Just in time for football season

This feels like the end of a pretty productive summer. I got a few good projects in, and even though let the lawn lapse a little (I only mowed the backyard once all season), things are in decent shape around the house right now.

Minus not finishing a painting or two, the big and small projects turned out like they should. I was really happy with how my helmet stands turned out earlier this summer, but looking at the photos of my ND helmet on it something was missing. I couldn't tell what it was until I realized it was the missing decal above the facemask.

A real helmet for sale.

My old helmet. Not quite the same.

It never bothered me before, partly b/c this wasn't an official helmet. When I was a senior I knew an equipment manager for the football team. This was when they were still spending the Fridays before games painting the helmets gold, and I just happened to have access to a few old helmets I had around, so I convinced him to bring them in with him and get painted. One for him, one for my roommate, and one for me. So it's not an official ND helmet, but it's about as official as an unofficial helmet could be.

It's always gotten attention from any sports fan that's seen it since then, and various people have even been impressed enough to offer to buy it off me to no avail. At this point I kind of love it more since I conned my way into it vs shelling out to buy a real one. Because of that, not having the decal never really bothered me but looking at the pics, I wondered if I could find some online.

Of course you can find them online, and even if they're not a perfect fit, since I'm still breaking even on this deal anyway, why not pay $6 for some decals and see if they fit. So that's what I did, and they do, in fact, look pretty great.

And while the missing decals didn't bother me, the yellow face mask always has. And if I'm spending money on decals, why not break out the leftover primer again to take care of that?

Huh. That might explain why the helmet is so small.

So many coats of grey at this point.

Looks good back on the stand though.

Even with my unsteady hand this thing is truly display ready, which is good b/c it's too small to fit my huge head and this is as much use as it's going to get. But it looks good back on the stand, and with football season starting this felt like a good project to get wrapped up as summer winds down. Now if only either of my teams could look competitive this year that would be a bonus. I have the feeling it's going to be a long fall.

bench re-do

Turns out I might not be unemployed quite so soon...apparently the city council heard about the college's plans and put the kibosh on things. Made the board chair call an emergency meeting to repeal and rescind approval on the re-org, putting the whole thing on hold. Nothing like living life on a roller coaster to make you really look forward to shop time.

Before all this happened I had plenty of stuff to keep me busy around the house. Along with the new stuff, this summer has kind of turned into revisiting projects from last summer and giving them a slight tune-up. The gate got an anti-sag kit put on, the lounge chairs got a new coat of poly before the cushions went on after I cleaned out the fire-pit area. I had to fix the patio table after we left the umbrella open and it got blown over, collapsing the middle boards and knocking the planters out. Mostly minor stuff, but the bench for the table needed a big tune-up.

Fortunately re-doing the bench has made it so much better. It was in pretty rough shape; I had already taken two boards out to make the firewood stand.

And to replace them, I picked up not only two new 2x4's, but 4 additional 1x4's to fill the blank spaces and try to keep things straighter over time. Each one got screwed to a neighboring 2x4 in the hopes that keep everything tightly together will help keep it straighter over the next couple of winters.

With the bench-top formed, my planes got quite a workout. Even the left-over 2x4 that was stained got shaved down so everything was level. Lots of shavings to clean up, and eventually I had a pretty good looking surface area.

After that, it was a simple stain job before taking everything outside for a couple poly coats. This looks a lot better than the old one did. I hope this helps it last a little longer. It's okay with just four chairs around the table right now but we could use a bench too.

As upset as I have been to go back to some of these projects, I'm the first to admit I don't really know what I'm doing and each time I come back to something I come back having learned something to make a new project better. This bench is the prime example. And as much as I love my table, I'm getting mentally read to make another one that's even better in a year or two.

punching up a poang

Working on the crib desk got me thinking about other items that could use a re-finishing around the house, and the two that jumped out right away were the poang chair and ottoman in the basement. The origins of the chair have been lost to the sands of time, it's just been with us for as long as we can remember. But the ottoman we picked up while staging our condo. Which explains why they're two different colors, since I bought the wrong one. Whoops. At least I managed to get matching pads, even if they could use a wash by now too. But we can fix the matching now, so why not bust out the sandpaper and see if we can't stain them a nice, dignified walnut.

Forgot to take a picture before I started. Had to use the way-back machine to find one.

But first we fix, or at least make better, a few of the joints on the chair. Mostly, the one at the bottom that's missing a screw and somehow hasn't made the chair fall out from underneath anyone. At least it's motivation to get out the clamps and wood glue, b/c I've been meaning to do it for a looooong time.

This has been a long time coming.

These clamps are the worst but sometimes they do the job.

With that done, we can sand off the veneer and get the wood in some kind of condition ready for stain. I realize I probably should have taken these apart more to really get them ready, but honestly it's not like they're real furniture. 

Those are similar enough starting points this might actually work.

I disparage the chair and IKEA in general, but that doesn't mean I don't love sitting in it. It's super comfortable and I kind of wish we had a better spot for it than the basement. Even without having a real home for it, I can't bring myself to throw it out. Re-staining it won't help us find a better place for it, but if it gets a cosmetic upgrade it'll make my argument for not throwing it easier to make. Now all I've got to do is find time to do the rest of the work.

Okay, now don't rain on it!

Building a patio table for our new house was such a positive experience that it basically inspired this entire blog and just about everything else I’ve done around the house this year. Most of it has gone pretty well, and I have the table to thank for that. So imagine how sad I felt to see how much abuse that table has taken during a hot, wet, first summer in the suburbs.

Seeing this wounded me on a spiritual level

Basically all the rain we’ve had got the poly to start peeling and no one wants to sit down and get flakes of polyurethane all over them. Thankfully, with the office closed for Columbus Day I had some time to fix things up before the weather turned too much. Now I just have to hope it doesn’t rain for the next few days. 

I was optimistic that sanding everything down and re-sealing would be enough to keep the table usable for at least one more summer. The first few passes with the sander had me a little dubious though.

Woof. This did not have me feeling any better.

Once the polyurethane came out things started to turn around though. I managed to get two coats on through the course of the afternoon while working on a bunch of other stuff around the house, and thankfully it didn’t end up raining afterwards. Fingers crossed I have good weather and a few minutes a day to sneak a few more coats on this week. 

First coat. Okay, that looks much better.

I’m hoping that picking up a cover will give the table enough added protection this winter that things stay in decent shape. I love this table but if we get one more summer out of it that might be enough. There are a lot things I would do differently if I was building one today, and with a hand me down cooler ready for the stand treatment, I think building a plain table with nicer wood might yield better results. Those are questions for next summer though, as I spend the fall trying to make sure the table we have now makes it there.