scrap wood stool

This was a fun build from a few days ago.

I could not be happier with how much the kids love playing in the sandbox. It gets them outside, they use their imaginations, and it does us good to do the same. But I’m old, and my body can’t sit there forever with them. Especially if they’re out there after I’ve spent the morning mowing or adding a fence gate or drywalling or god only knows what other kind of physical labor. Thankfully, I have tons of scrap wood sitting around after all these builds and some of it was the perfect size to try and put a stool together to leave outside.

That looks like the start of something at least

This really seemed to come together quickly thanks to necessity. One minute I was in the garage looking for something else, the next I had a flash of inspiration and was slapping this together. Even had my phone in my pocket to snap a few pics real quick. Chopping a spare board, a quick 10 degree trim on the miter, trimming the back legs to length, sanding the corners down, and that’s it. Easy.

I can sit on it, so it's done.

The seat could have used some additional shaping but (butt?) it’s sturdy and that’s all it really needs to be. Doesn’t add much to the ‘pretty’ side of the equation but it can support my 220 lbs when I need it to. Using scrap from other projects means the only cost to this stool was time, and it was well worth it. That’s my kind of project.  

Boo, 5 day work weeks

I’ve been able to mix some posts on smaller stuff in lately now that the basement has rounded into shape, but I’m not sure how much that’s going to continue now that summer is wrapping up and I’m back on (gasp) five-day work weeks this week. Cry me a river.

Part of me wants to joke about the reason to have a shop is to have someplace to be away from the family during free time, but honestly that’s not really my thing. Three-day weekends all summer are just too perfect for really getting to work on something, and I hate losing that extra time. Case in point: I snuck in some baseboard caulking to try and get things done on Sunday while the kids were napping. Made some progress but had to cut it short when everyone woke up and wanted to go to the park. Gotta do that kind of thing when you can.

The killer is I still had so many more things I wanted to get done. There just weren't enough days with space open, and I realize it's always going to be that way. One big project in the basement just ate up a lot of my free time this summer. At least it got done without taking too much away from my family time, or at least close enough to meet my definition of “finished” with some caulking still left. 

But are we really ever finished? I have to add some quarter rounds to the baseboard to fill some gaps where the flooring stops short of the wall. The wife has some ideas about trying a spray texture. But there's always something else too; I noticed a rainy July really did a number on my gorgeous patio table, so a re-finishing project just got bumped a little higher on the “to-do” list for fall. Always something else to work on, the trick now is finding the time to do it.

HO-LEE COW!

Sorry about the yelling but it’s kind of warranted. 

I was googling our address to try to find a good picture of the front of the house to look at how the house numbers are set up right now (writing that down just struck me as very strange; I can find literally anything as long as I’m comfortable sharing it with google). I found something even better.

A bunch of the recent listing photos came up, but so did a picture that matches the color scheme you see if you get the google earth view of the address. It’s probably from when the previous owner bought from whomever he bought from. Well of course I’m going to click on that.

Yup, that's our basement two owners removed.

Wow. Just, wow. I like those chairs though.

I know I've mentioned how I kind of wondered what the previous owner was thinking with some of his design choices, but seeing the rest of the house I actually have to give him some credit. There were some pretty awful colors and tile in those photos. Without shots of the rest of the house it doesn't make sense to put the others up too, but that basement one just takes the cake. That’s a pretty big progression, from that, to what we moved into, to what it is now. Just crazy.

As a reminder, here it is after we moved in...

And here it is now.

The seller’s realtor tried to describe the house as it was when her client first bought it but I don’t think she quite did it justice. Jeez. FYI, I can’t believe it’s been nearly a year since we sold and started looking. I see potential even under these old photos, but I’m not sure if that’s how much I like the house now biasing me or not.