make my own furniture

(though not hung; I need hangers, and Dad’s assistance in finding the studs.)

It’s not exactly how I’d pictured it, but the inconsistencies are mostly due to me learning as I went. For a first-time woodworking project, I think it went quite well.

_{The flower pot is just holding it upright for the pic. :)}

and first-round sanded. (Meaning I knocked all the splintery ragged edges off, but they are by no means straight.) It appears that my fingernails got in the way of either the saw or the sandpaper; they’re a big ragged. At least they’re long. And don’t bleed.

I figure it will take me another couple of days (and possibly a new sanding block) to get the edges straight. Then glue, stain, attach…and I’ll have drawers.

But then I thought I’d have this thing done a month or so ago.

I’m going to have a house. With a garage full of tools. Like a power sander. And a jigsaw. And then maybe little projects won’t make my arms shake like this…

and started hacking away at my boards with my butter knife miter saw. I think I did too much…typing is hard right now.

Oh, well…later this week, I should be able to start the staining/gluing process. And maybe, maybe, this weekend it’ll be ready to hang.

_{ow…off to ice my wrists now.}

to make the coat rack doors. Will work on them as time permits.

Need to put an entry here, I guess…a lot more work is going into this coat rack than merely buying it and putting it on the wall!

I’ve got the stain and the top coat of polyurethane on it now. Once the rain stops, I’ll put the final coat on. After that dries, I’ll put the new copper coat hooks on, and the smaller hooks I bought to hold keys, and Phase One will be complete.

Phase 2 requires another trip to the store. I had some wood cut to size for faux drawer fronts; however, they’re only 5.5 inches tall instead of 6. The opening is 6.875 inches. I bought some molding to extend the edges, but it’s obviously not wide enough; I’ve got to go get more. Then bring it home, cut it with the little miter hand saw, and assemble and stain the fronts. Then I’ll add a mosaic and drawer pulls to the front, attach hinges and magnetic catches, and put the whole thing together.

Don’t think that’s all getting done today. But I can at least get the hooks on the coat rack, and do my shopping.

This is the before picture. I’ll post more as I make progress.

by my weekend projects…I think I’m about ready to tackle the elusive coat rack and coffee table. I just need the weather and my back to cooperate with me. So…probably not next weekend, but possibly the weekend after that!

I’m going to do at least one of the projects. R will be off guy-bonding, so I’ve got the whole weekend to myself. And now that my living room is all clean, it’d be nice to have a new coffee table (or heck, even just the coat rack). So far it looks like it’ll be perfect weather for it, but these things change at the drop of a hat.

Lowe’s has these nifty little slate tiles (roughly an inch square) in pre-spaced sheets (I think they were 3×12 inches) for about $3 each. I didn’t buy them because…well, ok, because I’m being a picky little thing and want to scope out other Lowe’s locations to make sure I get the prettiest tiles available. But once I do, I figure 5 or so of those sheets will do nicely for the top of my coffee table-to-be. Heck, once I get around to finishing the coat rack I bought, I may want to cover the front of the drawers with the tiles as well. Hm.

Took the coat rack to my parents’ tonight, to discuss with Dad the making of the drawers. He pulled out one of the drawers in this organizer cubby thing he has, to see how it was constructed…then pulled out his woodworking books so we could study joins. Which lead to a discussion of why he has all those books in the first place—turns out he always wanted to get into woodworking, but never did. No wonder he’s so excited about helping me with this.

He also showed me a plan for wall-mounted storage shelves that he’d thought about putting in Mom’s closet. We studied her closet, discussed its flaws, and came up with some ideas to maximize her storage space. Maybe if I push the issue, we’ll actually carry out these plans. Which means even more fun playing with tools…I can’t wait!