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!

Remodeled Man Room

Finished.

My wife and I picked up the new cabinets from Ikea in the Chicago suburbs on July 1st. I erroneously thought I could assemble and install the cabinets within one week.

Boy, was I wrong. I didn't plan on painting the entire room or replacing the carpet when I made the premature prediction.

Those upgrades ultimately stretched the timeline out about ten more days than I planned. I'm okay with that though.

We moved in during the summer of 2008 and the man room has pretty much been the same the past decade, save a few modest updates along the way, like a homemade TV stand, coffee table or a bat rack.

I figured if I was going to do a full tear down, then I better build it back up the right way.

With that in mind I pulled out some graph paper and made a scale model of the room. For reference, each square is four inches by inches, with the before on the left and the after on the right.

 As a geometry teacher, who spends an entire chapter on ratios, proportions & scale factors during the school year, I was pretty psyched about this part. Yes, I'm a math nerd, but playing with the furniture pieces, while adding and subtracting others, helped me to envision the final product.

As you can see Hugo was a big help with the production.

Once I had a game plan the fun started.

I had three cantilevered shelves in the room and one of them had affixed itself to the wall. When I finally pried it from the wall, well, some of the wall came with it. 

 It was only a minor set back, as I'm fairly adept at dealing with drywall and drywall repair.

So, here's where the man room stood at this point.

Thank goodness there was room in the workshop and hallway to temporarily store all my junk! The last things to go were my couch, the coffee (sorting table) and the TV.

Next step was to pull up the baseboard, the carpet, and remove the tack strips that bordered the entire room.

Super helpful cats!

In the picture above you're looking at a concrete floor and you'll notice the bottom three inches of the drywall is missing. When we had water in the basement I never thought about mold growing behind the baseboard. Black mold is no bueno. So I cut out the drywall and filled it in with some spare wood scraps I had lying around. I purchased a taller baseboard to cover things up so it didn't have to be too fancy.

Paint. I'm not a fan of painting. I hate cutting in, but I'm good at it because I'm probably a little too meticulous.

 Regardless, I took a small shelf to one of the big box hardware stores and had them match the color. Above, the cats are inspecting my handwork as I started to assemble the shelving units and cabinets.

 I decided to go with carpet squares over traditional carpet.

First, it's a basement, so it's not like it has to be Grade A carpet material. Secondly, we have cats and have had water in the basement once already. We've made corrections so the water shouldn't be an issue going forward, but hairballs are going to hairball. Picking up a tile and washing it off is such a convenience.

Here's a picture of Hugo holding down the first four carpet tiles. He probably deserves a raise.

 Holiday on the other hand just likes to be in the way. All. The. Time. Guess what I needed at that particular moment. Whoever guessed "another carpet tile" would be a winner!

I laid about two thirds of the tiles in one afternoon, but boy were my knees sore.

 Knocking out the last third, which all had to be cut, took twice as long. Please, take note of Holiday laying on the carpet tile pile again.

Once the carpet tiles were in I was able to install the new baseboard and connect the cabinets and shelves to the wall.

Did I mention earlier that I changed out all the electrical sockets and light switches to bright white? No? Well, I did that a few days earlier.

That brings us up to this past Monday.

I spent Monday afternoon playing with ceiling tiles so the entertainment system could be on the other half of the room. I should really invest in a soundbar or some wireless speakers, which would have saved so much time. But, I'm kind of partial to my old school sound system and all of its wired speakers.

Finally, the fun part!  I spent yesterday and today, when time allowed, moving everything back into the man room.

Below is the view from the door to the hallway.

What you see above are four of the five storage units I purchased. Below is the fifth and it's place on a separate wall between the doorway and the electrical box to the house.

The cabinet above holds an abundance of my Chicago Cubs and Peoria Chiefs memorabilia.

Here's a view of the doorway.

 My homemade bat rack and the toy chest (filled with complete sets of the baseball cards) in the corner are the only two objects that wound up returning to their original pre-remodeling locations.

 The card closet and entertainment system. For what it's worth, I have quite a bit more space in the card closet now thanks to the new cabinets. Woo-Hoo!

As we keep moving around the room we can see a couple of my favorite wall hangings, my homemade coffee (baseball card) table and my little window.

The furniture will be the last change, as it doesn't really go with the room. All in good time... or maybe not at all!

Below is another shot of the cabinets and book cases.

 And here they are up close:

The lower portions are filled will old pictures, posters and pennants...  and wait for it... baseball cards! I plan on rotating things on the wall in the future. The bobbleheads, which are seen on the left, are finally allowed to space out some. I have one bobblehead for each MLB stadium I've been to. (Actually, I still need to purchase one for Oakland and Philly.)

So, that'll put the wraps on my big summer project. I'm very happy with how things turned out and I can't wait to start sorting some cards tomorrow and maybe watch a movie.

Thanks for taking a tour with me!

Cards that Can't Go in the Man Room

My man room is currently in the middle of a massive renovation. I kid you not. It was just going to be a quick rearranging of the current furniture so I could add some bookcases to help the organization.

 Then I thought, "Huh, it would be nice if I could take some things off the walls, spread things out, and then rotate things throughout the year." You know, make things look a bit cleaner and less cluttered.

Look like Honus Bonus was a one and done.

 That's all good and well, but that lead to needing to spackle the holes from all the wall hangings. Not a biggie as I have some fairly proficient dry wall skills.

 I didn't have anymore paint that matched and I've been meaning to lighten things up down there. I went to the nearest big box hardware store and had them match the color of the book cases for a new gallon of paint.

 Then my wife said, "You might as well go all out. The room flooded last year and the carpet isn't the best." So I'm in the process of ordering carpet floor tiles from Flor.com. This way if I get water in the basement again I can just hang the carpet tiles up to dry.

 The carpet tiles will sit much lower than the current carpet, so I knew I would need to lower the baseboard trim.

  I gently pried the trim off the wall, so I could re-use it, and found black mold on the wall where the water came in from the aforementioned flood. Ugh.

I love the retro '84 design, just don't put them right next to an actual 1984 card. 

Black mold on the non-painted portion of drywall is a no-no. So I ripped it out. I then purchased wider baseboard trim so it will sit higher on the wall above the cut-out portion of drywall.

  I'll fill the empty space at the bottom with some random pieces I have laying around, but I won't have to tape or mud, because it will be hidden by the trim. That's a win in my book.

Vintage O-Pee-Chee!  Woo-Hoo!

In short, what was supposed to be an easy re-arranging project has turned in to a big make-over. It's going to be great when it's all finished, but for the time being all new cards are going to have to be stored in the office. Here's a picture of where I'm currently at:

You can see the tack strip on the floor. I'm not looking forward to prying that up. I remember that being a pain when we remodeled the living room.

Oh, I'm also going to replace all the switches and outlets to white. Currently they're that off-white yellowish color that was popular in the 1980s. I get to play with electricity. Woo-Hoo!

I'd like to thank Douglas, from Sportcards From the Dollar Store, for sending me the cards you see in this post. My favorites are:

1.  the Oscar De La Cruz, because I love my prospects
2. the '84 retro green parallel of Ian Happ, because he's turning into one of my favorites
3. and all the vintage O-Pee-Chee, you know, because VINTAGE O-PEE-CHEE!

Thanks for the cards, Douglas. I'll find something worth sending across the border at a card show later in the month. I love hunting for cardboard for others!

And thanks to everyone for stopping by. I hope you still have all your digits after celebrating Independence Day!