The Start of a Dining Table: Wood and a Plan

I get it. I now understand why this wood was so expensive. Look at it, isn’t it beautiful?

This time it was raining when we headed out to the wood store, but the guy was very helpful shrink wrapping the end of the boards that stuck out of the truck. We didn’t even have any problems on the drive home; the trunk didn’t even bounce on the boards so there were no dents.

The table is going to be maple, 5 boards across each 8” with x-shaped base at each end. Here are the plans I drew up.

And now we know: this wood is beautiful; worth the higher cost cause the quality is so much better.

Covers for the Recycling Bins

A request from my husband was to make covers for the black and blue recycling bins. I started with wood from a pallet that I disassembled and bought some outdoor decking screws.

A few cuts and screws later (and allergic reactions by Tom to the sawdust) I ended up with these simple rectangular covers.

And now we know: this was my first project using pallet wood and the wood is surprisingly good quality as long as you pick a newer pallet

Finished Dressers

Well, I finally got the coat of clear finish on the dressers. I started by using a spray lacquer and even bought a second can when I ran out. I did a couple of coats, left them to dry and carried them in out of the sunlight to examine. The drawer fronts looked fine but the outside boxes were blotchy when the light caught them. I took them back outside, gave them a light sanding and added a third coat. It still looked blotchy so I gave them another sanding and put on 2 coats of the minwax polycrylic with a rag. This produced a much better finish, I wish I’d just used this in the first place and saved the $30 worth of spray.

When I got them upstairs, I started putting them into place next to the bed and realized they didn’t fit! I took the shoe moulding off on both sides and tried again; still no go. So I took a section of baseboard off one side and managed to just get them into place. I guess the room is not square so even though I measured precisely, it caused them to be too large for the space.

I am glad to get these dressers finished and into the room, it has been 4 years that we’ve only had stools next to the bed. The first night with the new night stands Tom claimed they disturbed his sleep as he would hit them in the night then wake up. I have had no such problems, I like that it is much easier to read in bed now with the light up higher.

And now we know: even if it fits based on the measurements, that is no guarantee, so in future leave an inch margin for error

A Final Coat on the Dressers

I was well enough to work on the dressers this weekend…but this time it was the weather that was not cooperating. I got the final coat of white paint on and added a little bit of grey to the routered areas to give them depth.

All that is left is a spray of clear coat to really seal them, but that will have to wait for a day without rain.

And now we know: the finish line is in sight!

Planting the Garden

This long weekend got a little derailed by a bad reaction to some medicine and a stay in the hospital. I did not achieve my goal of finishing my dressers and in truth I was just happy to be able to get off the couch by Tuesday.

Instead, with a lot of help from my lovely husband and mother, we got the vegetable garden planted and fixed up the front flower bed a little.

Here is the veggie garden before we started; the rhubarb was out of control and the rest was empty except for some flowers at the far end.

Here is the veggie garden now, after planting herbs, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, hot peppers and red peppers. Last year animals ate all my tomatoes but the cucumbers grew like crazy and there were too many to eat. I’m hoping for a little more balance this year.

The front of the house was a mess where the foundation was fixed last year. There was a mound of clay instead of a flower bed and large patches without grass.

We created a flower bed with new top soil and added some new plants. The hydrangea is a new purchase but the other large plant was moved over from the right side of the steps. I am trying to square off the front on the beds a little more in the hopes of one day putting in a little rock wall along the fronts.

After the bed was done, we sprinkled grass seed over the bare patches. Even though we’ve have rain every day since, the seed does not seem to be growing.

And now we know: tomatoes should be planted 2 feet apart

Fallen Trees

A couple of weeks ago this happened in our back yard:

Although this weekend was crap weather with lots of rain, we went ahead with our plans to clean the mess up. A friend came over to help and to take the wood home for summer campfires.

He brought a chain saw and we also borrowed one from family. Turns out chain saws are not the magical tool they are portrayed in the movies. We were not slicing through wood like it was butter, each cut took minutes and involved adjusting angles, applying pressure and just a lot of effort. And that was when they were actually working; if one didn't need more gas the other needed sharpening or had seized for no reason. After 4 hours in the rain, we realized that the chain saws were not going to make it through the largest section of the trunk, about 18” diameter. These pieces were levered into the woods behind our property and there they will remain…probably forever. Unfortunately the fence was a victim of the tree.

On Sunday I spent yet more time sanding the 2 dressers I built. This project is really dragging on. I realize it is because I have been so sick, but I feel like they will never be done. The sanding is finally complete and all they need is a few coats of paint. Hopefully they will be done by the end of the long weekend…

And now we know: the movies make chain saws look much more efficient than they are, or maybe we need chainsaws that are less that 20 years old?

I Master the Router (mostly)

My grandfather-in-law generously gave me his router in the fall. This tool has been kindof intimidating to me. First it was unclear what purpose it serves, then people were suggesting it would be impossible to use without mounting it in a table. I decided to try it out for the most unique thing it does (to my thinking) which is create grooves and edge details. I wanted the drawer fronts to have some interest so decided to do 2 vertical and 2 horizontal grooves on each one. I spend a lot of time experimenting with depth of the bit and how to set the guide the correct distance from the bit. The result once I finally got going was exactly as I picture it and pretty fast to do.

Then I decided to add some detail to the top edges so they wouldn’t be so sharp. Using a bit I got for Christmas that makes a double scallop type design, I did 3 sides of each top piece. This was harder to control and you had to be careful on the corner to get them to line up. There were a couple of errors but nothing major that a little wood filler won’t fix.

I managed to finish all this detail work in under an hour. The cleaning up after was when it all started to go bad. The guide piece is a plastic block, attached to the router by screwing in 2 metal rods which are then screwed from above into the guide. While removing it, I broke the top of one of the screws and am now unable to remove the guide. We are still trying to come up with a way to get the screw out because the router is unusable if we can’t. So I mastered the router and then broke it all in one day.

And now we know: be careful with pliers of metal bits of old tools, metal fatigue is real