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.

Media stand part 6: change of plans

Whelp, I said it enough times that it had to come true.

I wasn't crazy about how tall the stand was with the pieces put together, so instead of putting it on the initial foundation I broke it down to just one rectangle for the stand to sit on with it closer to the ground. I had to get the wife's permission of course, and she said to go for it.

I'm hoping it gives the shelves a floating look without leaving any open space for crumbs or toys to clutter up. Of course, getting to that point wasn't without issues. I had to cut two sides to get it smaller than the actual shelves, and trimmed both sides at a point where each had one of the kreg holes exposed. Oops. But it was an easy fix; I used a kreg plug to fill the hole before I re-painted. A little glue and a a quick saw worked just fine.

Clamped down for glue to set, with brackets as well

I was still thinking drawers on the now bottom shelf, and picked up some plywood to make the boxes out of and a 6' stretch of 1x12 board to put across the front when they're ready. Felt like a good time to try out the table saw too, and holy crap am I in love.

That took about 3 minutes. 3 loud, dusty minutes. But everything stayed straight, and once I got the hang of feeding things through it was easy work. Lining up the drawer slides and sizing the actual drawers is another story.

Even a simple box gave me enough trouble getting it sized properly for the drawer slides I was wondering if they were worth the effort at this point. But I dialed it in eventually, and it's starting to look like actual furniture at this point. I can see a finished version of this project in my head and I like it, I just have to be patient on the way there.

Sharing my space

It's been an amazing experience to watch our house round itself into shape over the past 15 months. As we settle in storage areas filled up and spaces delineated themselves by purpose, or at least intended purpose. And now I find myself wondering how exactly it's come to this, b/c now I'm sharing my garage with not just my bike trainer, but a new treadmill as well, and maybe even the elliptical again. Woo boy.

That's a little more crowded than I usually like.

The funny thing is when I first floated the idea of a workspace by the wife, her only concern was what we would do in a few years when our oldest gets a car and doesn't have a covered space to park it. Ha ha ha ha! Somehow I don't think she's worried about that right now.

Step 1: get rid of the garbage.

What I'm worried about is keeping this treadmill as dust free as possible, and that's going to take some re-organizing and possibly some dust collection planning in the future. We killed our last treadmill but I'd like to keep this one around long enough to lose the severe case of dadbod I seem to have caught. For now, I'll hope that changing the space around a bit is enough to keep things workable. I have plenty of projects on my spring/summer list, and don't want to lose my space to do it!

From leaning to screwed

Whelp, back things up. The leaning shelf was an easy build and quickly came together. Unfortunately they weren’t a hit with anyone. For a bathroom no one uses these got a surprisingly big THUMBS DOWN from the rest of the family. No one liked using the basement bathroom with the shelves crowding them while they tried to do their business. That includes the boy, who uses that bathroom as his last stop before getting into the car before leaving for anywhere. So they pretty much had to go away. 

Well, not entirely. I like having extra shelves out, and was pleased with each individual shelf as a product as they came together. So I just figured why not put them directly on the wall as floating shelves.  

Well, the first shelf can support another, so that's a good sign.

These might not be as pretty as sliding a hollow shelf directly onto a bracket attached to the studs but since they were already built it seemed like a waste not to put them on as is. It was as simple as putting a screw into each stud they went across directly through the back ledge. I get the appeal of a leaning shelf but why own a home if you’re not going to put the occasional holes in the wall? I’ve got the time, I can go a little more invasive if the situation calls for it.

Maybe some more decorations would be good.

Not having shelf legs surrounding the toilet got immediate approval from the boy, so these are good to stay up. It’s always nice to have somewhere else to put a picture of Payton after all.