Week 68

Made more solid progress on the cabinets during week 2 of vacation. They're now close to done. Countertop is in place & cabinet doors have been hung:

For reference, the entire thing is 12 feet long, and has 7 cabinet doors along the long side.

I'm very happy with how the counter has turned out:

I'm going to go ahead & level the uneven places out with a block plane after all. 

AJ helped me brainstorm what to do about the cabinet doors. I settled on maps mounted on cardboard in a wooden frame:

In addition to finishing the counters, there are some other final odds & ends, and then I will do something drawer-like with the cubby holes in the square shelf thing on the short side. So far, I've spent about 40 hours on it, and about $40 -- I had to buy hardware for the doors and some more wood glue, but everything else I already had lying around.

Next up: finishing this project & moving all the brewing stuff to its new home!

* * *

Update: When I looked the other day, there were a handful of fava beans ready to go, and a bunch more snap peas. We just went out to get them for dinner, & this is all we found:

You're welcome, nighttime critters!

Week 67

Week 1 of vacation done! In addition to sleeping late and drinking too much coffee, I made very good progress on the cabinets this week.

First thing, I had to make some sawhorses, having none:

Next, the skeleton of the cabinets:

Pickles did not appreciate that I worked past her dinner hour that day.

Getting everything level was a challenge, because the floor is not level -- it slopes front to back, and also left to right. 

Next, the backing for the cabinets. I used some leftover corrugated plastic so that the natural light from the windows can also light up the cabinets:

Next, blocking large gaps in the back of the cabinets to keep mice and dust out. It was a lot of cutting tiny pieces of wood to fit odd-shaped holes, so it took a long time. For the gap under the framing that I'm attaching the cabinets to, I had this 15 foot board from the concrete pour last year that worked perfectly:

Next, putting in plywood shelves:

They go through only four of the cabinets, leaving the two on the end open for tall fermentation vessels.

Next, more structure to the cabinets, and making sure the verticals are straight up and down in all directions.

Next, I put some maps on the back of the cube thing:

And then settled it back where it will be attached:

This is how the maps look in their final home:

Finally, I got started on the counter top:

From another angle, closer up:

I was thinking of leveling out the uneven parts with a block plane, but the unevenness looks interesting, so I might just pour a layer of resin over the top to preserve that while still getting a flat work surface.

Lastly, and most importantly: proof for my parents that I still have all my fingers:

In garden news, the first peas are ready, and we have baby beets:

AJ made a delicious dinner with them, after enjoying her practice drum:




Next up: finishing the counter, and then figuring out what I want to do for cabinet doors.

Week 66

I am now officially on vacation. Let the cabinets begin!

This weekend, I started by moving some things I have been storing on this four foot high work bench that the construction guys had built to fabricate the kitchen counter, and then removed the work bench entirely.

Here is the before:

Pickles helped, as usual, by chewing a bully stick:

Then I cleaned up the dust and dirt, sorted the lumber, and set in place this cube shelf thing that a neighbor gave us:

The counter that I will build on top of the cabinets will be L-shaped, and this cube thing will be the short end of the L.

Ready to go for tomorrow morning! 

Before I cleaned up for the night, I did one additional project -- I made a taiko practice drum for AJ:

It's packing tape over the tire that was left in the house when we moved in, fixed to the top of a broken stool I picked up on the sidewalk for this very purpose. The idea -- from The Atlanta Taiko Project -- is that it is more taiko drum-like than the practice pad AJ currently uses, but it's much quieter than an actual taiko drum. 

Tomorrow, I will start building the cabinets!

Week 65

Hugely busy week with work & school, so nothing much to report. But here are some pictures of the flora & fauna on Mars:

snap peas starting to fatten up (2-3 inches long)

tiny baby fava pods (half an inch long)

dog, enjoying her pre-bedtime nap (four feet long)

Next up: Duserhaus Cabinets 2015 begins next week!