Finished!

ahhh, that was refreshing. I needed a project like this to help me refocus on what I was doing and what I want to do. This serviced it's purpose nicely and I ended up with a nice looking table. Only problem I have now is that I have 4 young kids who would probably shorten the life expectancy of this table. So I will be looking for a good home for this table. If you are seriously interested contact me . Let me know what you think. thanks....bt

Barnwood Update

It's been a few weeks since I started on this project. I have actually been making some progress, slow and steady wins the race. For those who don't already know I decided to make a nice hall table using a piece of barnwood for the top. I won't go into all the details regarding the top. Here's the basic rundown for the piece. It's about 50" wide, 14" deep and 30" tall. The base is made of solid hard maple. Has tapered legs. Houses 3 drawers and is painted flat black. After cutting and machining all the parts I did some pre-assembly finishing and today (with the help of 3 of my kids) I was able to assemble the base. I still need to build the drawers and construct the drawer runners. There is alittle work left to do on the top but not much. A little more flat black finish, some more assembly, and she'll be good to go. Hopefully have it all wrapped up and ready for unveiling by the end of April. Stay tuned...

bt

Time to refocus!

I have been busy lately (which is a good thing) but...I feel the need to refocus. So I'm starting a new project. I don't want it to be a long drawn out project, just something relatively quick that I can zoom in on. Design, build, finish, and be done. So here is my plan....I came across some old barnwood recently which I intended to use here at the house for some wainscoting. Well scratch that Idea. While sorting through the 23 boards a few of them "spoke" to me. Since I am not one to ignore talking wood. I selected one board about 3/4" thick, 11 1/2" wide by 8' long. As soon as I saw it I had the end product visualized in my head. So here it is. A single piece of barnwood, once standing un-noticed in a crowd of hundreds. Slowly aging, turning gray, as the years passed it by. Well no more, it's time to shine! Follow along as I turn this 100 yr old "barn-siding" into a one of a kind piece of furniture.

bt

Office Built-in . Paintgrade Maple w/ finished desk top

Here is a shot of an office built-in I just installed this week. The room was 11' wide with 9' tall ceilings. All the cases are paintgrade Maple. The bottom cabinets are 16" deep on the left and right. The PC tower is 28" deep and the drawer cabinet has 2 5" drawers and a file drawer below. The desk top is solid Maple finished in Minwax's "gunstock". The upper cabinets are 12" deep. The install went pretty well took about 10hours working alone. With the holidays coming up I'm going to take a little break from larger projects and focus on some small things for family. Maybe even continue to organize the shop at home. Maybe?

Completed Kitchen Installation

Before...


























After.

I spent some time working on the mortise and tenon joinery for the legs/aprons. This is my first attempt with this joint. I drilled out the mortises with my $50 Mortiser that has been collecting dust in the corner of the shop. Next I had to decide whether to tackle the tenons with the tablesaw or my own 2 hands. I really want to involve more hand work in this project so I carefully marked my cut lines and got out my handsaw. I have to say it was quite enjoyable, it really takes you back to the way things used to be done. I took my time and it was quite relaxing actually. I'm so used to rushing around and having to worry about time. That is why this is my vacation project. There is no clock or someone else standing around checking to see if I'm done yet. Just me, some nice cherry wood, and my handsaw. Here are the results from my first mortise and tenon joint. I only had time last night to cut the one side of the Apron. I don't think it came out that bad, did I mention I can't afford to make a mistake since everything is grain matched for continuity around the piece? Should be fun!

Vacation?

I'm technically on vacation this week so what will I do? I've been really busy at my "real" job and doing alot of side jobs lately as well. I finished phase 2 of the kitchen remodel. Somewhere in the past fews weeks I started and finished a 6'x 6' Oak LP record cabinet. I have phase 3 of the kitchen job to build, have finished, and installed by Thanksgiving. Oh and an office built-in, including a desk that also has to be installed by mid November. So I ask, what should I do while on "vacation"? Well, I'm going to be selfish and take a little time to myself. I'm going to finish building a little side table that I started designing (and redesigning) a few months back. It's a small little table standing about 24" high, 20" wide, and about 10" deep. All solid Cherry. I've had the top cut out for some time now, I've rough cut the Apron and drawer parts. Last night I cut the shape for the legs out of 1 3/4" cherry. The leg has a nice curved side to it up at the top and then a taper down to 3/4". I also machined the mortises for the side and back aprons. Today if time allows I plan on cutting the tenons in the aprons as well. We shall see, after all I am on vacation.