I grew up watching This Old House every week. My parents were huge fans of Bob and Norm. The whole family would gather in the TV room, watch the show and there would be many discussions about the work being done, the state of the house as the work progressed and of course the sheer awesomeness of Bob Vila...the coolest home repair guy ever. I think half of my dad's tool bench was a not-so thinly veiled shrine to him.
I watched the show but I never really learned how to do anything. In high school when I took the prerequisite shop classes I was either discouraged by teachers who didn't think girls really wanted to learn boy stuff or I was caught up in my teen nonsense and couldn't be bothered. Not proud of that last bit but it's honest.
I was a selfish, fairly useless prat at a teenager. My bad.
After surviving my teens and...ahem...aging....which I refuse to do gracefully, I've discovered a lot of hobbies I once thought were lame are actually very cool. Fun, in fact. Sewing is one and woodworking is another. I've made a bathroom cabinet, my bed and a few bits and bobs. Nothin high end, but I enjoyed doing it.
A few years ago my good friend Judie told me about a woodworking blog called Knock-Off Wood. It's done by a gal in Alaska. This a woman that loves expensive furniture but being a SAHM, she had no money for the fancy things. What she does have a lot of is power tools and a bit of lumber and a lot of know-how. She created plans for making furniture and put them on her blog for free.
This is her website now. Ana-white.com Check her out for free plans on how to build a ton of fantastic furniture. Her plans are for normal people who have an interest. Brilliant.
On the computer that is. Bloody brilliant. Download it onto paper and work with your tools and that can be a nightmare.
I wanted to present a complete post about my project, including pictures. But it's been a month now. I'm starting to think it will never be done. So plan B, a few postings with pictures and description of my dumb ass....I mean occasional mistakes. With luck, I will have a completed project come Christmas...2015.
In the Beginning......
Our current entertainment center does not work for me. Lots of openings for DVD cases which we don't really use anymore since I've become a downloading monster. Wires all over the place and the TV is too large for the space. Yuck. I've been looking for months, MONTHS for a replacement but the trend now is lowlife and I don't like that. If I found a cool unit it was either too big or too expensive.
Wait a minute, I know! I'll make it!
While puttering in a used furniture shop I found this unit.
Sure it's a lowline but it seems to be a perfect base for what I want. It's symmetrical and the anal part of me really likes that. I can build a piece and put it on top. I can customize it to be exactly what I want. After all, I've read a few pages on a website, surely that's enough to go on. What could go wrong?
I purchase the unit and bring it home.
My little workshop is on the other side of my yard and this bugger is heavy so I bring it into my living room to work on. Not the best place for a work site but it'll only be a few days. I get to work ripping the CD racks and shelves out as I have no use for them.
One of my favorite sayings is, We make plans and God laughs. That seems to be my life's caption. A few days long project has turned into a many week construction site. Pesky things like laundry, basketball, AFL, flute lessons, laundry, dinner, Easter, exhausion and more damn laundry...you get the message...Life sort of gets the best of me.
Its another week before I can work on it. I finally get around to putting in the MDF shelving to create spaces custom sized for our stereo equipment. A few days ago I posted about the dreaded Metric System. It's at this point in the project that I get my first sour taste of the power of Metric. The boards are s.l.i.g.h.t.l.y. off so I have to sand them down to fit. There is saw dust everywhere.
I feel like I'm snorting the Redwood Forest here. Look, there is sawdust in places that are simply wrong. Then I get the brilliant idea to put wheels on the unit. No more lugging heavy furniture around! I will roll it with ease. In fact, I already have casters. I took them off my mattress when I made my new bed. Fantastic, it's an economical change. this way, even though I didnt plan for this originally its still okay because it isnt costing any extra. Plus its a great design change. I just have to flip it over and drill holes in the bottom and put in the casters.
Just flip it over. On its back. By myself.
Sure. No problem.
I didn't need my lower back anyway.
Popping that bad boy on its back was enough to make me turn and look away every time I passed the work area for a couple more days. My family decides that like everything else stationery, my project is a perfect resting place for backpacks, toys, drinks, papers...whatever.
Another couple of days go by before I snap and start clearing crap off and start working again. At this point I start wonderingif I just set fire to it maybe I can just go buy an IKEA special. Surely that would be good enough.
That depresses me emenslely so I storm out to Bunnings (Aussie Home Depot), buy a sheet of MDF and pay to have the pieces cut in the size I need. Below is the first shot after I put the the frame on top.
Perhaps you don't notice this but ther is a LARGE gap in the back. A rather emmense opening. The pieces were not cut quite like I thought they would be.
Oh Metric System, thou art a heartless bitch.
So here I am with a design failure. It takes me another day to figure out how to turn that huge mistake into a new cool design feature. I do it but man, this is not exactly the cut, nail, glue and paint project I originally designed a few weeks ago.
That's all for now. Next post I tell you about more drama. I can tell you that I have learned that wood glue either dries in 3 hours or 30 seconds. There is no rhyme or reason as to which is going to happen. Also, bringing out paint guarantees that short people will come running out of thin air to "help" When this happens have a diversion or extra cleaning supplies...or both.
Both is better.
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