Okay, let's just call it part 10

Start to finish, here's about five weeks' worth of work.

 

Five weeks, and how much did it end up costing? Roughly, we're only talking about $150.

$10 for the 1x12 across the front.
$50 for 6 standard quality 1x10's.
$20 for 2 18" drawer slides
$5 for the cabinet hinges
$5 for the 3/4" plywood for the drawers
$13 for the triple coat poly
$45 for the 2x2's I didn't end up using 75% of (dammit)
$5 various other brackets and felt footings

Not the biggest project I've worked on but definitely the most involved, and I learned a lot on it. I liked being able to make builder-quality pine look a little nicer, at least nice enough to have out in the living room with the right kind of build. If I had more budget I would be up for working with nicer wood, but this way I'm not worried too much about messing up at least. I'm going to miss having something to keep me so distracted on my down time as the school year gets ready to start.

crib desk progress, start to finish

That was a fun two-month project. Now all we have to do is move it, and find the right chairs. I'm not making those.

Two months gave me a lot of time for other stuff in the garage too.

This cut was the decision I was most nervous about. Thankfully things worked.

Primer is always worth it, as proved by the first coat of paint.

Second coat, thank god.

I'm not an engineer but these seem to be doing the job.

I love my kreg jig.

Test fit, this might have been enough at this point.

Shelf and finish on.

Finished! Now I just have to get some help moving it.

 And that's it.None of these were with the panoramic lens either, so glad I picked that up.

If you're going to take photos, take good photos

Of course, it's not always as simple as just taking good photos.

Talking about diy projects is always more interesting when there are pictures attached, but I'm not always thrilled with my shoddy camera phone pics of whatever I'm working on. It was most noticeable working on the fireplace: I would try to get all the details I wanted in the frame but couldn't get it right. The convenience of the phone outweighs the quality most of the time. It's good to get a quick dozen shots of the boy at karate practice and hope one turns out, but not always great for a focused shot of something particular.

Anyway, that's a round-about way to introduce I was looking at a clip on lens and got one pretty cheap on Amazon. It's not great, but it did get some decent shots where I could fit more detail in.

the kit

I used one in the post about having to figure out how to fit the treadmill into the garage. Things usually aren't that curvy in real life. And if I work on something small, the macro lens will probably get better detail than just the phone itself.

without the lens

W/the lens. Believe me, things are straighter in real life.

There is an awful lot of distortion on the wide angle lens pictures though. Apparently there are fixes for this with photo editing apps but I haven't found one I like yet. So eventually, the pictures here might get better. I wouldn't hold my breath though, even as I get ready to post more crib-desk photos...