Julia's Bedroom Remodel

A cold weather house project to be done this Fall and Winter is to re-do Julia's bedroom. Surprisingly, she has decided that she wants a pink room. So pink it will be.

The Plan: The wall behind her headboard will be an accent wall of a dark pink. The other three walls will be a slightly pinkish off-white. Pink is fine, but we don't want a cotton candy explosion. I will put up crown molding and do the painting. We will take down the valance over top of her existing curtains (already gone), and we will take down and replace the old curtains with new ones that Amp will be sewing (after the costume work for the Fall musical is done). Then we'll rearrange and hang some artwork and that will be that. Oh, and the piece of furniture to the right of her bed (the one that we built ourselves) still needs to be painted and glazed.

At start - The valance is gone but the curtains can't come down until we have new ones to replace them.

Valance down. Old pale yellow walls.

Then crown molding goes up in pieces. The 11 and 12 foot walls are too long for a single stock 10 foot piece, so I'll be splicing each wall carefully in the middle. They make 16 foot lengths, but it isn't worth renting a truck or paying to have them delivered for one room's worth of material.

Musical souvenirs. Crown goes up.

The moldings are up. As usual, the walls and ceiling are not perfectly even and level, so there will be some spackling and sanding and caulking to be done. When that is finished and the paint is on, you'll never be able to tell. I hope. At least that's the way it's worked out in some other rooms...

Crown molding up. Lots of finish work to do.

Next was the tedious step of patching nail holes, spackling gaps, sanding, etc. That is where we are now; prep work for painting maybe two-thirds done. One day soon, "painting table saturday" will be this instead of miniatures.

Painting Table Saturday - Apr 5 - Powder Room

Painting time this weekend consisted almost entirely of powder room remodelling (sadly, or not, depending on your point of view). The last of the patching, caulking, sanding and prep work was completed. Color swatches on the walls were tested then painted over. An ugly oval builder's mirror was pried off the wall, patched and prepped. Two coats of flat white paint on the ceiling. Three of bright white semi-gloss on the trim. Cutting in around the walls, with three walls of a lighter blue, and one accent wall of a darker turquoise-y blue. Two coats rolled on all the walls. A lot of work for a tiny little room.

Caulk, test colors, and no more mirror

It looks great now that it is finished, but a powder room is always more hassle per square foot than any other room (except probably a kitchen). All things considered, I'd much rather paint a bedroom many times the size. But it does look great, and crown molding always looks nice. One room at a time, we'll end up with nice trim work in every room. The color of this room is a bit of a departure for us, as most of the rest of the house is in neutral colors and earth tones (like the sage green that this room started with). I like the brighter colors. They look cheerful and happy. And they pull out some of the colors from the "ocean mosaic" mirror that inspired the new room.

Working on ceiling trim and cutting in

Actually, I'm not completely done yet, as the window trim hasn't been painted yet, and the baseboards need another coat. And I guess I should finish putting the light fixture back together. But the end is in sight though, so I am willing to claim victory in advance.

Almost completely done

Julia's room comes next. Then the master bedroom... But first, I get to work on those medieval knights that have been waiting patiently while I goof off doing housework. The next room can wait a little while longer...

Painting Table Saturday - Mar 22 - Ceilings and Walls?

This week's update is a brief recap of a few different things, mostly not hobby related...

Crown

On the painting table this week is...a powder room remodel. OK, so that's not exactly the usual painting table update, but it is what's up next from a painting perspective. A while ago I started putting crown molding up in our first (ground) floor powder room, but never finished it. Over the last couple of days I have been spackling and sanding and installing some additional molding so that I can finally finish painting the room. This is the least fun part of the job (which is why it still hasn't been done after all this time), but we are nearing the end. The additional chair rail type molding as a band below the crown molding is something we decided to do to help hide the fact that the ceiling in this room is something akin to a potato chip. After having the bright idea of adding the crown molding, we realized that the ceiling and walls are not the slightest bit even or level. This creates bad corners and joins that will be harder to hide if the bright white trim is adjacent to the darker walls. The solution is to do a treatment similar to what the builder did in the living room and dining room - put an additional band of molding partway down the wall, and paint the drywall in between the two pieces of molding the same bright white semi-gloss as the trim work.

Crown with accent molding

By the end of the weekend, the trim is all up, spackling is mostly complete, and all that remains is some caulking and then the painting. The ceiling will get a fresh coat of flat white, the trim work will get a nice bright white semi-gloss, and the walls will get...we don't know yet. Before repainting the walls we may pull out the sink and toilet and re-tile the floor. But that is still to be determined, since we have never done tiling. But you have to learn somewhere, I guess...

We also have an older piece of artwork in a frame that is coming apart at the seams, so we made a new frame and have been staining and sealing that as well.

On the hobby front, there isn't too much to report, other than that the work on the last batch of German knights is proceeding (if at a snail's pace). I have assembled, primed and begun color-blocking a handful of lance-armed figures to go with the old ones with hand weapons.

I have also begun taking some old pieces of N-gauge model railroad track and roadbed and turning them into WW2 scenery pieces. They look OK so far, and they make use of some odds and ends that I probably would have simply thrown away otherwise.

Lastly, Grace and I have started to carve some hill pieces for my modular terrain boards. When in doubt, make more terrain...

House Project - Office End Table

Following the construction of our first piece of furniture, we have been thinking about what else would be useful to make. One of the first things that came to mind was a suitable replacement for a little table in the corner of our office that holds a lamp, phone base unit and some other things. In addition to the fact that the piece doesn't match the rest of the furniture in the room, it also isn't big enough to hold the wireless printer that is in the cabinet part of my desk. The printer is large enough that it doesn't fit well in the desk, but we don't have a better place to put it handy to the desk. So we decided to build one.

What we are replacing

The basic plan was to build a three-tiered table like the old one but sized to hold the printer on the middle shelf. It would be a little taller, and made of clear select pine that could be stained to fit in with the existing furniture. Construction methods (hidden pocket joinery, etc) would be very similar to the console table project.

Step 1 - Cut all pieces to length and drill out all the pocket holes. This will allow for more of an assembly line process than we managed on the first project. Legs, top frame and middle and bottom shelf framing are 2x2s. Middle and bottom shelves are a length of 1x12. The table top is made of 3 lengths of 1x6. The table top pieces are about two inches longer than the end result will be as we plan to make the table top, then cut it length as a single piece with a (newly purchased) circular saw. This will give us a cleaner straight edge than cutting first and then joining would.

1 - Materials - cut and drilled (bottom view)

Step 2 - Glue and screw the sub-assemblies together. The top frame is at left, and the middle and lower shelf assemblies are at right center. The table top boards have not been joined yet in the picture.

2 - Sub assemblies mostly complete (bottom view)

Step 3 - Glue and screw the three table top boards together. Before I joined these, it occurred to me that it would look nice, and give the top a little visual interest, if I micro bevelled the edges of the boards. I sanded each interior board edge at a 45 degree angle for just a couple millimeters with a sanding block. When the boards are joined, there is now a small "v" groove between the boards, and it looks terrific.

3 - Tabletop with micro-bevel board joints

Step 4 - Frame assembly. Having made the top frame and two shelf assemblies, the next step was to join each of the three pieces, in sequence from top to bottom, to two of the side legs. First we attached the top frame, then the middle shelf, then the bottom. Once this was complete, we flipped the piece and attached the other two legs. This was the most difficult step, or perhaps I should say most important, in that we needed to make certain at this step that everything was level and square. If not, we would have ended up with a wobbly uneven end result. After assembling everything, we decided that the piece would look more finished if we dressed up the two sides by adding a "dead man" piece of 2x2 to the side of the top frame, and a piece of upright 1x2 to the end of each shelf. I'm very glad we did this.

4 - Frame assembled

Step 5 - Attach and cut/trim the tabletop. The top was glued onto the frame and screwed from underneath. At this point construction was done. All that remained was to sand thoroughly, put on two coats of Minwax Wood Finish ("English Chestnut"), and then two coats of Minwax Polyurethane. I added a third coat to the top only. We sanded lightly between all the various coats using progressively finer sandpaper (we started at 220 and ended at 400).

Construction complete

We let the final coat of Polyurethane dry for about three days before putting the table in place and getting everything set up.

Stained, sealed and in place

I am thrilled with how this turned out. It is perfectly level and square, there are no "oopses" that anyone would ever see, and it really looks like a store bought piece of furniture. While this is the second project we have built, it is the first one we have completely finished and I am proud of the result. It was not that difficult to make, not expensive at all (about $50 in materials), and is custom fitted to exactly the dimensions we wanted to fit the space and use for which it was intended.

Close up

Now the usual question - what next?

House Project - Console Table, Recap

Summary and Learnings
Having gotten to the end of the construction phase of the console table project, it makes sense to summarize some things and remind myself what we learned.

Tallying up the Cost
In terms of cost of materials, this was not an expensive project, but nor was it dirt cheap. We spent about $105 (US) on clear select pine, buying a little more than we needed to make sure a minor cutting error didn't turn into another drive back to the store. Cutting it closer we could have spent no less than $90. The drawer slides were $5 for a simple pair, and the drawer pulls (knobs) cost $10 for the two. This total of $120 in materials does not include basic "perishables" like wood glue, wood screws, brad nails, and pocket screws (most of which we already had on hand). We almost certainly could have bought something like this at IKEA or someplace similar for cheaper, but by doing this ourselves we got a piece custom built to the exact dimensions we wanted, it is made out of excellent materials, and we learned a skill in the process. There is something to be said for the satisfaction of having made something very nice with your own two hands.

Tools
As far as tools go (discounting things like a hammer, a tape measure, a screwdriver...), we fundamentally built this with a compound miter saw, a cordless drill, and a Kreg jig for pocket joinery. We clamped the Kreg jig to the corner of a table I use for my wargaming hobby stuff, in the absence of a real workbench, and built the piece on the floor of the basement on a heavy canvas painter's drop cloth.

We did buy one of the more expensive Kreg jig kits in order to do this project, but that is a "capital expense" that we will hopefully be enjoying the use of for years to come. We also invested in a 24 inch bar clamp. Per my observations below, clamps are crucial, and we need a few more of them.

Future adds to the tool arsenal would include a circular saw or a table saw, as well as a router. For this project we didn't require either, as the two pieces of 1/4 plywood we needed were easy enough to cut carefully by hand with a fine finish saw. Projects requiring accurate cutting of larger sheet stock will require something better. Likewise, we did not require a router, as the console table is all straight lines, but a router will enable all sorts of fancier finish work. We can deal with these needs when the time comes. Oh, and maybe a biscuit joiner...

Thoughts and Observations
Some of this will be common sense and/or painfully obvious...

• Being meticulous to the point of perhaps obsessive was worth it. As we gain more experience, I am sure we will speed up, but there will never be anything wrong with careful and methodical. This project thus far has taken a total of perhaps 5-6 hours (in many small chunks plus a 3 hour block last weekend).
• Kreg jigs are awesome! There isn't a single bit of joinery visible anywhere on the piece we just made. It really felt like we were making furniture the way furniture makers do. Pretty cool.
• Four hands are better than two, as is a second set of eyes.
• Clamps are indispensable. No matter how exact you try to be, that last turn of a screw seems to always want to pull the two boards slightly out of alignment. 
• Sawdust gets everywhere.
• Real workspace would be nice. I'm not quite sure how we will manage that, but it is something to think about. Cutting everything on the concrete floor of the unfinished part of the basement, and building the actual piece sitting cross-legged on the floor was not optimal.

Most important of all, I guess, is that we made something together with our own hands, did a pretty good job for a first effort, and had a lot of fun in the process.

The list of future pieces and projects we hope to tackle is growing by the day.

House Project - Console Table, Part 2

When I left off at the end of part 1 (last weekend), we had completed the basic structure of the table, including the top. Next steps were to build the shelf at the bottom of the piece and then build a drawer and install it.

Building the shelf was easy, and followed the same basic steps as building the table top. Instead of making the boards for the shelf go edge to edge, we shortened each end by 3/4", which allowed us to cap the ends with a nice piece of 1x2. This results in a more polished edge (and is the design change I referenced in the last post). I say "boards" plural, since by increasing the depth of the piece compared to the original plan we cannot make the shelf out of a single length of 1x12. So it is a multi-board assembly like the table top...

The final construction step was to make and install the drawer. After measuring very carefully (1/2 inch clearance required on either side for mounting the drawer glides), we made a simple box frame out of 1x4s and used a piece of 1/4 inch plywood for the bottom. We then installed the drawer glides and fitted the drawer without yet having attached the separate piece of 1x6 that is the drawer face. After installing the drawer glides, it didn't operate very smoothly. Careful inspection revealed that the one side needed to be shimmed ever so slightly, as the wheel on the glide was popping out of the track near the end (because the drawer was about 1/8 inch narrower than it should have been - but only on the front side). Shimming one end of one drawer glide made all the difference, and the drawer operates very smoothly now.

Drawer detail

The drawer face was then attached to the drawer box (screwing into the back of the face from inside the drawer), taking extra care to make sure that it was centered evenly in the opening leaving a uniform 1/8 inch gap on all sides. Even though the drawer isn't centered perfectly, the drawer face is, and that's the only thing anyone will see, so this is a perfect kind of drawer construction for novices like us.

The final step was to drill out holes for the pulls and install the hardware. We will remove them before painting the piece, but we wanted to see what the whole thing looked like "done".

I'm thrilled. It looks good and clean, with no terribly obvious "oopses", and even those will be removed by a final finish sanding. Gluing and screwing everything, mostly with pocket joints, has made a rock solid piece. It looks and feels like real furniture. Which...it is.

Construction complete

All that remains to be done is a final sanding and then painting and glazing. Which is still a good bit of work.

House Project - Console Table, Part 1

One of the home blogs that Amp follows regularly is by Ana White, who has also published a book, The Handbuilt Home, which was a Christmas present this year. We decided that for our first real furniture making project, we will build a version of the console table shown on page 40. The book is pretty cool, with lots of projects that you can build at home, including parts lists, instructions and diagrams, in addition to a wealth of general how-to information.

In order to fit a specific space in Julia's room we needed to adjust the basic plan. The table as described is 46" long, 15.25" deep, and 30" high (long and thin to fit in a hallway space). We deconstructed the plan and changed all the necessary dimensions to make a piece of the same height (30"), but shorter at 33" wide and a little deeper at 17.25" (13"shorter and 2" deeper). We will have one large drawer instead of two smaller ones side by side. Although we bought nice quality clear pine, we are planning on painting the piece, although that may change.

What follows is how far we got on the project this weekend.

Step 1, accomplished a week ago, was to buy all the necessary wood. This always takes longer than expected as sifting through the racks to find straight pieces is more time consuming than you would think. We needed a 1x12, a 1x6, a 1x2, a 1x3, four or five 1x4, and five 2x2 (all 6 foot long, but they only had 8 foot 1x12s).

Raw materials

Step 2, accomplished Friday evening in about an hour, was to triple check my planning and then make all the cuts. I used a DeWalt 10" compound miter saw and went very slowly and carefully. Straight wood and proper cuts are probably the two most important factors in a good end result. We are skipping the drawer for now and will do that last.

All pieces cut (except the drawer...)

With everything cut, I laid out everything into the various subcomponents. Looking at all the pieces lying there, I realized that I had forgotten to shorten the two large flat side pieces when making our revised plan and cut list. They were the right length front to back, but I hadn't shortened them to the right height. Back to the saw...

Pieces organized into subcomponents

The first real construction step was to make two side/leg assemblies. Legs are 2x2s (which are actually 1.5x1.5), and the side panels are pieces of 1x12 (therefore 3/4" thick). On the outside face, two horizontal strips of 1x2 (also 3/4" thick) are used to trim out the side panel. The 1x2 laid over the 1x12 makes the finished depth 1.5" to match the legs. To hide all joins in the finished product, the 1x2 trim pieces are attached to the 1x12s with screws (and glue) from the back, and the side panels are then attached to the legs from the back (the inside-the-case side) using pocket holes and pocket screws.

Two finished side leg assemblies (back and front)

A detail of the pocket hole join is shown below. We are being very slow and methodical in clamping and screwing everything together so that the joints are square and flush, especially on the outer sides which will be visible on the finished piece. A Kreg jig set for making pocket holes has been invaluable in being able to hide joinery on the back side. This is a new toy that we ordered online and arrived this past week. We are loving it, as some of the hidden joinery we are doing would be impossible without it.

Detail of pocket joinery

The Kreg jig in action; making a pocket hole on the side of a 2x2 frame piece.

Kreg jig for making pocket holes

Next, the basic framework of the table is put together by joining the side leg assemblies with six framing pieces of 2x2. All framing pieces are joined to the leg assemblies by pocket screw joints on the underside. The upper four framing pieces form the box that the drawer will go into. The bottom two pieces will hold a shelf about six inches off the ground.

Leg assemblies and basic framing

Three pieces of front-to-back frame bracing are added next. These serve to stiffen the whole assembly, and the top two will be used when we attach the tabletop.

Bracing added

The tabletop itself is made up of three boards joined together: a 1x12 in the middle with a 1x4 on the front edge and a 1x3 on the back side. This was additional work in joining things together on the underside, but will look better than a piece of plywood cut to size.

Underside of top showing joinery

The top was attached to the frame by screwing up into it through the framing and bracing shown earlier. The top is flush to the back, overhangs the sides by two inches each, and overhangs the front by about an inch and a half.

Top in place

We then began building the shelf, but decided on a small design change as we were doing it and are not done that step yet.

That's how far we got on the project in about three hours of work on Sunday. We spent more time on it than that, but included a lunch break and various other distractions (our estimated three hours of work took place over about 5 real hours). Then the AFC championship football game (or pre-game) came on and we packed it in for the day.

We are very pleased with how it is shaping up so far. Everything is tight and square and the joints are flush. It's not a difficult project if you go slowly and carefully and have the right tools. Having four hands instead of two certainly helps. We have learned a number of things that will be useful for the remainder of this and on future projects. We are also speeding up as we learn and get more comfortable with what we are doing.

Remaining steps include finishing the shelf (much like we built the top), attaching an inset backer panel behind where the drawer will be (putting a back on the piece), and then building and attaching the drawer. Based on what we have done so far, the only tricky part (since it is new for us) will be getting the drawer slides attached correctly so that the drawer is in exactly the right place and works properly.

To be continued...

Christmas Tree Stand - DIY

I am addicted to surfing miniatures hobby blogs. I'll freely admit it. But as much as I troll the web looking for "gamer eye candy",  my wife does likewise but with home decor and home related do-it-yourself blogs. This is perfectly fine, of course, and occasionally spawns the "honey, we can make this, I know we can" conversation. Which is actually kind of fun. She has made a bunch of things on her own (sewing and craft projects), and we have made a few things together, like doll beds and picture frames. I generally get involved when carpentry and power tools come into play...

Recently, she saw a planter box plan for a deck planter that she really liked, and thought that the same basic plan could make a good Christmas tree stand. I thought so too. After a bunch of sketching and measuring and plotting and planning, we settled on a plan and bought the materials we needed. On Saturday we made the tree stand. It sort of followed a basic plan seen elsewhere, but was modified enough that I feel like it is something we came up with together, which is nice.

Materials List (roughly): (all wood was clear select pine, for eventual staining)

• Two pieces 21" 1x6 boards (2 sides of inner frame)
• Two pieces 19.5" 1x6 boards (other 2 sides of inner frame)
• Twenty-four 15" pieces 1x4 boards (6 per side for 4 sides)
• Four 15" pieces 2x2 boards (corner posts)
• Approximately 16 linear feet of 1x2 board (top and bottom framing of each side)
• Approximately 16 linear feet of 1x3 board (top and bottom trim of each side)

Tools:

• Cordless drill with bit for #6 screws and phillips driver bit
• Dewalt 10" compound miter saw
• Air compressor with nail gun using 2" finish nails
• 1.25" wood screws (#6)
• Wood glue
• Fine sandpaper

The General Plan: The container would be built around an interior box (like shown in picture #1) that would serve both as a frame to construct around, as well as a 6" tall platform to raise the tree up off the ground. Each exterior side would be made of six slats of 1x4 lumber (each 4" wide nominal board is actually 3.5" wide, so the total width of six slats is 21"). Corner posts would be 2x2 to give some architectural relief. Tops and bottoms of sides would be 1x2s laid flat, and final trim framing all the way at top and bottom of sides would be mitered 1x3s. Like the raised corner posts, the final trim work is both useful for providing more architectural relief as well as hiding nails and screws. Everything would be nailed or screwed and hidden as best we could so that no visible nail or screw heads would be seen when we were done. Eventually, we plan to stain the container, but because we need to get the tree up and decorating done, we will use it unstained this year and stain it after the holidays.

Picture #1 - Lumber material and the old 24" square platform we have used the last several years. The old platform was dismantled and cut down to reuse the 1x6 boards and the plywood. Basically, we just turned the 24" square box into a 21" square box.

#1 - Materials (guitars optional)

Picture #2 - Basic components cut. 24 side slats and 4 corner posts are shown laid out around the interior platform pieces (along with one mitered piece of 1x2 framing). I was very careful to cut the 28 different 15" long pieces as exactly as possible.

#2 - Sides cut and laid out

Picture #3 - One side assembled and in place. The slats and corner posts are nailed in place down through the top and up through the bottom mitered 1x2 framing pieces. The bottom has had its mitered 1x3 trim board added to the very bottom (also nailed up through the bottom). The only visible nails at this point are those nailed down through the top of the upper 1x2, but these will be hidden when the final 1x3 trim is added. The completed side panel is screwed to the interior box by screwing through the 1x6 and into the assembled side panel from the inside using 1.25" #6 screws, which are too short to poke out the front. This first side is the front of the piece.

#3 - One side complete

Picture #4 - After having one complete side solidly in place, we simply built our way from front to back, doing the same thing we had done to the front panel, but rather than building one full side then attaching it, we worked out way down the sides one board at a time to make sure all boards were snugly together and we were not leaving any gaps as we went. We figured that any issues we couldn't easily fix or hide would end up on the back side of the piece which will be both hidden by the tree and facing the corner of the room, so nobody would ever see them. In the picture, you can see the ledge formed by the interior upright 1x6 platform framing. Since I was too lazy to cut the 24" square plywood piece down by hand (it won't fit in the miter saw and I don't own a table saw...yet...), I cut a few lengths of scrap lumber to 21" lengths and dropped them in to make the platform.

#4 - All sides complete

Picture #5 - All that remained after the four sides were complete was to add the final band of mitered 1x3 trim around the top to match the mitered 1x3 base at the bottom. We added this top trim without any visible nails or screws by screwing up into the bottom of the 1x3 trim (which is also wood glued) by coming up through the visible part of the top framing 1x2. You can only see the screw heads if you flip the whole piece over.

#5 - Top trim work complete. Done.

The Finished Product, with tree:

#6 - Stand (unstained yet) with tree 

All that remains is to stain the piece a medium brown color; something that will go OK with the family room furniture. This will happen after the holidays.

This was a fun project, which took us maybe 3 hours to complete. We could have gone quicker, but we were being very deliberate with our cuts and our nailing, and stopped a few times along the way to mull over the best next steps in our sequencing. We knew what we wanted to accomplish in general, but figuring out how to hide all the nails and screws was a bit of a puzzle at times. But an enjoyable puzzle.

As my wife noted when we were finished..."see, we can build anything..."