illth.org » Furnishings

Kitchen Refresh, Before and After

LHP — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:06:09 +0000

Not a major kitchen redo, just paint, new cabinet doors and drawers and hardware, and deep drawers finally installed in the kitchen nook cabinet.

North wall. Sink, window, looking east.

North Wall, sink, counter. Looking east: After.

Sink, nook cabinet, looking west: Before.

Sink, nook cabinet. Looking west: After.

South Wall, stove, fridge. Looking west: Before.

South wall, stove, fridge. Looking east: After.

Kitchen Nook Cabinet

LHP — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:08:48 +0000

Our house has a nook at the back of the kitchen. We didn’t have a use for it, so stuff started piling up on a folding table we set up last Christmas.

I built a cabinet to replace the folding table.

The plan was to tile the counter-top to match the existing counter-top (as seen in the lower right corner of the picture above), but maybe we’ll get a piece of butcher block instead or finish the maple plywood that’s there now with Behlen’s Rock Hard.

Headboard

LHP — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:55:12 +0000

The headboard I made recently.

Here’s the top after a coat of varnish (Tried and True with a couple of tablespoons of old recipe Marine Spar Varnish (now banned in California)). That’s Plyboo with a strip of cherry at the bottom. This part is 58 inches wide and 25 inches high. The base it rests on is 60 inches wide and 25 inches high (making the total 60×50).

Here’s the base. Solid cherry, which is a waste, really, since most of it is hidden behind the mattress. Also finished with Tried and True and a bit of banned Spar varnish.

Here’s a closer look at the joinery.

Here’s the dog relaxing in front of the installed headboard, 10 seconds before she gets yelled at for sleeping on the bed.

Console Doing What it Does

LHP — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:23:55 +0000

At home, holding up the TV.

And hiding all the cables.

TV Console … Finished!

LHP — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:03:37 +0000

I rubbed in the last coat of oil last night. I’ll let it cure for a couple of days before I bring it home.

Front.

Front, shelf and glass view.

Front, shelf and glass view.

Top. Long view.

Back. Cable storage and management.

Back, in shadow.

First Coat of Oil

LHP — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:20:08 +0000

Here are couple of shots after the first coat of oil. I’m using the tried and true “Tried and True“, which is my new favorite finish.

More TV Console

LHP — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:36:52 +0000

Coming along.
The last 10% of the job takes 90% of the time.

Here’s the base. The glass guy up the way thinks using solid mahogany is a waste for this since the base will be mostly out of view.
He’s probably right.

Or maybe not.

We’ll have a better idea when it’s on the floor.

TV Console

LHP — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:38:35 +0000

In work. For the television and all the stuff that plugs into it.

Front. A single shelf goes in the middle there. The holes are for adjustable shelves on both sides.

Back. There’s room in the middle for power strips and so on (cables and wires will snake through those holes near the bottom.)

Front again.
Plyboo. It’s 72 inches long by 20 inches high by 14 inches deep. Eventually it’ll rest on three inch feet and frosted glass doors will slide in the dado cut into the front.

Production Box Lamps — First Run

LHP — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:11:40 +0000

Still need to work out a few kinks in the process (2.5 hours labor for each is 1.0-1.5 hours too much) and the product (I’ve tried three different methods of attaching the bottom to the rest of the box and none of the three are 100% satisfactory), but I’m pretty happy with the results.
The boxes are made of half-inch Plyboo (bamboo plywood). They are 11 inches high by six-and-a-half inches wide by four-and-three-quarters inches deep. They are lit by 14 watt fluorescent bulbs.

The middle of those three is shining in my living room at the moment. I’m gonna run it for a week straight and see if the house burns down.
This pattern is my favorite so far:

Here’s another pattern.

And a look at the joinery.

Glasslight Box Prototype

LHP — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:48:09 +0000

A glass artist moved into a vacant studio space near the wood shop. One thing lead to another, and I wound up with this prototype lamp.

No cord management, but maybe the next effort will be to incorporate some glass and light into the original Cordboxes — or better yet — into the latest wall-mounted design.