What's the last thing you Crafted?

Looks great. So, removed the prvios legs and added solid panel sides?

Does a lot to modernize it. I find repurposing old things very gratifying. Thanks for the before/after pics!

Thanks! Yes on the new legs. The builder fashioned something more fitting for a picnic table, and as you said I wanted a bit more modern.

I put the legs on a few minutes ago and was doing some height testing at the kneewall in my office.

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When I bought the place, there was a window in the shower. Covered up with a shower curtain that intrudes into the space and looked like **** for a long time. A year or so ago we tried to add an angled sill to shed water and painted the whole thing with "topside" marine paint. Angle wasn't nearly steep enough, water pooled, and the marine paint wasn't nearly waterproof enough. Net-net, started to get some rot on the trim where water soaked past the paint.

So, we just finished completely ripping it out to start over. Fabricated a very deep sill angle (it's steeper than it appears in the picture... it DOES shed water) and it, and all of the trim, is made of PVC board. All joins between boards were caulked before pushed together before nailing to create a gasket which means that the external-only caulking is "extra."

So far, working like a champ. Guess we'll see if it's good for 40 years or not. :)

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Looks great! Stupid kind of window to be put in a shower, though. Glad you ripped it out and put in something waterproof. Nicely done!
 
Looks great! Stupid kind of window to be put in a shower, though. Glad you ripped it out and put in something waterproof. Nicely done!

Thanks! Yeah, weird window but the space kinda needs it. Have seen a neighbors bathroom where they removed it, and the space gets claustrophobic. You'd have thought a smaller upper window or something, but hey... 50s GI housing.
 
Looks great! Stupid kind of window to be put in a shower, though. Glad you ripped it out and put in something waterproof. Nicely done!

+1! Very nicely done koralis :up: fwiw I feel your pain. My house has windows in both showers and I’ve been down that same exact path just about identical to what you did. So far so good, but I’ve also entertained the thought of just ripping them out altogether and closing the wall up.
 
+1! Very nicely done koralis :up: fwiw I feel your pain. My house has windows in both showers and I’ve been down that same exact path just about identical to what you did. So far so good, but I’ve also entertained the thought of just ripping them out altogether and closing the wall up.


OOO.. look at you... flexing your 2 showers!
:lol:


Anyway, thank you!


One of the trickiest (and messiest) bits is that the tiling came UP-TO the previous trim... the trim wasn't overtop the tile. So, that left a ragged edge of grout and tile when we removed the previous boards and had to Dremel it all into a straight line and cut the boards to fit widthwise.

Then there's the "the wall or window isn't exactly vertical" tricks with the side pieces needing to taper in order to line everything up and have a tight seam with the window, etc.

Working with imperfections is just one of those things I've gotten pretty good at over the last 20 years.


Next project is needing to finish my damned office. We had a hole cut into the foundation to install an egress window over the summer and since we had water leakage into the basement last year decided to rip out the drywall and make sure we didn't have a mold problem in the cellulose insulation (we didn't, damn it... at least I'd feel the work was justified if we did! :) ) Sucked out the cellulose, replaced with foam board. Now as fall/winter hits I need to reinstall the drywall and shuffle a couple of electrical outlets.

I'm a little embarrassed that I let this project go so long instead of just finishing it. I've been sitting in an uncomfortable stool in the laundry room for my computing for months now just because of reluctance to get it done.
 
OOO.. look at you... flexing your 2 showers!
:lol:


Anyway, thank you!


One of the trickiest (and messiest) bits is that the tiling came UP-TO the previous trim... the trim wasn't overtop the tile. So, that left a ragged edge of grout and tile when we removed the previous boards and had to Dremel it all into a straight line and cut the boards to fit widthwise.

Then there's the "the wall or window isn't exactly vertical" tricks with the side pieces needing to taper in order to line everything up and have a tight seam with the window, etc.

Working with imperfections is just one of those things I've gotten pretty good at over the last 20 years.


Next project is needing to finish my damned office. We had a hole cut into the foundation to install an egress window over the summer and since we had water leakage into the basement last year decided to rip out the drywall and make sure we didn't have a mold problem in the cellulose insulation (we didn't, damn it... at least I'd feel the work was justified if we did! :) ) Sucked out the cellulose, replaced with foam board. Now as fall/winter hits I need to reinstall the drywall and shuffle a couple of electrical outlets.

I'm a little embarrassed that I let this project go so long instead of just finishing it. I've been sitting in an uncomfortable stool in the laundry room for my computing for months now just because of reluctance to get it done.

In my defense we had 3 daughters living with us when we bought. 2 showers is a must! :lol: We shared a single bath in our first home and it was pure hell lol.

First, I love reading your posts because I know now I’m not the only one who regrets waiting on projects, and you’re at least as busy as me :D

The whole “Straight and true walls, windows and doors” in my house, never happened. Couple that with the fact that I’m a bit of a perfectionist and man, it gets painful sometimes. I’ve learned an awful lot over the years, but I’ve never learned how to “unsee” my own mistakes every time I walk into a room :lol:
 
I’ve learned an awful lot over the years, but I’ve never learned how to “unsee” my own mistakes every time I walk into a room :lol:

I hear ya. I spend twice as long (or more) doing drywall than I should simply because I know that I'm going to see the edges, etc. If I paint, and it doesn't look flat, I do another drywall patch to smooth it out. :)

I have pretty much learned to unsee the tiling problems my dad did. in my kitchen right after I bought the house. At the time though my eyes went to the widening grout every time I stepped into the kitchen. Took a few years to get over it. I was pretty upset. :)

Of course, if I hire the job out and they don't do as good of a job as I think I could do myself I get incensed. The point of professionals is for them to do better than you can.

Edit: you know, the obsession with getting it right is probably why I drag my heels on starting. Hehe
 
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Moved into a new house a couple months back, so TONS of projects to do over the next months & years. I'm just starting to get the garage under control. Here's my new materials rack:

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Nice. Gotta ask though, what is supporting the little shelf that the radial saw is on? Or is it hanging from the Lowee bars?

I need something like that for my basement workshop.. Scrap wood is out of control. Small ones not too bad but the long pieces are a problem
 
Nice. Gotta ask though, what is supporting the little shelf that the radial saw is on? Or is it hanging from the Lowee bars?
There's some bolts on the bottom that tie it into the 2x4s above. Yeah, it's all integrated into a single support structure.

I need something like that for my basement workshop.. Scrap wood is out of control. Small ones not too bad but the long pieces are a problem
Yeah I learned in my last house that your shop can never be organized without a good materials rack. Integrating storage for ply, boards, & power tools, dramatically cleans up the rest of the shop space. I highly recommend it.
 
Over the summer we moved a few houseplants outside and they grew like gangbusters. Cuttings/more and bigger pots, etc, were the result and as winter came on and had to move back inside our previous spots for plants were no longer sufficient... we had overflow and no good place to put them that would get adequate light. Wife started with a small board on the ledge of the kitchen window to allow slightly bigger plants to sit there. Then I came in, redid that to be nicer and added an upper shelf on nails and hung by wire in the center for some smaller ones. She loves the change and we almost never dropped the blinds or opened those windows anyway. A plant garden is just better.

Built from scrap lumber from the loft-bed we had made for my daughter when young and in the past year had cut the legs and braces down so it can be a normal sized bed. Saved the wood. puttied, sanded and painted the hell out of it to get a nice smooth glossy finish as the wood was pretty beat up by that point. :)


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After getting that done, we looked around and noted the old phone-nook (badly finished) we'd had... after ditrching the landline, basically just a place to keep pencils. Ripped that out, buiilt a top that matched the cabinetry, and put the avacado/tomato bowel there that had been living on our countertop taking up space. Then noted we had enough room to make a shelf to get one other item off the countertop. My wife likes the finish on the upper shelf now I'm obligated to take down the le cruset pot shelves I have on the other side of the cabinet and refinish them in the same color.


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Eww-- you let your tomatoes and avocados intermingle? You'll have lil tomacados running round.
 
Building a new computer and couldn't find an anti-sag device that I liked, so I built one out of an Archery Stabilitzer (steel rod surrounded by rubber) and a speaker magnet, after seeing things I liked on Amazon that were either too short, or too tall. Crafted one to be the perfect height. Magnetic base, rubber/foam rubber tip. Tapered the rubber into a wedge to reduce air blockage (whether it helps or not, who knows? ) I had fun anyway, while I was waiting for an NVMe drive to show...


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And installed.


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Follow-up. In gutting my old system decided that I still wanted my blueray player for the occasional ripping of CDs, or playing really old games, but nowhere to put it. The Phanteks case came with 4x 3.5" drive bays that you can mount either in front of the fans or underneath the supply shroud. Nothing for 5 1/4" devices though.

So, I took some black foam and hotglued a tray togetherthat sits in the shrouded area. Since it's not something I'll use regularly, the minor inconvenience of opening the hinged door isn't a big deal and it's always there and ready-for-use if I need it instead of looking for a USB based drive that gets tossed in a closet somewhere. Foam underneath and surrounding on 3 sides with a gap for cabling. Still could use some dressing up in tucking cables away, maybe a foam strip for the top. :)


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Finished my new project... a bar cabinet. Ironically, I don't actually drink all that much. But having the occasional cocktail pleases me. In-process pictures for the full effect. :) Note that this was all built from SCRAPS that had from previous projects (except the lights.)


First ripped apart the old cabinet/curio shelves... kinda worthless. (those shelves were repurposed... that's another post)

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Put new ply on the back and evened things out, sanded, primed, painted, then started building the stadium shelving to make it easier to see what I have and to get at it. The bars know their stuff... it does really help. Made of solid maple 1/4" trim on a structure.

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Then I started building another shelf for the "top shelf" liquor.. mostly the scotch. Maple ply with solid maple edging.

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Then a rack to hang stemware from (picture in-progress, not complete)

ARbBQBm.jpg




Wife wanted a caddy to hold the bar tools. Solid maple.

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And completed, with programmable colored rope lights. Love the chandellier effect.

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Next up, cabinet doors.

Very nice selection of Whiskey, may I suggest Red Breast or an under rated one called Glenrothes
 
Finished my new project... a bar cabinet. Ironically, I don't actually drink all that much. But having the occasional cocktail pleases me. In-process pictures for the full effect. :) Note that this was all built from SCRAPS that had from previous projects (except the lights.)


First ripped apart the old cabinet/curio shelves... kinda worthless. (those shelves were repurposed... that's another post)

v9rYRTw.jpg




Put new ply on the back and evened things out, sanded, primed, painted, then started building the stadium shelving to make it easier to see what I have and to get at it. The bars know their stuff... it does really help. Made of solid maple 1/4" trim on a structure.

fBZRn0r.jpg




Then I started building another shelf for the "top shelf" liquor.. mostly the scotch. Maple ply with solid maple edging.

32Qobm7.jpg




Then a rack to hang stemware from (picture in-progress, not complete)

ARbBQBm.jpg




Wife wanted a caddy to hold the bar tools. Solid maple.

KeXBy8L.jpg




And completed, with programmable colored rope lights. Love the chandellier effect.

4n8twXH.jpg


eXlHc5a.jpg





Next up, cabinet doors.

Very nice selection of Whiskey, may I suggest Red Breast or an under rated one called Glenrothes

Also a very nice job on the carpentry.
 
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