Patio

Since my Pergola is finished and the wood has seasoned for at least a year, I thought it was time to add an extension onto the patio so that I could get my grill off of the main sitting part. I added a 11.5' x 6.5' paver area off to the west of the main patio. This was made with 12" x 12" plain concrete pavers from Lowe's and 6" x 6" autumn blend pavers for the edging from Menards.

It was an easy project to do. I added landscape fabric for weed control and a 2" layer of sand before laying the pavers on top. I had to make two cuts around the post closest to the house. These cuts were made with a 4.5" angle grinder and a diamond blade ($10 from menards), and was really simple to do.

As you notice the pergola was also stained a solid black during the process. I used Cabot's solid color stain and I would recommend it to anyone that will listen.

Bathroom remodel

Since Hurricane Issac rained out the Labor Day Weekend, and I was not able to get outside to work on the patio. I started the bathroom remodel.

First here are some before pictures. The bathroom was original to the house which was built in 1970. And the decor shows it's age:

Gutting the room proved to easier than I anticipated, and there were no real surprises. The only issue was a leaky toilet valve because it wouldn't shut off all of the way, and that was easily replaced. Here it is with all the fixtures removed:

I choose a 12 x 24 porcelain tile that I think helps with the size of the bathroom, making it feel bigger. I used an underlayment product from Schluter Ditra that I bought at Lowes. Here is a link to the product: http://www.schluter.com/6_1_ditra.aspx . It was easily applied, just put it down with thinset and laid the tile on top with thinset. It is supposed to help with shifting floors that normally cause the grout to crack and come out. We will see.

  

Here are some last pics of the layout and grouting and the finished floor.

Here are some more "after" pictures. It is mostly finished. I still have to alter the middle drawer in the vanity, change the hanging light fixture and put in a register cover.

First bowl

I turned my first real bowl on my new lathe today. The stock
On the left is what I started with and I finished it with some linseed oil.

I can't wait to try my hand at some pen turning.

Mallet

Box joints

Homemade sheet good rack

I recently built this sheet good rack that swings out of the way against a wall for storage, but will swing out so that you can pull your sheets out. I saw this in a magazine several years ago. It is made of a piece of scrap plywood I took off of the top of a skid, and a piece of scrap 2 x 10 I just had lying around.

I first cut the plywood (which was about 35" square) on a diagonal. I off set the cut so that it would leave a flat edge giving me some height for support out at the end of the bottom.

I then cut a piece of 2 x 10 35" in length to fully support the bottom, and used the left over piece to support the back.

I attached heavy steel casters that swivel to the bottom to support the weight of the sheet goods. I used two casters, one at the front and one at the back.

Attached a heavy duty door hinge to the back and attached that piece to a stud in the wall to keep the hinge point in place. All of the weight will rest on the casters at the bottom, but when the rack is fully loaded with wood it will be heavy and pull on the hinge. So it is a good idea to have a strong hinge and attach it well.

Here is the rack fully assembled and loaded up with sheet goods. It is a much better solution than leaning them against a wall like I was doing.

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Keepsake box

Just started putting together some keepsake boxes for the girls in my family. I found plans for them in the September 2002 issue of WOOD magazine. They use two contrasting species of wood to make a box that looks like it has some very nice inlays. The work can all be done on a table saw and sander so it fits a small shop pretty well.

I made my prototype out of curly maple and mahogany.

I learned several things after building the first one, like glue up all of the sides in one long piece and then plane and sand to thickness. Also move the dado for the box bottom up to 5/16" from the bottom edge of the sides so that the groove doesn't hit the glue joint for the trim pieces.

Start to finish you should easily complete a couple of boxes in a weekend.

Here is a look at the trim detail on the side of the box. Make sure that you are cutting the trim pieces from the far side of a wide blank for safety because they are pretty thin. You can also see the splines sticking out of the end of the box that I haven't trimmed up yet.