First You Build a Box

I decided on the Edwardian style of tub this morning. I am compromising. I cut the length down so that I will also have room for the water heater. The tub will still be in the window recess, but now I can have the best of both worlds. There is room for the boxed in tub and for an ugly water heater. I have several books that are full of photos of interiors taken back at the turn of the 19th century. The bathrooms were rather plain and even in the rich homes the water heater was not beautiful. Some of them were downright ugly. I am still going to put in a copper boiler. I like the copper.

Referring to the title.....First you build a box. Actually, first you determine how big the box has to be. I used 3/32" bass wood to build the box.

Since I was using the Chrysnbon tub, I laid that face down on the wood and traced around the outer edge. I then determined that the tub itself sat about 1/4" in from the lip. I drew a line 1/4" in from the first line and cut it out. I didn't bother to get out the jigsaw. It was faster just to do it with an Exacto.

In the first photo I have laid the tub face down and put the wood over it. I had determined that I wanted to make the face piece about 1/2" out on three sides and a tad longer on the slanted back end of the tub. I cut the top out to size. Then I cut out two long pieces at 1 1/2" to cover the long sides of the tub, the exact length of the top. I cut two end pieces the width of the face piece less 3/16". That allows for the thickness of the wood on the long sides.

Next I glued all of the pieces together in my handy dandy magnetic gluing jig. (Kim just asket where I got the jig in a comment. I got it at Micromark about 20 years ago. It is still going strong and yes, they still sell them.)Here you see that part finished and the tub in place.

The tub will not be glued in until the installation. I still need to put in the faucet and other accessories.

After the glue dried, I took the box out of the jig and started cutting pieces of standard molding to make the trim.

Here's the first layer of trim. Yup. Tessie figured out what I was doing. She told me that it will be nice to have a neighbor with a tub. I have the feeling that Steampunk man is going to have to lock his doors.

I wondered what she wanted with the basket of bath products the other day. Now I know. She says that she feels just like Goldilocks. The tub is awfully small for a man. She says it is much more fit for a lady. Here we go again! Tessie knows no boundaries!

See you tomorrow.