Upholstery is not in my wheel house.

But when has that stopped me?

We have a dining room set from World Market that's about 6-years old. The table and bench are in good shape, but the chairs started shedding their covers at an alarming rate this winter. I took one of the chairs into the garage this winter to try and take it apart to see if I could get it down to a seat cushion to re-upholster. Eventually I did, and even got the back off too to see if I could sew a new one (I could not).

Ugh. How exactly do I do this?

This chair has been in the garage since March, and this weekend we finally made it to a fabric store to see what we should try to put on it. I guess it's good that we waited, b/c four yards of the fabric we choose was going to be over $120, but there was a 60% off coupon in their app for Memorial Day. At least that way if I fucked up I wouldn't feel $120-bad.

And this was the first one, I figured out the corners after this. 

But getting the fabric on the seat cushion is easy enough. I wasn't going to mess with cushions so all I had to do was staple the new stuff on and re-attach the cushion. I might not have been technically correct but it looks way better and hopefully will hold up for a while. And none of this meant new tools; a screwdriver to start the staples, pliers to pull them out, a staple gun to put stuff back on. After the first one I got the system down and could turn them around pretty quickly while watching tv. 

At first glance it doesn't look horrible.

Sewing the back, not so much! I pulled two seams on the old cover to make a traceable pattern, and the fit actually wasn't too terrible. The stitching is god awful though.

Yeah, that's not a look I'm happy with.

So I have three mis-matched chairs while I track down a sewing machine to try again with. I can live with that as long as I don't have to pull any more staples any time soon. That was a pain in the ass.

Get some work done!

I really enjoyed my two week break between classes this time around. Usually I'm itching to get back to it, but I managed to get some relaxation in, including some projects around the house.

One thing I got done was adding a gate under our deck. Of course this is an area the dog was instantly curious about, and I needed to close it off. While there was still snow out I just put the old screen door in front of the gap, but now that it's a little nicer I thought I'd close it off in a more presentable fashion.

So I brought home a lattice and some pressure treated 2x4s and got to work. That lattice was a pain in the ass. Of course HD wouldn't cut it, and I understand why, but that meant bringing the whole 4x8' thing home on the roof. Dammit.

Thankfully I could fit a gate in there with one side being 48", so I only had to make one cut on the lattice. For the 2x4's, I moved the blade down on the table saw to do some pass over cuts and carved out a nice groove to drop the lattice in once I had a frame, which I mitered together with glue and kreg screws.

This was solid, but I had some small hinges I hoped would do the job. They seemed to work. And yes, this was when the dog decided to freak out about someone walking by, when I was trapped under the deck. I got out eventually.

I had some bigger screws to put the hinge on the deck post at least.

The boy was also out, and he wanted to help so I let him finish putting a hook & loop on the gate and wall to keep it closed.

Good to have those little hands around. 

Voila, one finished project. Man I needed that, b/c classes have started back up and I'm back to having no free time for the foreseeable future.

Adding some t-tracks

This sore throat just won't got away, but I'll be damned if I let some summer cold I caught from my damn wiener kids' daycare stop me from getting this table done.

Having mentioned we've lost wine glass storage, I want to put some racks at the top of the cabinet space on the table. Thankfully I have enough scrap around to pretty much recreate multiple rows of these in the build.

I used the old storage as a guide for how far apart they should be and think it worked out pretty well. I like having efficient storage built into a project like this, I just hope I do it well enough that it works long term. We don't use a lot of these glasses, but it's not like I want them breaking if they're in here.

The pictures pretty much speak for themselves at this point, there's not a lot of design going into how these come together. I ended up with 5 racks instead of the 6 we had, hopefully it doesn't mean throwing out too many glasses we don't use anyway.

With these in and the door ready, I'm hoping it's time to get sanding and staining. The legs I ordered should be here in the near future, and it's going to be hard to resist just getting them on and bringing this upstairs at that point. Better that it's ready to be finished first.

One door, I guess

So the past few days have been horrible on my schedule. Staying late at the office, then working on stuff when I get home, on top of school, it's been hard to be productive. But these are exactly the kinds of weeks I want to work on something, so I tried to find time to make some progress on the table.

Part of that progress was getting a door for the bar cabinet. I thought I had a good plan to move on but as it turns out, things change. I ended up getting some flush hinges so instead of two doors over the opening, there is one door flush to the opening. Or at least there will be once I formally attach it.

All the door is is split 1x4 board for the frame, routered out to hold a 1/4 inch oak plywood in the middle. And b/c I'm lazy, I kregged the corners instead of getting fancy. It works, and it'll be on the inside.

But putting the hinges on permanently is going to have to wait until I get it stained, and I can't even decided how to do that right now. I actually kind of like the idea of going two-toned, and not staining the panel in the middle. We'll see what the wife thinks of that.

I should probably get staining in general, but I'm saving that until I've had a chance to sand things to my liking. Which will have to wait until I get over the scratchy throat making me want to die right now, thank you very much children.

New behind-the-couch table

As proud as a I initially was of my console table behind the couch, time as not been kind to it. Adding other shelves, trying to cover the open sides, it's harder to look at every time I walk by. So I finally snapped, and put together a plan to build a new one.

Adding a wrinkle, we lost our wine glass storage space this summer when the in-laws moved and gave us their piano. A nice gesture but unfortunately the best place for it was occupied by our wine butler, which is now gone. So not only am I being bombarded by the atonal key bashing the kids apparently really enjoy, I also have to figure out where to put our stemware that's not taking up space somewhere else. Well why not just add a bar cabinet to the table, and maybe put my whiskey in there to free up other cabinet space too. At least that's the plan.

One door? Two doors? Maybe one to make it easier. 

So far this has really impressed upon me how great it was to have summer Fridays off. I didn't really need any help appreciating them but having a project like this really makes it clear. For one, I didn't really like any of the boards at my local places, but being pressed for time I felt like I couldn't wait. I ended up deciding to give the glued boards a chance. They've been fine so far but I'm a little dubious about what the finish is going to look like.

And then there's the time to actually do any of this work. If I ride my bike I don't have to run, but I get home later and then can't do any power tool work with the kids in bed at the end of the day. I'm also fucking exhausted when it's in the 90's and humid. The weekends are pretty much full of sports and kids activities, so I basically have to get up early and squeeze in a few minutes where I can. If I plan right, I can get straight to work and get something done, hopefully doing it right the first time. It's been kind of rough.

And I'm already off plan @ this point, adding a middle support to the open shelf.

But the frame is rounding into shape. You can see in the design, I'm planning on putting this on short hair pin legs to give some room for shoes below it, and I think two open shelves will be more than enough for what's on the current table. Those cabinet doors have me a little worried, but let's cross that bridge when we come to it. In a month or two, at this pace...

You need legs to have a table

Alright, time to get back to work.

I might hem and haw about the type of finish to use, but I can worry about that once the legs are built. So I might as well get cracking on putting something together.

This table is a few inches longer and wider than the old one, so even if I had been able to get the old legs off in one piece they might not have worked. Fortunately I think I have a better plan for this one, plus keeping them separate will make it a lot easier to move them once they're ready.

These are nice, way nicer than the old ones. I don't think I'll even need finish.

I went with 7 8-foot lengths of cedar toned pressure treated 2x4's; the finish is so nice I think I'm going to just leave them as they are, or at least not stain them before I seal them. 7 of them only cost about $40, which will bring the total cost to around $100 if things go well. Math is not always my strong point though; I was worried about my numbers here and almost got an extra board but this was actually perfect to within a few feet. Here's to not messing up.

Trimmed four lengths to 29.5 inches, then four more a little shorter with room for the aprons to fit on.

Glued them all at once and left them there all day. 

These will hold the two long apron supports for the table, I just had to decide how far apart to put them. Turns out 27 inches would put the aprons right in the middle of the two outside boards, so that was my spacing.

Consider this proof of concept at least. 

Even dry fit this put me in a happy place. 

I was a bit stressed at this point as I had to figure out how to get the mower out and stored since the grass was getting pretty long. Eventually I moved the legs out just to have more space, and was pleased with how well things were staying together just balancing there. And I could do it in pieces and still move everything myself, so that was a bonus.

It sounds so simple in four sentences but this was more than a weekend's-plus worth of time working when I could. It didn't help that we also bought 15 bags of mulch and I spent some time putting that out. Ah, home ownership. It put me in the mood to be outside at least, so hopefully I can get this done in the near future.

And this is why you clean

Cleaning has gone really well the past couple of days. On top of getting the dust and scrap together I managed to stash the decorations, and even put a new bike hook up in the event I get my act together and bike commute. I split the legs for sawhorses too, giving me two that can be taken apart and stored out of the way when not in use to keep things clean. I can't even finish straightening up without making more work for myself. 

But things are finally looking good; tools are stored properly, the workbench has been vac'd, scraps have been chopped, the floor swept, and the decorations hidden away. And why was this so important? Two new items: putting together the boy's birthday bike, and getting a new table top together. Good times.

Is it overkill to put a kids bike on the stand to get it all set? Maybe, but if you've got the tools then why not make things easier on yourself. Even with the right set up this bike was still a pain to get acceptable. Did I feel silly buying a cheap box bike for the boy's first real bike? A little bit, yes. 

But the good news I have a nice clean garage to get all messy with this new table top I'm all set to throw together. And I can't wait! I only have to find the actual time to put it together between work, kids, classes, and everything else going on. 

Just laying the boards out looks like it has so much potential my hands start wondering where the tools are. This is going to be fun!

I admit, it's time

Not cleaning up after two relatively big projects was pure laziness, I will admit. But obviously March kind of got the better of me, between work and classes I couldn't find the energy to clean things up. But I'm hearing the call of re-doing the patio table with a new top, and there's no way I can do that with the shop in its current state.

Add on needing to get the bike ready for a potential bike commute and things needed to get straightened up. Nothing like spring break to kick start a little spring cleaning. Of course, I couldn't help making a bit more mess to clean up too.

First things to go were the scraps from the desk. I'm keeping them for now in case I follow through on my pizza oven idea and need clean scrap to burn, but they'll probably just be firewood eventually.

Next the workbench got swept off, and then re-sawdusted by my chopping the old table top into 2x4's I could use with new sawhorse brackets I picked up. Nothing like cleaning up to get some inspiration for another quick project.

I could at least build something in this

There's still some additional cleaning that needs done; there are new boxes of Christmas lights now and the boy's birthday present bike to put together, but nothing that would really stop me from putting a new table top together. Here's to a productive spring!

Aha, something to build for the office!

I have a pretty great set-up in my new office: two big desks to spread out on, a table big enough to fit 5 people around, even a bookshelf for all my old books with some room to put pictures of the kids. Even better, it's all mine! Mine mine mine. Except when I have a meeting in it, which is quite often b/c I'm very important.

First day: I don't think there's any important detail in here. At least I hope not. 

Here's today's view from the other direction...it's nice and sunny out today.

Anyway, the one thing I wasn't crazy about right off the bat was the PC set up. I have a laptop on a dock that I can work off of a full-sized monitor from, and a wireless keyboard. But it's on a weird swivel tray, and my mouse kept falling off. At first I just moved the laptop to the other desk, which I also liked b/c I'm not crazy about not facing the door. But then I can't print and the battery life isn't great, so three months in and I still haven't quite nailed how I like to work yet. Not something to complain about though.

So I got fed up last week, took the tray off the desk myself and just put everything on the desk. It's flat, so it's a step in the right direction, but I need to raise the monitor a couple of inches. So hooray, scrap project time!

I still have not cleaned up from the last two projects. Yikes.

Ah, my favorite kind of project. Perfect to knock out in an afternoon and scratch the project itch. Between the new job and my classes, I was hoping to find something small to work on, and this definitely fit the bill. I had a few nice looking boards that didn't need much work, so I table sawed a few quick miters and glued them up. Easy.

Stopping point one: let the glue dry and it should be good. 

More wipe-on poly, man that goes on thin.

Maybe I should have tried dovetails on the joints here. Probably. Eventually. For now, miters were helpful for getting this done when I could find the time. .

Oops. Should have made it two boards wide. Oh well.

The perfect scrap project: glue a few cuts, a little sanding, and a coat or two of wipe on poly, some felt buttons on the bottom, and ta da, one easy yet functional monitor stand. It's enough work that I feel recharged, but it didn't take weeks to complete.

this summer's big project: media stand

Okay, time to move onto this summer's big project. Here's our current tv stand:

It's probably over 15 years old, and when we bought it to go with a ridiculously massive flatscreen we thought it was temporary. It did the job but it's been through 4 moves by now and 15 years is temporary enough. The kids like to see how much food and crud they can get on it before I yell at them and at this point it's getting to be quite a bit. I think it's time to replace it.

And by replace it, I mean pour over media stand plans for weeks until I find something I like, and then try to do it myself. And that's just what I've been doing. Ultimately I decided to take elements from this, and this, to create something like this:

I should probably look into sketch up at this point.

Again, I have little to no idea what I'm doing most of the time. So I've talked myself into trying a miter joint at the top, and cutting a dado into the sides for the middle shelf. Hopefully I can paint the bottom frame with a good rustoleum and get the metal look from that first stand. We'll see.

A lot of this is trying to do parts of old projects better this time around. I don't like how the console table butt joints look, so I'm trying a miter. Now that I have a bench plane, I can join some 10" boards and make it cleaner than I did with the desk. And that's actually where I started, with a lot of boards from Menards to start framing things up.

I started this while the bench was still in the shop. It's going to be a long build.

I'm not ashamed to say I'm still using my kreg jig a ton, and especially on projects like this. The boy's desk is holding up so far, so why not stick with it if it's still working. Anyway, planing and sanding these boards ate up the rest of my time, but also gave me plenty of time to think about how I want everything to fit together. There's a plan in place, we'll see if it actually works out.

"Huh. It's a little small."

Yeah. That's what she said. Unfortunately.

The wife apparently wasn't thrilled with the L-shape instead of a straight up rectangle, but it was an easy enough build that I could easily add more length to either end if she needs more space. I should probably just do it anyway before things get planted so everything can get planted at the same time. There's plenty of room and these were an easy build.

Great. Now let's go dirt shopping.

Anyway, there was a break in the clouds this afternoon and I was able to beat the evening rain and get a liner in today, and I'm actually starting to get a little excited about what we might plant in this. May is just around the corner, and that means it will be time to get pumpkin seeds in the ground soon...

Slowly getting back to work

I hate January. Being sick only makes it worse, and I haven't gotten much done so far this year. I did manage to clean some puke off the crib this weekend, but that was about it.

Yeah, that was gross.

A little better at least.

I was going to take the stickers off too, but I couldn't find the energy to do anything else. This project might be sitting there for a while.