Summer project: work table

There's always a bright side. But if there's a bright side then there is usually a dark side as well. In this particular case the dark side of my wife's new job is that she now must work on Saturdays. The bright side is I now have my Saturdays free to work on projects. Instead of sleeping until 10 and watching television and movies all day, I now get up at 7 with her and head to my parents' house to work on whatever project I'm in the middle of. I know what you're thinking...isn't it kind of lame to have to go to your parents' house to do things like that. No...it isn't...for many reasons. The main reason is there is no place to build things in our 1-bedroom apartment. We have an outdoor patio but it is taken up by my wedding present, which is a large grill. It's awesome but it's huge and there isn't even any room to walk out there. Also my dad has a whole lot more tools than I do. Anyways...In my parents' house there used to be this useless french door between the dining room and what we lovingly call the play room. It was only closed abut 4 times during my adolescent life so when my parents remodeled the play room the door was removed to the backyard where it sat under the over hang of a shed my dad and I built to keep the majority of the elements off it. My dad is kind of a pack rat and keeps everything, which in this case and another upcoming case has greatly helped me out. So anyways this is kind of what the door looked like when I go it out and ripped the creeping vines off it.

As you can clearly see it's french. Many of the glass panes are broken but I managed to salvage around 8 and some of the framing, because I may need it one day. I then ran a circular saw all around the edge of the table to get all of those nasty french guts out. I think it would have been cool if I was able to use the original frame on the inside but I'm not that good and don't have that kind of time. So I did it this way. I basically measured about an inch and a half from where I wanted to cut and clamped a long, straight board to use as a guide for the saw.

One thing that is really awesome about the french craftsmen that made this door is their joinery. Here is a picture that I hope you can see well enough to admire.

Those frenchmen did I few things correct, the Eiffel Tower, The Statue of Liberty, probably some other stuff and this door.

Then, using my dad's huge new chop saw I chop sawed some lumber he had laying around and made some legs and screwed them into the door. (I later realized the way I did it originally was stupid when the thing threatened to fall apart while I was moving it so I changed my design to include screwing through the table into the legs...this was a much better idea) Next I had to figure a way out to brace the desktop I was going to make so I screwed some cheap wood I bought from Home Depot to the sides to make a hopefully-structurally sound desk top. Then I placed the desk top and tacked it down with finishing nails and a nail gun, I don't know why anyone would hammer an actual nail anymore. The shorter side is going to be used to house our scroll saw and the longer side is for drawing and holding papers and the like.

Then it rained for about a week and my wife had to take me to work because I'm a wimp and don't like riding my motorcycle in the rain. Needless to say I didn't work on it for a while and then moved it to my parents' carport and it didn't rain anymore. This is also when the stupid thing tried to fall apart because my stupid libido wouldn't let me not move the stupid thing by my stupid self. I also killed an ant hive that some hasty ants built under the plywood I put on it to keep it dryish. I just poured rubbing alcohol on them and smushed the runners that weren't too big with my fingers. Then I installed a support in the back because it wasn't very stable and it made a world of difference.

Next I made some framing to cover the ugly a little bit with the same plywood I used to cover it. For my finishing touches I painted the top with some chalkboard paint we bought to use at our wedding and ended up not using and the frame and everything else with some very white paint I found in the shed.

Then I was done but I didn't have a truck to move it so it's still in my parents' carport blocking my dad's motorcycle. Here it is in all its french glory.

I'm very happy with the way it turned out. All in all I'd say the project cost me around $50, but that's only because I had to buy 2 new packs of Deck Mate screws, which are $10 a box! I know right! Anyways here's a little teaser on what's going to be involved in my next project, which also happens to be another leftover from my pack rat of a father. If anyone out there needs help building a desk out of an old door I am officially an expert now, so send them my way. -DAve

Why buy when you can build

I'm going through a quarter-life crisis. Yup I'll be 25 in a few months and that is kind of crazy to think about. I've started examining my face for wrinkles and have had "everything is going to be downhill from here" type thoughts. So what am I going to do about it you ask? Well I've decided I'm going to spend more time pursuing my passions and less time napping and watching television. My beautiful wife now works on Saturdays and has to wake up around 7 in the morning so I've been getting up with her and beginning my day then. It kind of sucks but when you've been productive for 3 hours doing what you want to do and it's only 10, it sort of makes up for the suckiness. So what am I doing with all of this time I've been spending on being productive you ask? I'll include a few pictures to show you. First I built this. I've been wanting to work with slices of wood for a while and I noticed what I think was an elm tree cut down and stacked neatly in someone's front yard. Long story short I commandeered it and threw as big of one as I could carry in the back of our car and then grabbed a slightly smaller one. Then I chainsawed it with my dad's old electric chainsaw and put three legs on it. It definitely isn't perfect but I think it turned out looking really cool. I'm going to do some more and use four legs instead of three but this was a great prototype. I saw something similar to this on wonderful Pinterest and decided I would try my hand at a chevron. I bought some 4x4x8 cedar posts and 5 cedar fence faces and chopped them up. I build the frame from the posts and used the fence facing to cover the box. It's a trellis for a grape vine I bought while in Austin, TX. Then I painted it and sanded it down to make it look weathered because bright and new doesn't work with a garden in my opinion. Then I added the vine and am storing it in a friend's backyard until our rent house is ready to move into. I am really happy with how it turned out and the thing is solid. I'm pretty sure it could go to Oz and back and be just fine, but we'll see. Then I used some extra wood and some old bicycle wheels I had and built this trellis. This was inspired by a woodworker/backyard Gardner that I located on the internet. His name is Christopher Gleason and he lives in Salt Lake City and I basically want to be him now. He raises chickens and edibles in his backyard and builds things out of wood for a living. I can see myself getting really into our garden and backyard area and I've already gotten the go-ahead from the wife to build an outdoor table and chairs for it and I can't tell you how excited I am. My father made me build stuff with him when I was a kid and I've been doing it ever since, more so out of my own free will as I get older. It's so much fun to make something that you imagine in your head and see the end result after the sweat and labor of it all. I'm not sure if it's something I want to do for a living but definitely something that I could do on the side. I plan on making some more tables and improving on the one I have made as well as maybe some herb and planter boxes. I'm going to hopefully blog about my processes through setting up our garden and growing vegetables and the things I build. Maybe it'll turn into something maybe it wont, but I've got to give it a shot. I'm at least a quarter of the way dead after all. There's not time like the present to make a life change and I don't want to waste my youth while I'm young.

Mom and pop store

Before I jump into the shameless sales pitch that's about to follow I just want to address a few things. Like why "mom" gets to come first in the name of a small, locally-owned store. I think pop should come first because everyone knows men bring home the proverbial bacon and women just shop. I'll take a little time to make up for my little bit of gendicism there, which is another word for sexism that I just made up.

Really just now...

Anyways...speaking of mom and pop businesses my lovely new bride and I have started being crafty and making things, which also happen to be for sale. Since we both work and don't have a ton of time on our hands to pursue what we like, we just have to find time to do it in the evenings and on weekends.

What you're about to see is the by-product of that. My wife, we'll call her Meghan, enjoys making jewelry and has for a while now, but she's too self conscious to ever brag or really tell anyone about it. So I'm doing it.

She used to make things with beads and pearls and wire, but has since decided to start designing pieces using wood. That's where my manly, beard-growing, grunting prowesses come in. Also I really love working with wood and building things so this goes right along with that.

Our process is: she draws her designs on pieces of wood we buy from lowes or home depot, and I cut them out. Then she paints them and/or stains them and puts chains and rings on them and they look awesome.

We would both love for this to take off and become something that we can share together, but we want to see what people think of them first.

If you like them then tell us, if you don't then I'd rather not know. It will probably just hurt my feelings.

With that being said if you want to buy one let me know. I have no idea how much they are but I doubt they're too much more than pretty inexpensive.

With all that out of the way here's what's cool now:

First the jewelry my wife and I are creating. We both hope our little mom and pop business takes off in the future.

Second catchphrases. For instance mine is "somebody needs to." come up with your own and be prepared to reap the rewards.

Third me, for blogging after like 7 months.

Fourth storage wars, Barry is the best and Dave is a huge douche. Brandi is way too cute for jarrod and Darryl looks like he's 13 months pregnant and has been yelling constantly for the past 7 years.