General Upgrades & Ideas

[falafel]

Just finished a credenza to match the built ins. Used real walnut for the top. When I originally put the top on it I realized I had made the top rail of the face frame too thick since there was a big gap between the top of the drawers and the walnut top. I took it back out to the garage and cutoff about a half inch to make it look better. Next up is a walnut desk and then the study is done.

That's great Moli. I want to do something similar for a desk in the kids' study area. How pricey was the Walnut?

[Uncle Ted]

Kitchen table project:

We found some nice wood from a salvage yard. Twas a barn door.


And moved it into the kitchen

Love that table... very nice work.

[Donuthole]

That looks great. My OCD couldn't handle that one off-colored plank.

More like FauxCD.

[falafel]

More like FauxCD.

[emoji58]

[old_gregg]

love that table, looks just like the one we grabbed from ikea

[YOhio]

love that table, looks just like the one we grabbed from ikea

I wonder if it was called the bjärndör.

[mtnbiker]

So it was all built up but no top and you cut it? Do you have a huge table saw that you ran it through? Or what did you do to get the cuts straight?

Just finished a credenza to match the built ins. Used real walnut for the top. When I originally put the top on it I realized I had made the top rail of the face frame too thick since there was a big gap between the top of the drawers and the walnut top. I took it back out to the garage and cutoff about a half inch to make it look better. Next up is a walnut desk and then the study is done.

[Moliere]

That's great Moli. I want to do something similar for a desk in the kids' study area. How pricey was the Walnut?

Probably around $120 worth of walnut. There are four boards that are each about 4 1/4 x 66 inches and just over 3/4 inch thick. I bought 4 rough cut 5/4 boards and wanted to leave them at 1 inch thick but after milling I ended up closer to 3/4 inches due to them being more curvy than I originally thought. I do have some decent scraps left over and I love walnut for little projects. The built ins I did I used maple and stained it. I'm kind of regretting that decision since the natural walnut looks so good but doing the built ins table top using walnut would ahve been around $400 or more because of how long it is.

So it was all built up but no top and you cut it? Do you have a huge table saw that you ran it through? Or what did you do to get the cuts straight?

Yes, it was built without the top and I cut it but I used a circular saw and a track...make shift track saw basically. I have one from Kreg that I use all the time. It's a very cheap alternative to the $800 track saws and works just as well. I just laid the body of the credenza on it's back/front/side and just cut off the 1/2 inch using the saw. The interior support I couldn't reach with any type of electric saw so I used a pull saw and then planed them down with a hand planer.

The project ended up pretty much as I wanted it. It matches the built ins perfectly. The biggest challenge was putting the divider above the long bottom drawer so I could have two smaller drawers. I do think that if I did it again I'd add a little more curve to it, maybe a very slight curve on the bottom to make it less contemporary.

[Moliere]

No.
And yes, would have been nice.
However, listened to a lot of podcasts while I sanded, so win a there.

I'm trying to figure out how you did the bread board ends. Were they just attached to the support underneath or did you secure them to the top? I want to do a table with bread board ends just to try it but I have no need for a table.

[Moliere]

I’ve had most of the week off, which is bad news for my spending habits. I spent two full days turning the space above my garage into attic storage space. I’ve wanted to do this for a while but hadn’t ever had the time when the weather is right, until now.

Spent half a day framing out the space for the attic ladder and then installing it, which went swimmingly well.


Then I spent the rest of the first day rewiring a bunch of stuff to make it possible to lay down insulation (I’m eventually planning on climate controlling the garage) and a subfloor for storage. Lastly I installed a permanent light fixture.

The second was spent cutting, hauling and screwing down the subfloor. This part sucked and I’m glad it’s mostly over. I still want to build some shelving but that will wait. I also want to build a ladder to the upper attic, which you can get to right now if you can jump 9 feet.

[Moliere]

I also built some floating shelves for the game room so the kids can store their LEGO creations off the floor. This was much easier to do than I expected. It didn’t cost anything since I had the materials already left over from other projects.

[Pelado]

I also built some floating shelves for the game room so the kids can store their LEGO creations off the floor. This was much easier to do than I expected. It didn’t cost anything since I had the materials already left over from other projects.

How do you fasten those shelves to the walls?

[Moliere]

How do you fasten those shelves to the walls?

I first fastened some inch thick maple strips to the wall. They were basically in an L shape. The shelves are two pieces of plywood separated by an inch thick piece of wood, so they are essentially hollow. Then I just slid them over the previously secured maple strips and secured it all together with screws. Here’s the underside that shows some of the screws holding it together.



I always get to the end of the project and realize I didn’t take any photos of the process

[Jeff Lebowski]

I’ve had most of the week off, which is bad news for my spending habits. I spent two full days turning the space above my garage into attic storage space. I’ve wanted to do this for a while but hadn’t ever had the time when the weather is right, until now.

Spent half a day framing out the space for the attic ladder and then installing it, which went swimmingly well.


Then I spent the rest of the first day rewiring a bunch of stuff to make it possible to lay down insulation (I’m eventually planning on climate controlling the garage) and a subfloor for storage. Lastly I installed a permanent light fixture.

The second was spent cutting, hauling and screwing down the subfloor. This part sucked and I’m glad it’s mostly over. I still want to build some shelving but that will wait. I also want to build a ladder to the upper attic, which you can get to right now if you can jump 9 feet.

Did the same thing a couple of years ago with our garage remodel. We love it.

[Brian]

I'm trying to figure out how you did the bread board ends. Were they just attached to the support underneath or did you secure them to the top? I want to do a table with bread board ends just to try it but I have no need for a table.

I used biscuits to attach the top board, and then put a larger board underneath that was notched to make room for the side rails and could be glued and screwed to the bottom of the table.



The bottom view is here:


And when taking that last photo I realized that I forgot to take off the black tape that sealed up the epoxy drips when filling all the voids.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk