Not much progress this weekend as this time was devoted to working with a few contractors to tie up some loose ends. First up is meeting with an electrician to clean up some hanging wires that I found when I removed the drop ceiling in the living room. The electrician re-runs the wires and neatly ties them up into the soffits and behind plaster rather than having them surface mounted on the ceiling and walls.

Next I meet up with a plumber to discuss fixing the pipes in the cottage. When I winterized the cottage I totally botched the draining of the water lines and now I’m facing 5 different breaks in the pipes. Over the week, they were able to fix a few of the breaks, but now there’s a break behind the sink in the kitchen. This will require some larger reworking that they want to run by me.

After meeting with the contractors, I start testing out the various finishes to get ready to finish the built-in. I first confirm that the original wood was shellacked. The problem is that it doesn’t appear that the wood was stained. I try with using just the various shades of shellac, but it looks like it will never reach the nice rich dark amber color found on the originals. It seems like I’ll need to use some stain/dye to get the wood a little more tinted before going with the shellac.