9/11/19
(Above: The painted doors placed within Jacobhouse this morning – one of which has since been installed.)
Building Summary: Today’s Jacobhouse activities began with my performing a rodent inspection. There were no signs of movement within the container home, but there was evidence of an attempted incursion at the underbelly. Alas, this prompted me to insert poison into the rodents’ targeted entry.
After rat activities, I began the process of preparing for the bathroom’s pocket door installation. It was as I was about to take down the door from its hanging wire, that I realized I had no handle by which it could be pulled out of its so-called ‘pocket’. This led to my obtaining a drill and a hole-making bit and was followed by my hollowing out a small section of the door’s edge for my makeshift handle to be placed. When it was completely hollowed out, I applied the impromptu handle: a short length of chain about 3-links long left over from sail shade shenanigans. I fastened in via woodscrew and washer. Next, I took some wood putty and smoothed out the rough portions of the hole, and 15 minutes later, I filed/smoothened the edges of the recess before painting it turquoise.
The final portion of the morning was spent helping Padre and Wag vaccinate a number of heifers – a process that went quite quickly and easily both for the humanoids and the cattle. (It should be noted I moved the two painted doors out to Jacobhouse with Padre’s help, afterward.)
(7:11 PM Update): While Padre worked on his studio with Wag this afternoon, I set about installing the pocket door. It was an easy task with the most difficult portion arriving when it came time to fit the door into the nigh perfectly measured opening. Fortunately, because there is a step up into the bathroom, I was able to torque the door slightly onto its track. The end result is shown in the video below.
TIL: Today I learned how to make perfect hard-boiled eggs. Simply place 6-8 eggs in a large sauce pan, fill it with cool water until it is 1″ above the eggs’ surface, and then set it over high heat. Next, after a rolling boil has been reached, cook the eggs for 6-7 minutes before using a slotted spoon to retrieve them and place them in a bath of ice water for two minutes (last step helps when it comes to peeling and to preventing the eggs from overcooking).
Also, as described in the building summary, I learned how to fashion a home-made pocket door handle today. (And by proxy, I learned that when purchasing a door slab for a pocket door, there is no need to purposefully select a slab without a handle hole… A handle hole and industrial-wrought lever would have been an easier albeit more expensive alternative).
Commentary: When I realized that I needed a handle for the pocket door, I knew two things. First of all, I knew I should have selected a door with a prefabricated knob-hole, and secondly, I knew that there was no way I was going to start over with painting a whole new door. Nor was I going to mar the face of the door with a large hole in the name of installing a typical pocket-door latch. No, instead I decided to figure out another method.
Back before I build the majority of Jacobhouse, I would have likely thought the quandary over for some time and performed a hefty bit of research before coming up with a solution. Today, however, I decided to just get straight to work. I already described in the summary above the pieces-parts that went into fabricating the homemade pocket-door latch, but I did not write much by way of commentary. In that latter regard, I will state that even though the process was somewhat rough (as was the hole), with a little bit of wood putty and some paint, the pocket door’s latch actually turned out quite nicely.
(7:11 PM Update): Just figured I’d comment here to say that the bathroom’s pocket door slides even more smoothly than butter over hot skillet (I’m hungry).
Final Note: Tomorrow I will begin figuring out how to install the barn door. I intend to mount the ‘slide-bar’ in line with the kitchen’s spice cupboard*, but if I can find a way to curve the slide-bar, I will bend it so the door will cover the entire hall without any sort of modification.
*An arrangement that will require the addition of a hinged ‘flap’ on its south side, so I can completely close off the kitchen-to-bedroom hall.