The Kid's Corner Desk

Hi again folks.


Just getting caught up on my posts and projects.  As per my previous post, December was nuts. Anyway, Borrowed Idea #2 had to take a back seat.  Reason being, the windows, Christmas and my daughter's Christmas present.


The little Lady loves computers and the kids game on the web from the various kid's TV channels.  She always was on our computer playing and clicking on folders such as pictures, etc. and we were concerned she may accidentally delete something.  Mommy had a great idea.  Why not get her a refurbished CPU/Tower?  She does not need a big machine and they are fairly inexpensive.  We already had an extra monitor.  We found @ one of the department stores a child's keyboard and mouse.  Loaded on some of her music into Media Player, some photos for a shuffled wallpaper and shortcuts on her desktop to her favourite websites.


The only outstanding item was a desk.  We were using a child's folding metal table that had seen a better day.  Last Saturday when I woke up, my wife gave me the project.  "Make a desk"!  I searched the web looking for ideas and I could not find one specific example to use, but it gave me the basis for a plan.  I drew it out and went to work.


Materials used were:


1) 3/4" 4x8 sheet of Fir veneer plywood. 
- I then cut from it a 3' x 3' piece.  - I forgot to take a picture, but from 2 corners I measured out 16", made my marks, connected them by a line and then clamped a piece of wood onto the top as a fence and cut the angled front with my skill saw.
- then I applied the pine, iron on veneer to edge the plywood.  The closest match to Fir was Pine.

2) 4 - 1" x 6" knotty pine boards
- I used these for the legs. These dimensions were 12" x 24".
- My thought process on the height was to make it a little bigger to allow for growth. 
- However, what I learned is the ratio for kids tables and chairs are particular.  Now the chairs we have are too low. 
- I will need to apply this ration to some new chairs that I now have to make.


With each project a lot of what I learned from school and grandfather comes back to me. I will now get a router table up and running and route out for joints and in this case, the center support.


The project was very simple really, I had the legs and top cut, assembled and sanded by Sunday.  The most time consuming part as always is the finishing.  Sanding & more sanding.  Then the staining...


Our dilemma in the kids playroom is the existing Ikea shelves and cases.  How do we colour match?  This is near impossible since these are, I guess  a melamine veneer and natural wood has grains and knots.  Anyway, after a few tests and samples with the Minwax ebony & dark walnut we found as close of a match as we figured we could find. Dark walnut over an ebony base.

After applying the wood conditioner, I applied the ebony stain following the standard rules of application.  After the appropriate drying time, I then applied a second coat of stain, but this time it was the dark walnut.  Since the ebony absorbed first, the walnut blended in to the areas where it could.  This gave it the appearance of the brown highlights like you see in the Ikea Balck/brown finish.

I then applied 3 coats of the Minwax fast-drying Poly, satin sheen finish.  I applied a fourth coat to the top for added protection from the child abuse this will take over time.

For final assembly I chose a way that is as easy as I could. I counter sunk holes, applied wood glue and use 3/4" wood screws to fasten the legs to the top.


Anyway, enjoy and comments are welcome!

 

 

 

 

Window Trim, Window Casing

Hi folks

Happy New Year!  I am quite thankful the calendar turned.  December was a nightmare.  For me, December is one of the busiest months of the year @ work. Rightfully so with it being year end.  Compounding this was the Flu-demic that ravaged our home.  Between myself and the kids I think we were sick at least 3 times each. The wife was lucky and only came down with it really well once. Adding to this was we had the windows (12) on the front of our house replaced in the first 10 days of the month. There was no way I was going to accept the contractors, low-grade standard issue casing framing and accenting our new windows.



The kids wanted up on the scaffold

With the Holidays coming and the Christmas tree in the front living room window, this had to be done.  At our old house on all 3 floors I ripped out all baseboard, casing and interior doors.  These finishings in my opinion are the best way to refresh and update your home in one of the more inexpensive and affordable manners.  The caveat is time if you want it done correctly with style and quality.

Living Room

For our decision on "what to do", we borrowed the style and idea from our friend's home.  They purchased a home that was custom built and it is evident that time, thought and care was put into the finishings.  While I speak of them, check out Andrea's blog.  She is extremely talented.  Harlow & Thistle, and the link is http://harlowandthistle.blogspot.ca/.  She needs to be added to the "Borrowed Ideas" link.

Anyway, the idea we borrowed was that they had an extended sill wider than the actual casing frame.  What I found particularly brilliant about this is the lack for a need to join two 45 degree pieces of casing to form a joint.  As most can attest, when replacing trim in an existing home, you have no idea what is behind the existing trim and the condition of the drywall and window frame.  It can make it tough to ensure a tight fit. I added onto this idea by adding a top sill (for lack of a better term). I like the look. I am not sure how to describe it, but what comes to me is a "modern Roman" look.

The materials used were 1" x 4" primed MDF non-profiled casing and your standard 2x4's.  The 2x4's are what creates the extended sill.  What was done, (with the help of Andrea's hubby Tyler) is taking the 2x4's and ripping off the one edge.  As you know, a 2x4 has rounded edges.  These had to be removed.  After ripping off one edge, then I set the table saw fence to rip at 1.5". You can yield out of a 2x4 two 1.5" x 1.5" 8 foot lengths with hard edges.  After this is where the work comes in.  Lots of sanding to get the construction grade lumber to an acceptable paint-grade finish and then at least two coats of primer.  Priming helps cut down the painting requried after installation.  For this we used the standard CIL Trim, Door & High Traffic Semi-gloss.

Some of the challenges were...

1) the quality of the 2x4's.  I spent a lot of time going through the lift at the Lumber yard, but still ended up with warped, bowed and overly knotty pieces after cutting.  I expected this, but was still surprised at the number of pieces that were not sufficient.

2) in our Living Room & daughter's room, they have bay windows.  In our case there are 3 separate windows spaced by ~3-4" of drywall and on an angle giving the "Bay" appearance.  I decided to eliminate the need/nuisance of having a narrow strip of drywall between the windowcasing that need to be painted and maintained and cased in the entire window.

3) Finding that angle was fun.  22.5 degrees it was not.  It ended up being (after many test pieces) 20 degrees...

Anyway, the end result was worth it.  Our foyer & son's room are identical, and as mentioned, our LR & daughter's room are identical as well. 

Thanks for reading!
Ryan

Borrowed Idea #2...Rustic TV Console

Hi folks.
I have not executed Idea #2 yet, but of course it is a project where the "metal meets the wood". Again, with the new house my darling wife wanted the family room off the kitchen to feel natural. Today we are using a sofa table for our TV stand. After the hacked Ikea tables were completed and put into use, I began a search for for a TV table/console. What I found was Liz Marie's blog. Her husband's use of construction lumber is the perfect fit with the Far Fifty's tables. This is the darling wife's Christmas present.

Liz Marie and her hubby are pretty magnificent. Not "bad" from a southern neighbour (however, she is a Michigan girl so I feel some certainty she knows what us Canadians are like and understands the Maple Leafs' fans are better fans than the Red Wings' faithful) http://www.lizmarieblog.com/2013/03/diy-tv-console/

Anyway, stay tuned for the finished product. On a festive note, Merry Christmas!!! Here is a pic at my first attempt at a Griswold Christmas!

Refurbished IKEA Granas Coffee Table Top

Hi folks.

This is "Borrowed Idea" #1. We had the Ikea Granas coffee table and the two end tables for about 6 years. During the move this year we had to remove the glass tops. When we did so, the rubber stops that held the glass in place had become brittle and basically disentegrated when we pulled the glass tops off. Needless to say, when we settled into our new home, the glass was sliding all over the place. It drove us nuts and quite frankly was not "kid friendly".

 

My wife desired a change. She looked at new purchases, but now a fan of the skills I had kept from her, she looked for refurbished ideas of the same Ikea tables. What she found was The Far Fifty's blog. She presented the link and idea and I loved it. http://thefarfifty.blogspot.ca/2012/08/coffee-tableikea-hack.html

The important thing for us was to match the table tops to our floors and our fireplace. It was easy for me to figure it out as one of my g-pa's favourite woods and colours was walnut.  I have always had a love for this colour, and soft wood makes stressing walnut less difficult.

Anyway, hope it helps and thanks to the The Far Fifty for the idea. (PS-the couches are also Ikea. Thoughts?)

 

The Other Bench; Door Bench; Backpack Hideaway

For those hard core dedicated fans....***This is not one of the BORROWED IDEAs...However, I do accept new followers!!!!

At our previous house, we went crazy over the backpacks/bags & purses strewn across the floor. What to do with them inspired many a discussion. After moving to the new digs, the same issue appeared. Those aforementioned bags are still tripping us up!

So I took it upon myself to load Junior into the "HOddyssey" and go on
 a lumber run.  We picked up some 2x2's, some 16x96 pine laminated whiteboard, a piano hinge and we were on our way! Total assembly time inclusive of cuts was an afternoon. With the help of my nieces and nephew, we had it all assembled in about 6 hours. The best part of this project was young J getting involved physically & mentally. He made a couple of cuts. This helped him connect the dots. The kid loved it. As we know, staining, & finishing requires time and patience.  This is why the blog is here now.

The next step is finding some hardware to accent the piece. Some handles, a clasp, etc. If anyone has a recommendation on a good place to find such hardware in the greater Toronto area, please feel free to share.

Thanks

Borrowed Ideas

Hi folks.

On my blog I have included some links to other blogs where I/we have "Borrowed Ideas" from. One is a wonderful idea my wife found that has turned out great. The other is an idea I found that will accomplish a wish my wife has. She loves it and so do I and I look forward to the challenge and the creative process to pull it together.

Both of these bloggers are talented and have some great work. I thank them for the inspiration.

Ryan

Nursery Wall Decor - Name Plates

The more I think about it, it was shortly after my son was born that I dusted off the palm sander and bought a small can of poly. Our daughter's room had her name above her bed and my wife wanted Junior's room to have something similar. We threw ideas back and forth. Being a big Blue Jays and baseball fan our first thought was a bat. A few factors had me rethinking this idea for a few days.

1) mounting a bat to a wall is difficult considering there is not a flat surface to place against the wall.

2) I am unable to come up with a safe, viable solution where a bat could be ripped in half.

3) wooden bats are more expensive than I thought.

The next sensible (and most sensible) idea as a Canadian which also eliminated the factors above would be a hockey stick. Jr sticks are affordable and flat. As well, minimal time is required to make them. Quite simple easy. 

The bill of material included a Jr. sized stick, some letters from an Arts & Crafts store, some ribbon, a can of spray paint, some screw caps and some poly. Ribbon & paint in whichever colour desired. Our son's room had a light brown, navy and chestnut brown pallet. We chose a navy paint and chestnut brown ribbon to compliment the natural grain of the stick. His room at our new house is a light blue, and the paint was picked based on his bedding and of course the stick!

Preparation involved sanding the manufacturer's painted logos off the stick and removing the existing finish. Next, I applied two coats of poly. While each coat of poly was drying, I applied two coats of paint to the letters. Once everything was dried, I measured 16" (I have now learned, depending on the # of letters required, you can measure 8") from each side of the Center mark and counter sunk a couple of holes for attaching to the wall. These measurements were chosen for lining up to the stud framing. Then to give the impression of a taped hockey stick, we wrapped the ribbon around the blade and knob of the stick and adhered it using Gorilla glue (we tried two-sided tape, but it would not hold). Then the letters were adhered using the same glue. 

We were quite surprised on the outcome and found a great gift idea. I have made each of my nephews a stick and some for friends. Even sold a couple.

I plan on experimenting with this idea on other sporting equipment. Such as Lacrosse sticks, Cricket paddles, Oars, and Canoe Paddles.

Enjoy.