Chapter 13 - Left Wall & Sliding Windows to the Vestibule - Stone Pavement to the Spa

February 8 - 10th 2012

More wall painting and staining.  Seems this is the most annoying and boring part even if I’ve found a quick method to do them.  Staining while wall paint dries, then sponging the walls with more paint while the stain dries etc. 

Putting the stained supports into the wall was a pain because they just didn’t fit.  Putting in piece 8 before 7 was absurd as well but luckily the glue hadn’t set yet so I made my modifications.  A little hammering (with the hammer they gave you!) and coaxing pieces in and it finally fit it.  The wall facing the spa was quite nice.  Slats of wood to give that true sauna feeling.  Just have to stain it up glossy to make it shine.  I set the wall section overnight to be sure the glue would hold for the final joining to the vestibule wall.

I painted the stones with an undercoat of grey (wiping off the excess to expose the white stones) and then painted those shades of brown and graphite.  I covered it with a gloss varnish because I wanted to give a sense of damp stones in the spa.

The next day was a total struggle to get the walls to match up.  The back wall to the vestibule had warped (maybe being stored for so long or something) so now I couldn’t match up the lower spa wall with the back vestibule wall.  Lu ended up having to give me an extra set of hands so we could clamp it in.  Good thing I had just bought this clamp otherwise I would have been forced to use string or something.  In my attempt to force the pieces thru, I also punched my fingers thru the kitchen door.  That’ll teach me to close all the sliding doors and windows whilst working.  

In any case, it gave me time to find “No Entrance” written in Kanji and I printed off a new paper screen to cover the window.  Pretty cute.  Again I had to leave everything overnite for sure drying.

Next day, I was able to set in the windows (again - I had put them in backwards the first time so I had to unglue and reset the window sliders...grrr) and finally completed this chapter.

"No Entrance"