Garage Project

Everyone will be happy to know Jackson is drinking well again! Thursday he drank only from a sippy cup at home, but Friday he took the bottle again. He even did well at day care, and he's done well all weekend!

We spent the weekend redoing the siding on our garage with the help of a bunch of great friends. Thank you so much Andrew, Todd, Jeff, Eric, and Zack! Many thanks to the wives (and one fiance) who let their husbands help, kept me company, and helped watch the kiddos. It was a lot of work for two days, but the majority of the work is done.

The bottom of our garage was rotting away, so we decided to replace the siding with Hardie Plank. We originally planned on just paying someone to do it for us, but after receiving a quote for $8000, Ross decided he could take care of it.

It was a learning process for everyone invloved, but they did a great job. The first step was demolition. I think the guys had a little fun with this one. After a very short time, this is what our garage looked like.

The next step involved stapling roofing felt around the studs. This part was done very quickly.

Putting up the Hardie Plank proved to be a challenge, but one they successfully completed today. If you didn't know, you can't simply cut Hardie board with a saw, these guys had to score and break each piece. I think there are expensive tools out there to make this easier, but they didn't have one! By the end of the day Saturday, the guys had completed the Hardie Plank on one of the walls of the garage. Impressive progress for a single day! We did have one minor injury towards the end of the day, but luckily it didn't require a trip to the ER! Here are a few pictures from Saturday.

While Jackson and Quin took a nap, Bekah and I helped a little. Mostly with clean up though.

Jackson and Quin spent almost the entire day together playing, and at one point I think there were 6 little ones running around our living room. They seemed to have a blast for the most part.

Today Andrew and his son Nathan (almost 5) came back over and helped finish the job. Nathan helped me take care of Jackson. He was a great entertainer. He could really make Jackson laugh. Later in the day Rhea came over with more entertainers and more help! A family friend of theirs, Zack, helped finish off the Hardie Plank while Rhea and I took the kids to the park down the street. When we returned it was Elena's turn to make Jackson laugh. This time we managed to get a picture.

By the end of day two, this is what our garage looks like.

We have a little more work to do, but the hardest part is now done. We just need to put in a few final nails and put up the trim. Then we'll be on to the next project...our patio cover or fence!

Baby Room Woodworking

First, a quick update...we are still waiting for Jackson to decide he is ready to come. As E said last week, labor will be induced on Thursday unless he decides to come before then. However, E has gotten sick with a stomach bug that has been going around. She checked with the doctor and they may delay the induction if she still isn't feeling well tomorrow. I guess we'll see what happens...

While we wait, I figured I'd talk a little about the woodworking in the baby room. Elizabeth posted pictures last week so have a look at that (because I don't feel like posting more right now - sorry). The dresser was a fun project and it turned out pretty good. I talked about the plan a while back and have posted one update. The project went pretty smoothly because of my experience with the desk. It is a fairly simple MDF case on a stained birch base. The tolerances were pretty tight because of the overlay drawers but it worked out pretty well. The one new experience is that I got a paint/stain sprayer to try to make finishing easier. It worked really well and I am happy with it. The biggest problem with the dresser is that I didn't realize the "clear" polyurethane actually has a bit of a yellow tint. You can't really tell in the pictures but it is noticeable in person. I guess I could sand it down but I don't think it is worth it.

I'm really happy with the wall art...it is just three pieces of MDF glued and screwed together. I got a circle jig for my router that made the circles pretty easy. After setting it up and cutting, they just needed a little sanding to fix the irregularities. They are hung with my standard keyholes. This particular project made me really feel like a woodworker because I had the required materials laying around and didn't have to go buy anything. I'm not sure that will happen very often though since I usually take on big projects.

Dresser Progress

I've been making some pretty good progress on the dresser for Jackson's room. Yesterday, I started painting. The drawers still need to be made but it is probably going to be ready pretty soon if I can find some time to work on it. Below is a picture of the base just before glue-up. I'll try to get some more pictures up soon.

Jackson's Room Coming Together

Jackson's room is starting to come together! Since Elizabeth painted the room, we have gotten old furniture out and some new furniture in. We got the crib and glider. The picture below shows the current state of the room (it's a panorama so it may look a little off).

In addition, E has designed and I have modeled the two pieces of furniture that I intend to build. I'm going to start on the dresser pretty soon and if it goes well and we decide there is enough room, I'll then make the book shelf.

Finished Bed Side Tables/Lamps/Headboard

Today, I completed the bed side tables for our bedroom (previous post), hung them on the wall, and wired up the integrated lamps. I know it sounds a little strange, but it is all part of the headboard design that Elizabeth came up with. This post has a lot of implementation details on the bed side tables. Also, the picture includes the photographs that we hung some time ago but haven't posted a picture of until now.

Stain and Polyurethane

This morning, I put the last coat of polyurethane on the bed side tables. I have to say that staining and applying polyurethane are among my least favorite activities. Anyway, I decided to finish the wood before assembling, so I taped off the areas that will get glue and I'll be putting everything together tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll have pictures soon.

Bed Side Tables

For the first time in six months, I've done some work on the headboard for our bedroom. I've been putting it off partially because of the complexity of what I am trying to do. If you aren't familiar, see this post which talks about the design and shows a drawing of the plan. Basically, I'm trying to create bed side tables with integrated lamps that hang on the wall as part of the headboard. Incidentally, we've added the pictures to the headboard but I haven't uploaded an image yet.

The tables are cantilevered from the vertical board but are about twice as wide as the vertical board so the joinery is not straightforward. The picture below shows the dry fit tables and a more detailed description of the work follows.

First, I created a simple jig to rout slots in the vertical boards.

Next, a little chisel work squared off the slots and a dado blade on the table saw was used to shape the tables appropriately.

Adding some 5 inch triangles using biscuit joinery provides additional support for the tables.

Finally, a little work on the back was done. A slot is run up the back for the power to the lamp. Also, two keyholes are just above the table mounting for attaching to the wall. The upper part will be attached with screws through the board hidden by the light fixture.

Basically, all that is left is to sand, stain, and assemble. Hopefully, I'll have completed images pretty soon.

Question: Bed Joinery

I got an email today from Kris in Bend, OR asking for clarification on how I hid the nuts used to assemble the bed I built.

It's actually a fairly simple solution. I embedded square nuts in the inside frame by cutting snug fitting square holes with a chisel. While square nuts are not nearly as common as hex nuts, my local hardware store had a fairly wide selection for larger bolts like the bed bolts I used. So the decorative oak board would hold the square nuts in place when disassembled, I kept the square nuts fairly close to the surface and drilled shallow holes in the oak to receive the small amount of bolt that might protrude from the nuts. Of course, sizing the bolts and carefully cutting the t-slots was also very important. (To be completely honest, I assembled the inside frame before attaching the finished oak pieces and I haven't taken the bed apart since but my hope is that everything is snug enough that I won't have to take the oak off to get the bed back together.) As for the headboard...it goes against a wall, so that hardware was left exposed. Kris, I hope this helps.

Desk Improvements

After using the desk I built for nearly a year now, I finally got tired of some little issues and fixed them today. From day 1, we had trouble with wire routing. This is mainly because I forgot to leave room for wires when making the sliding shelves. At the time, I rigged a solution by cutting slots for the wires in the shelves but they didn't leave much room for error so we were constantly wiggling wires to make the shelves close fully. Today, I finally fixed the problem. I simply cut a larger notch (1.5" x 5") in the back of each shelf to leave room for the wires. This was done with a simple template I made and a flush trim bit on my router. The first picture below shows an old notch and the template and the second picture shows the results. I can already tell I'm going to be much happier.

Links to Projects Labels

I've been using the Blogger labels for a while now but since I'm moving my projects posts to this blog, I wanted to provide links to the labels on previous posts. That way, if you are looking for posts on a specific topic, you can click on the links below for the older posts.

• computer (9)
• construction (4)
• electrical (2)
• fabric (1)
• furniture (11)
• home improvement (16)
• paint (13)
• repair (3)
• stain (6)
• Taylored Truth (7)
• tile (2)
• woodworking (16)
• yard (2)