A bonus off day today (the first year my company gave us MLK Day). So I have been cleaning up some odds and ends around the house. As a bonus, you get some odds and ends pictures. I don’t know what order FB will put them in, so they may need to be read in random order.
We are beginning Phase 2 on the Living Room and I removed the old pine mantle today. Here are the before and after pictures. The old man had used ALL the nails on this project, much like the stuff I deconstructed in the basement. I save the wood, I wish you could get clear white pine like this anymore. Much to Marcus’s despair, they will go into the woodshed. Underneath, we found some entombed wall to wall carpet from 1960, bonus. I will be building a QS White Oak replacement in the Arts & Crafts style. After a trip to get the wood.
A picture of the new benchtop bench. The new one is about 2-3″ wider and 16″ longer than the old one. I kind of whacked that first one out of scraps and it worked so well, that like many such projects it took years to get around to making a better one.
The final push came from carving the ambry panels. Clamping them on the old one worked OK, but I was nervous about the overhanging bits. Plus it was just a bit too high for comfortable carving. Given that I have more carving planned, getting the new one with a wider work surface and a comfortable height moved up the queue.
Also, I added teeth to my planing stop. Another project I put off for far too long. Yeah, I could have ordered a fancy one for $30 + shipping, OR I could hack up a 6″ hinge from the junk box and file some teeth into it with a triangular saw file. Cost $0 and about an hour’s time including mortising it into the benchtop.
Finally, I have been asked for more dog pictures. So, here’s Hedda and I on Opening Day for the Capital’s 2021 season. Let’s hope for less suck this year…
