Making Sawdust - Bird Houses

This post has been sitting in the queue for about seven weeks now. I made one of these wren houses for my sister's birthday and I didn't want to give away the surprise. Happy Birthday, Jane!
I figured it would go well in the ornamental pear tree I helped her plant in her yard.

My mom found directions for two different types of bird houses when she and my dad were cleaning the basement. My mom's handwriting is in red and it looks like a short of list of who to build houses for: one for her parents and one for her mother-in-law.

The directions are from The Backyard Builder's Book of Outdoor Building Projects, which was originally published in 1987.

 I decided to give it a go and I made three of these wren houses. I installed the first one in May in our backyard Maple tree and a wren had claimed it within a week. Pretty cool.

 In early June, on a rainy day, I made a couple more wren houses, but I added a personal touch to them both. I cut a Cubs sticker to fit the back wall. I have plenty of these stickers from the junk wax era. I figure this will keep the cardinals out. LOL

 One of the two from the second build found its way into our front yard crab apple tree.

The second house is for bluebirds.

This design was much simpler and the project went very quick. I was even able to find a dowel rod to stick in the front for a perch.

All the bird houses are crafted from cedar so they should stand up to the elements fairly well. I also made the bottoms of each removable for end of the year cleaning purposes.

Four bird houses from 33 year old plans and all it cost me was a twelve dollar cedar board. All of the other materials including the finishing nails, dowel rod, eye hooks and wire could be found in our workroom. That's a pretty good deal if you ask me!

Thanks for stopping by!

Creating More Sawdust

When time allows and the creative juices are flowing I enjoy making sawdust. You know, buying some wood, cutting it this way and that, and then piecing it together.

Here's some of the projects I've completed in the past:
1. Built-Ins for Living Room, November 2011
2. Cat Tree #1, August 2014
3. TV Stand, April 2015
4. Vogelmonster Baseball Card Box, November 2017
5. Bat Rack, December 2017
6. Cat "Tree" #2, April 2019

The TV stand, card box, and bat rack can all be found in my man room. My work isn't the most ornate, but it's mine and I love it.

I think what I enjoy the most is the planning process. I spent more than a handful of nights last month drawing pictures, running through measurements, and starting over from scratch when a new idea hit.

I started and finished this piece, another one for my man room, during this winter break from teaching.

Here's what I was looking to replace in the man room: my end table.

This piece of furniture was actually something I believe came with me, from my parents' house, when I moved out 20+ years ago. Once upon a time it had a mate, but it was worse for wear and I put it out to pasture some years ago.

Here's what I started with:

You know, just your standard boards of pine cut to specifications. After running the saw and sanding down the edges the workroom was full of saw dust! Making a mess is so much fun!

The next step was to drill the holes for the screws to join the boards together.

I've used this Kreg jig tool before. It's really easy to use and helps hide screws so well.

 Plus, it creates more saw dust!

After cleaning the workroom up it was time to stain, and sand, and stain again. I really dislike this process, but wife kept encouraging me and I'm thankful she did.

A stained board is on the left and the original is on the right. I used a 2-in-1 stain and polyurethane product that worked fairly well. 

I spent this past Sunday afternoon assembling the end table.

It turned out alright if you ask me. Honestly, the sense of accomplishment when a page full of scribbles turns into a finished product is a great self-esteem boost.

Here's the before and after. I found new homes for my softball glove and the other items you see on the old end table.

 The new table is build specifically to hold ten baseball card binders, or nine and my Chromebook. I know neither of the picture shows it, but each shelf within the table holds two binders, with access from the front and the back of the table.

The binders in the front are designated for the ones I reach for the most. In the picture (top to bottom) is my Vogelmonster binder, my Kerry Wood binder, my 2016 World Series binder, and my Sandberg binder.

The five slots on the back are empty right now, and now there's also four vacant slots within my card closet. That means there's room for NINE more binders! For those of you wondering, my HOF binder is taking up one of the two slots in my TV stand, which is quite the prestigious location.

I'm very pleased with this project and I'm looking forward to playing with my binders and eventually filling those holes!

Cat Tree: Out with the Old, In with the New

 We've had a cat tree, which I constructed, in the our home office for a few years now. I built it from spare lumber, carpet remnants and some old carpet tubing which I picked up for free from a local big box store.

This cat tree served us well, but it needed a good tightening up after all the times the cats climbed to the top. My wife mentioned that she wanted to get back some of the floor space. At 2-feet by 3-feet it was taking up some serious space. Hmmmm... that got me thinking.

So, I broke down and bought six shelving brackets from the hardware store. I then cut, sanded and painted some old plywood. I topped the homemade shelves off with leftover carpet from the original carpet installation in the office.

Lastly, we took one of the posts from the old cat tree and brought it into the new design.

It didn't take long for our cats, Hugo (tan) and Holiday (gray), to get the idea.

We have regained all of our floor space and the cats still have a place to chill when Laura and I are at our computers.

It's much better to have the cats sleeping on the new shelves than at my desk where all blogging and card sorting takes place!

'Tis the Season for Sawdust

The holiday season is here, which naturally means gift purchasing. I try to avoid going out to the stores this time of year and make use of Amazon and other on-line stores to get my shopping done. It's so much easier shopping from the comfort of your own home!

I will do some baking next weekend to pass out edible gifts at work, and that's always a nice way to go, but my favorite type of gift to give is of the homemade variety.

I have a friend who has a stellar man room, and there's a dozen or so baseball bats leaning up against the walls. I crafted myself a bat rack in the past, and figured I might give it another try.

The wood cost me about $12 and the stain around $6. The labor? Well, that's all me!

As you can see I went with a two tier design, which fastens to the wall with a couple of screws. Yes, I even have a couple of little wood buttons to place over the screw holes.

It will hold fifteen bats, and there's enough room on the top for my friend to stack autographed baseballs in their cube display cases.

 I wanted to hide all the screws, so I got out my Kreg Jig set and had a little fun.

The jig set creates a nice little pocket hole for such cases as building a bat rack or entertainment system. I've used it three times now and I feel like I'm getting pretty good at it.

All of the pictures were taken this morning after I applied the stain.  I still need to apply a couple coats of polyurethane, but I'll take care of that the next couple of days. 

It should be ready to wrap and gift by the weekend!

From Boards to a Box

I spent a few hours in the workshop last month measuring, cutting, nailing, sanding and staining. The final product is a storage box that is three columns wide by nine inches deep.

Hugo loves to photobomb.

Honestly, the measuring and planning took the most time overall, but I think it was time well spent. I can now fit cards stored in top loaders and  placed in a team bag with no problems.

Our two cats, Hugo and Holiday, really enjoy spending time in the workshop. They typically leave with their cobwebs in the whiskers carrying sawdust. They probably enjoyed the time in the workshop as much as I did building.

I lined the bottom of the box with sticky backed felt. Naturally, blue was the way to go. I hate it when cards slip in a box and slide back or face down to the bottom. The felt should help with this.  I was trying to keep the project under the price of a blaster, but the felt pushed me just over the $20 threshold. So close!

 I wanted to make a storage box that was a little bit more on the special side to store all of my cool VOGELMONSTERS. I've spent a lot of time tracking down all of the Vogelbach releases this year. I do have a binder, but the cards in the nine pockets pages are base cards and parallels. All of the autos, patches, printing plates, and other 1/1's will go in the box.

 The row on the left only contains cards from 2017. The middle row are Vogelbach cards from 2011-2016. The cards past the magnetic cases in the middle are from case breaks. Lots of duplicates! The right hand row is full of storage materials for the time being.

My plan is to show off my 2017 Vogelbach cards on the blog between now and the end of the year. I'll start with the earliest 2017 releases and work my way forward. I'm still adding to the collection as I type. Panini's National Treasures dropped within the last week and you'll never guess who was included in the set!  Love me some patch autos!

Overall, I'm really happy with the box. The lid fits snugly to keep the cats out and there are only a few minor flaws from the construction process, which probably only I can spot anyway. Ha!

Thanks for looking!

Making Saw Dust

Spring break came and went for this math teacher in a hurry.  Most of it is my own fault because I spent way too many hours in the workshop creating saw dust from 1" by 16" boards.

I received an uber-generous amount of greenbacks from my parents during the holiday season (read: last December), and they were earmarked for a new flat screen television for my man room.

The old set up.

Watching modern day programming and DVDs, which are set up for a rectangular ratio, on an almost square tube-style television was making me cantankerous. Yet, I promised myself I wouldn't purchase the new flat screen until I built a TV stand for it.

Fast forward nearly four months . . . 

Fire up the power tools!  The pile of boards above would slowly take shape in something even my cat, Gus, would like to hangout on.  Lots of saw dust for sure!

 The TV stand I crafted wound up being about six feet long by sixteen inches deep.  It's mostly pine with a couple of aspen boards, and after I added one coat of stain it looks pretty sharp.

The bottom row fits my player collection binders.  The blue one on the left houses all my cards of Kosuke Fukudome, Brooks Kieschnick, and Kerry Wood.  The one on the bottom right contains over seven hundred different Ryne Sandberg cards.  The help balance all of the Cubs-goodness the three monster boxes contain all of my non-Cub singles.  Above the monster boxes are of my baseball books.  There's a stack of about six in there somewhere which I have not read . . . yet.  All in due time!

On each end I was able to take my skill saw and carve out a track for four separate sheets of plexiglass.  They slide in and out pretty easily, and now my bobbleheads won't need a good dusting so frequently. 

 I have another thirty or so bobbleheads resting on shelves elsewhere in the room.  The guys on the left are some randomness I've picked up through friends and minor league ballparks.  The ones on the right either came from the Single-A ballpark in P-town or up the road in Rockford.

The top of the TV stand is my favorite.  The piece of glass I had cut is the most expensive piece of the stand itself, but it was totally worth it.  I needed something to protect my Cubs!

There's 112 cards in all, with 112 different sets being represented.

Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, and George Bell can each be found twice, but only because of their 1991 Upper Deck card in which it pictured all three MVPs on one card.  Otherwise there is only one card of each player.

The big names are all there: Banks, Williams, Jenkins, Santo, Grace and Maddux.
Of course I had to include my prospects: Bryant, Baez, Russell, Schwarber, Edwards, Almora and the Vogelmonster.
Other favorites made the cut as well: Nomar, Reed Johnson, Dick Tidrow and his mustache, and Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams.

It took a little time to select and arrange the cards, but I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.

Now I can watch my Cubs, in my man room, on a nice new TV supported by something I constructed myself.  Give me a mini frig to store some adult beverages and it'll be my own little slice of heaven!

Thanks for the cash Mom & Dad!

Homemade Cat Tree!

One of my tasks this summer was to erect a cat tree for the cats to sleep on in the basement.  We have to confine them downstairs because otherwise they won't let us sleep peacefully, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't sleep in style!

So, I spent a weekend in July making sawdust.

The posts are constructed from one twelve foot carpet roll that I picked up for free at a big box store.  I took a saw to a concrete circular post form to create the seats.  Left over carpet from previous projects in the house helped bring the project together.

The box at the base?  Gus, our tuxedo cat, likes to sleep in the box our blueberries arrive in.  When curled up he fits just perfectly.  Come to think of it, I should have used the blueberry box for one of the seat.  So it goes.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out and I think our two cats are as well.

Gus (aka: Captain Chaos)

Mooshie

Thanks for stopping by today!

Living It Up in the Living Room

We've almost knocked out another project.  Some trim needs to be installed and we're still waiting for our new couch to arrive, but the living room overhaul project has just about come to a close.

Here's what the room looked like when we moved in.  Nothing special.  Blue wallpaper and beige carpet.  Yeah, fun.  The wallpaper came down a few year ago, but the carpet remained until recently.

Once we tore up the carpet and removed the padding we were somewhat surprise to see that our floor was a cement slab.  "Let's paint it!"  I rented a sander and removed the remainder of the glue that once held down the carpet padding.  The picture is a bit "fuzzy" because of the dust particles in the air.

After a little research and a trip to Sherwin Williams Laura found what she wanted.  Here's the floor after the paint job.

I convinced Grandpa to pay a visit a few weekends ago.  As you can see from the picture Gus felt as though Grandpa would like a warm seat when he arrived.  Also pictured is the "new to me" table saw that Dad gave me.  Dad got a "new to him" table saw this summer. If you know my dad at all, then you know how super cool his "new" one is.  I'm happy with his hand-me-downs, no doubt!

 

So, Grandpa supervised the construction of our new built-ins.  He was there for a good six hours and he taught me more than a few things.  So many of my projects would go MUCH smoother if he was there to offer words of wisdom.  Here's Gus during he construction phase.  We all had our roles.  Grandpa was the foreman, I was the labor, Jane was more labor (thanks, Jane!), and Gus was quality control.

Here's what they looked like after a good day's work.  Not bad for a retired carpenter and his two grandchildren.  Pretty solid if you ask me!

After a week of painting, mostly through Laura's tireless efforts, and a little sprucing up...  And yes, that is a cat pillow in the window.

Many thanks to all those involved!