Category Archives: wood working

Strawberries

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I have always wanted to be able to walk into my yard and pick strawberries whenever I wanted. I am not sure how many strawberry roots I have bought and planted and only gotten a small numbers of berries from…too many to count. I decided this would be the year I was going to concentrate on establishing the roots of some strawberry plants in order to have a bumper crop next year!

After looking at several different plans, I decided to build a tower out of some cedar fence slats I had in the garage. It was pretty simple. I drilled holes in two sides and then put it together with a finishing nail gun and wood glue.

I did put a soaker hose down the middle but it ended up rotting (it was kind of old) and so I pulled the whole thing out. I have read that people recommend a hose or pvc with holes drilled in it to allow water to get to the center. With a tower this small, it is really not necessary.

You are my sunshine

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We decided the bathroom would be gray and yellow with oil-rubbed bronze hardware.  I had my mind set that I wanted some flowers and sun something in the bathroom.  When the girls were little, I used to sing them “You are my sunshine” a lot.  It was also on a CD we wore out, so the saying means something to the girls.  I decided to make signs for the bathroom.

I used some scrap wood we had in the back of the house and made 2 signs.

I taped off a sun, and then painted.

Then came the words.

Sealed and the final product:

 

Building Cabinets- The Sinks

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This was the super fun part…NOT.  I dropped both sinks in and they fit like a glove!

I will not tell you ALL about the difficulties with the hardware…but the biggest thing was the distance between the holes for the water lines, and the back of the 2×6 that was supporting the cabinets, was not enough room.  There was a lot of cursing, drilling and shipping to get the faucets to fit correctly.

AND there were a lot of trips to HD to get things like a longer line for the cold water…yes, the guy in the plumbing department knew very well what I was doing by the end of this project!

Had to take a break to put the medicine cabinet together.

And I checked to make sure the drawers functioned correctly.

Here was the most difficult task of all and took more than just a day to figure out.  I had to research the building codes to find out how to correctly install an additional drain pipe.  We did not want to break apart the wall to do this, so we opted to connect it to the original pipe.  I did find out it can be no more than 30″ from the main drainage pipe.  I also learned that it did not need a J trap on the second pipe.  That is there to prevent backup from sewage gases, and the first one accomplishes that.

After a lot of curing again, and MANY more trips to HD, I was able to correctly install and tighten all the pipes so that there were no leaks.  Yay me!

And the final product!!!  Running water, draining, and all!!!

Building Cabinets- The Doors

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As I waited for the mortar and grout to set on the counter, I continued working on the doors and drawer facings.  I had these wood knobs, and used a little metallic spray paint and some shellac to make the door knobs.

 

(Taking a break to add the grout.)

Putting the doors together.  I did not make the cuts 45% because I wanted a “farmhouse” kind of look.

I used a table saw to cut out the back so that could glue in beadboard.  I did not use the dame kind that went on the walls, instead this kind is wood that snaps together, so it was double the thickness.

I punted a bit here because I really did not know how i wanted to do this.  I glued on backing board on top of the back (and used a lot of clamps to make sure it stuck!).

Next…putting in the sinks and plumbing…

Building Cabinets- Counter Top

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The next fun task was putting on the counter top and adding the sinks.  I wanted to tile, just because I had this vision in my mind of what the bathroom should look like.  The counter had to withstand the weight of tile, so I had to do some research on making sure the support was strong enough.

Cutting the holes in the cement board.

Whoops!  I forgot to take the middle part of the sink into account when cutting.

I decided to do the tile on a diagonal.  It takes A LOT more time, but looks better.  And yes, I cut and laid every tile out before starting on actually putting it down.

Up next…doors and hardware…