It's just a box, it shouldn't be too complicated.

And yet, I almost didn't find time to finish my housewarming gift in time for it to go on its delivery. Almost.

It cost me not doing a second coat of lacquer, but I thought the box was in good enough shape looking at it last night that I decided to get some of the hardware on. I taped the hinges to the lid so they'd be lined up properly and then messed with making sure the plastic and magnet would both fit and still close. It took some playing around but everything worked.

So this morning I glued the glass on and put some felt on the back and viola, one shadow box. I tested it out with some help in the shop...

and then took it upstairs to see how it looked on the wall. But it looked a little empty, so I added some more friends.

The wife did not approve of that one, and didn't want me to get any ideas about decorating the living room with more of them. Oh well.

But it's on its way to Colorado now, hopefully it's sturdy enough to make it out there while bungied to the backseat of a goldwing. I'm sure it is, and I'm enjoying feeling like I've at least done the social minimum for a family member who's just had a big event happen in his life. Good enough for me.

Mistakes are okay (as long as you can do something about them).

I will admit to hitting a rough patch on the basement this week. A lot of that has to do with not having power for a few days while I waited for an electrician to repair the damage ComEd did to the house getting the power back on, and frustration in dealing with them and the fence company not being able to get us back on their schedule. But while this is going on I’m trying to get the outside molding corners right, and I keep seeing other imperfections and they’re kind of driving me nuts. 

The electrician had to trim some of the drywall to replace a couple of outlets last night; it’s not a huge deal but I had them looking pretty good with the covers on. Oh well. I know I can patch. Apparently the wife wants to put new covers on anyway so it can wait until we’ve picked new ones out.

One thing I can do is deal with a smaller mistake that’s been driving me crazy, the coaxial cable sticking out of the wall. What I should have done was bring it more toward the center of the wall so it was closer to where the tv will end up and not running along the wall from the corner. If we can afford a tv, paying an electrician took a nice chunk out of that budget…anyway, too late to change it that now. What I did do, however, is put a prior work box in there so the cover has something to screw into and sits there properly, even if it’s in a dumb place.

When even the simplest sounding jobs get complicated, sometimes it helps to take a break. Literally. Break something.

I thought this would be an easy fix; get the jab saw out, mark the guidelines, and viola, outlet box attached. Of course not. I forgot the foundation was sticking out in that corner, and there’s a stud just to the right of it so there wasn’t even room to cut the hole properly. Thankfully, with a quick mod to the box via breaking the top swing arm off, the box fit in with one side resting on top of the stud. And the screw that would close the swing arm just went right into the stud, so it’s probably on there better than it would have been anyway.

Yeah, that looks better, even with the crappy corner mud job behind it even if I do wish it was about 4 feet to the right. I’ll take some joy in a small victory though, as I try again to get the outside corners lined up. 

I also got a new shop buddy to keep me company while I work on stuff, and to be honest having Batman in the shop with me kind of made my day. I'm going to ride that feeling to the end of this project.  

Maybe I can make him a better perch later.

Purchase list

Prior work box

new coaxial cable cover

Batman