity medicine cabinet was hung accurately and where Dianna wanted it. As I was jockeying around to take a picture of it, I got to thinking, that it might just be a bit too high for her to look in the mirrors. Uh-oh.

After conferring with her, she said she hadn't even thought about that, and that yes, it was going to have to be lowered about another five inches or so. What're ya gonna do? Everybody makes mistakes.

Medicine Cabinet Hung

The toilet is in and hooked up, both to the flange as well as to the water supply. Unfortunately, the water isn't turned on yet, as we're waiting for the water heater fitting to be finalized. Another small task.

Painting Baseboard Behind Toilet

Last I looked, there was one square of floor tile for the shower yet to be installed. It sure is looking good and so is the slope toward the drain.

Shower Floor Almost Done

One of the things that happened was, when the medicine cabinet was laid on its back on the bed, most of the somewhat flexible, grey plastic clips holding the mirrors in place broke. They probably would have worked ok in an upright setting, but we had temporarily laid it on its back on the bed. The weight of the mirrors and the backing plywood for them was just too much for the clips to handle.

One of the mirrors had fallen out to the back of the cabinet. Nothing broke, but I noticed it was down, figured out what hapened, and took the other three down and put them aside to be dealt with later.

Each mirror needs to be glued to it's backing plywood, and something other than those grey clips was needed to hold the mirrors in place.

It took stops at three or four hardware stores (as usual here) before I found what I was looking for. Clear plastic rigid clips. I'm going to put two on the bottom of each mirror and one on each side and top. That should work great.

New Vanity Mirror Clips

Here's a picture of the screen door hooks and eyes I mentioned earlier. Not fancy, but they'll do the job till the shiny brass latches I ordered from the States, come in.

Screen Door Hooks 3-Inches Long

Ok. Now for the educational bit. What we all working on this project knew about working with granite you could put in a thimble. A five-minute conversation with Mr. Ernesto Matute (627-7685) taught us so much.

I'm so glad we didn't try to tackle this part of the project on our own. For starters, how we were selecting the piece of granite. We were thinking we would go look for a piece that didn't have any blemishes on the face, and that was about it.

Mr. Matute told us we needed to look on all the edges for smooth cuts, and very carefully, front and back for possible cracks or anything that even looked like it might be a crack.

He also told us that at Lano's, his guys do all the moving of the pieces. Let them assume liability on their site.

And the actual transporting. It had to be on edge, with a couple of guys in the back of the bed to hold it steady. Our plan had been to see about buying a thin piece of foam rubber, and then laying whatever granite we selectd, on that foam.

This elicited almost a howl of laughter from Mr. Matute. He told us, it had to be on edge on the long side, with the bonded edge up, and that it had to be placed on a piece of lumber at least as long as the piece of granite.

Bathroom Vanity Granite Slab

Finally, the third slab of granite proved to be the one that fit the bill for us to bring home. How, you might ask, did we bring it back to Casa Winjama?

Well, Omar selected a piece of straight lumber that was a bit more than eight-feet long, so that the stone could ride on edge, resting on the lumber in the bed of my Sport Trac (with the tailgate down), and at least two people holding onto the slab for the journey. Once we got it home, we unloaded it as rested it on edge against a coconut tree, as you see above.

After that, Mr. Matute, ably assisted by his daughter, Stacy, got busy preparing to cut the granite. The task was compounded by the fact that the sink was an oval. Oval cuts are always tougher than straight cuts. Also, the oval of our sink, was just a hair out of true for an oval, which according to Mr. Matute, is not unusual. Each oval is slightly different than the next. Each is a challenge.

Matute Measuring Sink

In addition to the additional bracing that needed to be installed in the cabinet, we had to prepare a piece of half-inch furniture-grade plywood, to be a sub-layer for the granite.

Making Sure Plywood is Right Size

Here Mr. Matute, is cutting the plywood. This oval is slightly larger than the sink as the sink sits inside this oval, resting on two of the pieces of wood bracing that had been installed earlier. That way, the bracing actually supports the sink directly, as well as the granite.

Matute Cutting Sink Oval in Plywood

Under the vanity cabinet, we needed to have an electrical outlet for the Cat Genie litter box. The guys thought it would be easier to surface-mount an outlet, rather than cut a hole and fish the outlet itself throught the hole. Not a problem. That solution was fine for us. Why so many wires, you might ask? Well, again, I'll tell you. It's because a second outlet, above the vanity cabinet had been added and a wire was stubbed from this outlet to the new one. Two wires for each outlet and a twisted ground wire.

Outlet Wire for Cat Genie Under Vanity

Keeping in mind that there are several other tasks going on, here's a view of the grouting of the shower. It is really looking good.

Grout Underway in Shower

Mr. Matute is routing the bracing I mentioned, in preparation to setting the sink in the hole of the plywood. I asked Stacy if she was interested in running the business when her dad retired. She said emphatically, that yes, she was. Good for her.

Routing Sink Supports

Here's a shot under the counter of the cabinet, showing the piping run through the cabinet back as well as the sink itself.

Pipes Coming Through Vanity

As you can see, the sink fits snugly in the cut oval of the plywood.

Sink In Place With Plywood

As it turns out, the cardboard pattern of the oval, that Mr. Matute is cutting out here, really didn't fit the real oval we were dealing with.

Cutting Pattern From Sink Cardboard Box

They made another oval to fit the inner dimensions of the sink from heavy card stock.

Preparing Sink Inner Pattern

In order to cut the stone, Mr. Matute laid out center lines on the granite with a Sharpie, which erased off the polished surface with no problem.

Marking the Center Point

They then laid out the sink oval patterns for the cut.

Outlining the Pattern

They taped over the oval lines prepatory to cutting.

Checking the Layout

And then, using a small smooth diamond blade in his tool, Mr. Matute began the cutting process. This is a job that is best done outdoors, as it generates considerable dust.

Using Diamond Blade to Cut Sink Oval

This part of the process probably took slightly more than an hour for Mr. Matute to complete the cut. It's slow and steady work that results in a successful through cut.

Around And Around

Once he finished the cut, he laid the cut-out piece against the coconut tree and knocked off for the evening.

There's many more photos than appear in each posting. You can see all the photos of the construction project on Flickr at: https://www.flickr.com/gp/winjama/0wVc3s. There will be new photos added each day of the project.