Stage 2 of Install!

I was able to install the 3 cabinets FINALLY. When last I posted some pictures I had the carcasses built, but not trim work stain etc. Well here are a few to show how I got from there to here.

All trimmed out and I covered the sides of the plywood tops with the veneer tape. The wide piece at the top of the back is so that I can screw the whole cabinet to the wall stud for safety.

Time to stain it!!

And looking at it straight on. I didn't stain the tops because they are stacked that part wont show anyway.

Now they just needed the backs put on them and after 3 coats of shellac, I put them in the house!

I am going to build 2 of the next 3 cabinets with that shelf  at a different place. The stereo wont fit in there as it is. So they shelf will either be lowered or highered to make room for the stereo. So even though there are 2 on the right side, that top one will come back down and the adjusted ones I will build will go at that level. Then this cabinet will go on top of it all. I can't wait to get the others built. Its going to look so wonderful!

Obviously the base trim still isn't on there. Not to mention the cabinet doors are not on there either. Those are next on my list of things to get done. I am having a hard time figuring out what style of cabinet door to do. I am being a rebel and instead of making 2 cabinet doors for each cabinet, I am going to make 1 larger one for each one. Saves on hinges and the trouble of hanging them straight. Let's hope it doesn't look bad that way.

Stay Tuned for More to Come!

Progress

I got those 3 cabinets into the garage and stained them. Of course I also trimmed them out and put a support piece on the back so that I can screw them to the studs for safety. Tomorrow I hope to install them. Right now they are only on shellac layer 1. I usually do 3-4 so we will see if I can get those done by tomorrow evening. Its warm out so it shouldn't take long to dry and cure between coats.

Wish me luck. Lots of pictures to follow!

My Semi-Productive Weekend

I FINALLY had a day off. Trying to balance my personal life and work life has been particularly hard lately. I love my co-workers (when I am allowed to speak to them. When I am not at least I enjoy listening to them) BUT we don't have downtime and I have a hard time figuring out how and when I am allowed to stop and breath. In order for me to do anything (even my beloved woodworking) I have to stop periodically and just think of something else for a moment and sort of change subjects. When I am at work I will stop, text my husband to tell him I love him. In that moment of NOT working on my work it enables me to change and work on something new. I can't just go from one project to the next without a break in between. Now that I am not allowed to even send my hubby a text, I have no breaks whatsoever and I may lose my mind.

Which brings me to the balance. I have to find a way to do both work (a non stop, never ending cyclical job) and be a parent and still have time to make progress on ME and my projects. It seems as though I am having less moments in between each of these and I find myself wishing to live back in my home town of Boonville. While I wouldn't actually want to LIVE in Boonville again, I do sometimes wish for the small town feel and speed. Things are so chaotic. I rush to get going and get the kids to school so I can rush to work so I can work like crazy straight through the day (no breaks except lunch) and then rush home to get the kids so I can rush home and make dinner so I can get the kids fed, cleaned up and to bed. Then rush to the garage to get some progress made on my project, then rush to bed so I can sleep enough to get up at 5 the next morning and do it all over again....

So I did it. I begged for a day off. It took some convincing and I was able to take Friday off. While I was home that day, I was able to build 3 of the 6 side cabinets. Or at least the carcass of it. I still have to put the facing on it and fill the nail wholes, stain and build the cabinet doors, but hey, I got SOMETHING done.  It was glorious. A lovely day so warm I could work with the garage door open. I spend a good part of the morning installing the 3 bases. My husband had taken the day off too (major bonus!!) so we moved the furniture from the wall and placed the 3 bases against the wall. Then we moved the TV onto it and he re-hooked up all the electronics. Other that realizing this made our TV lower than before it looks great! I am going to have to rearrange the way I was going to build the center cabinets to put something below the TV to raise it up. You can't do Wii-bowling if you have to duck to see the screen. Its fine when you are on the couch watching a movie, but standing up its too low to look straight into.

Once all of that was installed I took the afternoon and 2 sheets of plywood and built 3 side cabinets. We decided on birch plywood because my husband liked the grain pattern more than the oak plywood's grain. I actually agree so that's what I bought. The original plans say to make each of the side cabinets have 4 cubes inside. I didn't want that and so only put in the horizontal shelf and didn't put in the vertical ones. There is still a lot to do on it, but I wanted to dry fit them in there to see if I was right about the measurements. It should go to just a hair below the ceiling. Well, I think I was right!

Here I was thinking those drawers were massive, but then I put this in place...dear me I think this this is going to me SUPER massive (yes, I have such a flair for words right?). Once those cabinet doors are on (and backs and trim etc) its going to be a HUGE wall of cabinets. But as you can see, the games will fit and it will be soooo cool. I wanted to get a picture of the whole things, but really we moved everything away from the wall to the middle of the room leaving me no room to actually back up and take a decent picture. But at least you can see 2 of the 3 bases. Still no base trim because I wanted to wait until I knew exactly how it all fit together before I measured things. I may change my mind later, but if I have the trim all touching each other on the bottom, I have to have it exact. If I do a different thing with the base trim, then I can do it at any time.

Here is the unit before I got the second 2 bases built. I like how the drawer handles look. While simple they look nice and still make a statement.

Beyond that one day of working. I really didn't work on woodworking the rest of the weekend at all. I just hung out with the family. Or rather I spend Saturday helping my son's preschool business move everything to their new location. Helped them pack up stuff and take over 2 loads of stuff. I got to hang out with my husband watching a movie or 3 which was wonderful. On Sunday we got up and played board games with my son. My daughter just wanted to push the board so we didn't have her play. My son totally beat the hubby and me. He is very nice about winning, but I was SO close to winning myself. Ah well, he's 5. It was just a game of chutes and ladders....right? hahaha

 Stay tuned and I will get more work done on those 3 side cabinets!

The Slowest Project

It seems I have spent more time dreaming on this project than actually getting anything DONE on them. Each step is taking weeks. The bases are all done, but my backing is sitting half cut because my son pulled an attitude and I could hear the meltdown of both kids and my husband from the garage. Note to self, DO NOT LET HIM SKIP A NAP! Okay, moving on....

I wasn't able to finish cutting the backing, or the trim. Just 2 tiny pieces cut for the trim, but 5 to go. Sigh. But I was close enough I couldn't wait any longer and I brought them in the house. Talk about a large entertainment center/storage cabinet wall! Perhaps by the end of the week I can actually install it......I love to dream! So imagine these with door handles (also purchased but not yet installed), base trim and backing.....

The games in the second picture are there to help us determine how deep we want to make the side cabinets to hold the games etc.

Stay tuned for base trim, door handles and backing!! :-)

Itching

I have the 3 bases done now. They all have 3 layers of shellac on them. I want to throw a 4th layer on there and then they are ready to be installed. I am itching to be able to build the sides now. I REALLY want to start to install the whole thing, but without the sides I wont have enough storage to move the existing stuff out of the way.

I know that might sound confusing, but I'll figure something out. I am also trying to figure out how to take a trip to Seattle next month and see the sights and do a little helpful teaching of woodworking techniques to some friends of mine.

Wish me luck!

Staining to Bring Out the Beauty

As promiced, here is how it looks with stain. I still need to put on base trim and the backing, but you can start to get the idea of the color and look I am going for.

The drawer without base trim and still needing a little more stain on the inside. This is freshly stained so the flash is making it look uneven. Once I can sand it and throw on some shellac, it will look a LOT prettier.

I also got the center piece of the unit stained. Again it still needs base trim and backing.

This is how they will look together (except of course there will be a 3rd piece with another huge drawer on the other side of the center piece)

Now to just find time to build the other drawer and sand and stain that piece. :-) Its a work in progress!

A Drawer

I spent the kids naptime and the evening and all I accomplished was one drawer. The drawer was easy enough to build, but I had a learning curve with the bottom mounted drawer slide. I usually do the ones for the sides and decided to give the center slide a try.

Then I spend a good hour trying to decide how I was going to design the front of the drawer. The plans called for me to do flat piece of plywood, but I wanted to give it a bit more flair. I came up with a design and I built the first one. I still plan on adding another piece of wood (not as deep as the framed edge). Just something to give a little extra to the drawer pull and not have the drawer pull get lost in the big square alone.

Here is the drawer and the drawer front.

But wait. I seem to have gotten ahead of myself. I am not sure I ever actually showed what the original plans are for the wall unit. While I got the basic plan for Knock-Off Wood's website, I am modifying it in small ways to meet our needs.

Today I stained most of 2 of the bases. I got the drawer and its cabinet stained, but the center piece of the base is only partially stained. The kids woke up from the nap and that means I have to stop. Speaking of which, the kids are now asking for dinner so once I again I must run.

Stay tuned for pictures of the bases stained!

The Base

I have begun the base for the wall unit. So far its gone okay. I do need to hit the Big Blue, but for tonight I shall rest and relax. Thanks to summer warmth and lots of sunshine I accidentily worked on the center part of the base until midnight last night.

There is still a LOT left to do on it, but I do like the start of it. :-)

Another Little Project

I know I said we are doing one room at a time, but we are at an empass. There is more I can do for my son's room, but that would involve getting rid of some furniture. THAT, is a monumental task. We have TOO much furniture. Really, we do. But evertime we think about getting rid of some of the furniture, it turns into a battle. Was that your mom's? It's too nice to sell! Arg, but we don't USE it!

Back and forth the battle reigns. We agree to sell, but not how to sell the stuff or for how much. Or we can't sell it because its from childhood. In my never ending quest to rid my house of half the STUFF, I will keep fighting this battle. One way I am doing this is to build furniture that I KNOW my husband will like and that will replace some furniture I have wanted to get rid of for awhile.

Which brings up to a NOT so little project. I am going to build a large wall unit for the livingroom. Right now we have an entertainment unit that was not really made for the size of our TV. We have an old school huge tv. Granted its not that old, but nowaday with those fancy flat screen TVs out there, it makes our old school. Anyway, I digress. The issue is our entertainment center is bending under the weight. Then we also have my old panty I build a long time ago. That is holding some of our board games. They both serve a purpose, but they don't match and because we have crub sitting on top of them, something has to be done.

Once again I go to my favorite blog by Anna, http://www.knock-offwood.com/ and I got her plans for the entertainment center unit. I will have to adjust the size down since I have a smaller TV and not quite that wide of a wall, but it should look splended afterwards!

Added bonus while shopping for the plywood I found Oak Plywood for only 50 cents more a sheet than the Birch Plywood I normally get for this kind of thing. With my red oak stain, it should look really pretty when I am done. I have to do it in pieces since I don't have enough money to buy all the wood at once. but little by little it will take shape and hopefully have enough storage to take the place of our existing entertainment center and pantry.

Wish me luck!