Don’t ask me what we did today.

I know it was a reasonably productive day, but I can’t tell you exactly what all we did. It was a ridiculously nice January day with temps near 50 deg. and the sun shining. If we can’t be out snowboarding already, at least we have good van-building weather!

My focus today was on the microwave cabinet. With the refrigerator cabinet in the microwave cabinet, which sits on top, is the next logical step. For a cabinet that seemed mostly finished, there were a lot of little things to work on. The cabinet will attach to the wall with 1/2″ furring strips that bolt to the wall. These were installed on the wall, but I had not yet decided how to attach the cabinet. In the end I decided to just attach them directly to the cabinet with glue, one nail, and two screws for each edge. Now the furring strip is solidly attached to the cabinet and when we are ready we can just bolt it back on the wall.

I also worked on the electrical connections in the cabinet. As you may recall, this cabinet will have the switch for our bedroom lights, the rheostat for the heater, and a 110V outlet for the microwave. I will also end up adding a switch to power a small 12V fan to help exhaust refrigerator and microwave hot air.

Somewhere in there I also recall working on a couple pieces of 1/4″ birch plywood that will be back panels for the cabinet. We were not sure how we would add a back to the cabinet but we are just going to throw in a small panel to cover the insulation on the wall.

During all my messing with this cabinet Sara kept plugging away at finishing pieces. There are still plenty of pieces to stain and/or polyurethane. She is also working more on her custom dog food drawer, which has a specially designed cover to hold the dog bowls!

Speaking of the dogs, they enjoyed spending another day on the bed. We get a kick out of seeing them up there, though it is probably not in our best interest. We may have to learn to sleep in the driver/passenger seats because they are pretty sure the bed is now theirs.