A Childhood Dream Realized

Something I have always always always wanted was a kitchen window that was spanned by gleaming glass shelves where I could store knick knacks and pretty things. I convinced myself that it'd take out some of the tedious boredom out of doing dinner dishes and that I just might look forward to the task. My mom (or was it my grandma) had this GORGEOUS puzzle that features coloured glass in front of a leaded glass window with an art deco motif. I loved loved loved it as a kid, and admire it each time I visit my sister (she wound up with it, completed it, and framed it). I think that probably largely shaped my overwhelming desire for the glass shelves full of knick knacks glinting in the sun.

One of the many features that attracted me to the house was the deep alcove behind the sink. I thought it would be a perfect place for my glass shelves. So I added it to The List.

My plan was hatched! There's some edge banding above the travertine back splash, and it juts out about an inch beyond the surface of the alcove sides--the perfect place for some panels!

I decided that the easiest thing to do would be to install some wood panels that were pre-drilled with holes for shelf support pegs. I had some extra MDF lying around from a different project, so I used the handy-dandy JIG IT Shelving Jig that John bought around Christmas time. The jig made it super easy to make uniform holes on both sides of each panel. I decided to include a router detail on the leading edge of the panels, so I attached a ogee bit to the trim router. I had a moment of brilliance, and spray painted a coat of primer on the MDF, then I installed the panels.

I just drilled directly into the sides, and countersunk the screws into the board. A little bit of Spackle and sandpaper, and it's hard to tell from a distance that they were ever there.

Next I filled the gap between the tile edge banding and the panels with some paintable caulking. I laid down a strip of painters tape to make it easier to clean up any wayward caulking (previous experience and the general thought that caulk probably doesn't clean up from travertine very easily necessitated this). After it was all dried, I cleaned up the edges with a straight edge, and got to painting.

Again, my previous experience with painting bookcases reminded me of how much of a bitch it is to keep paint out of peg holes. I've tried using QTips to clean the holes out after each coat of paint, and despite by damnedest efforts, the holes still get clogged to the point that it sometimes takes a hammer to get the pegs in the holes. I had an idea (I've probably seen it used some where before and just forgot, because I doubt I'm the first person to have this frigging brilliant idea, but until I know otherwise, I'll say that I'm the originator of the idea and I'LL SUE ANY ONE'S ASS if they don't give me credit for it!).

Drinking STRAWS!! That's right, ladies and gentlemen, a standard drinking straw fits almost perfectly snugly in a peg hole. I just took a handful of drinking straws, cut them down into 2-3" segments, and crammed them into the peg holes. I then went about my way, painting several (SEVERAL) coats of Behr white paint, and didn't worry about clogging holes. When everything was dry, I pulled the straws out of the holes and removed the painters tape. Most of the peg holes had some horizontal stalagmite growths coming out of them, but a wet rag and a soft scotch scour pad, they came off pretty easily. I suppose a straight edge would work well at cleaning up the holes..and probably a carving tool would work, too. I didn't think to get a picture, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Back in September, I bought some tempered glass shelves at Habitat for Humanity's ReStore for super duper cheap, so I was happy to get them installed. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that the shelves were about an inch too short and about two inches too narrow to fit in the distance between the panels! ARGH.

But, I had another idea. I took another piece of MDF that was the same width as the panels I had just installed, routered about 1/8" out of the center of the panel so the side profile looked something like this: --_________--. I then cut that panel into 2" strips, and then turned those strips upright and used the table saw to cut a groove down the center of each strip--the groove is about 1" deep. After I got these strips primed and painted, I was set. I used some L-shaped shelf pegs on the panels. After they were installed on both sides, I inserted the strips so the groove I had cut would fit snugly over the shelf pegs. The strips provided the extra length and depth for the tempered glass shelves to sit on, and the routered detail provided a slight lip for the glass to rest between, to make it even more stable. HOORAY! I forgot to take a detailed shot of the supports, so you'll just have to imagine what they look like based on my horrible description.

Here's the finished product. I just put some random stuff up there for now; when I'm able to find more of the knick knacks I have, I'll add them to the collection and actually "stage" the area. You can see the strips I made for the shelves to rest on.

For now, I'm just happy to have my grandma's pretty glass pieces on display!

Click for more pics of the project at different stages. All said and done, I think I spent about $10 on the entire project (including the glass, MDF, paint, pegs and screws--and excluding the wood working equipment :o)

DIY Sunburst Mirror Design

So I've noticed an alarming number of design blogs that feature sunburst mirrors. And I WANT one, but I don't want to shell out the $200 (for a cheapie) to $1500+ (for a HOLY F). And with my false sense of belief in my woodworking abilities bolstered by the relative success with the magnetic knife holder I made for my brother in law, I've convinced myself that I would make my own sunburst mirror out of a 3" thick piece of wood cut into a circle, a bunch of dowels of different diameters, some circular wood cut outs, and a convex mirror (the type you'd expect to see on the side mirrors of a truck). And maybe some spray paint for a guilded look--haven't thought that far yet. I think it'll be a relatively easy project to complete. Hooray for band saws and drill presses!
So tonight, I decided to put my Word drawing skills to the test, and I made a mock-up of what the mirror will look like (or, at least, what I hope it will look like). I'll add this to the list of things I want to make, like the mailbox. Now, keep in mind that this is a Word "drawing" and it's not to scale or anything, but you get the idea.

Look, Ma! No Hands!

So, I did a horrible thing. I pressured my siblings into agreeing to do hand-made gifts this last year (2009) for our sibling Christmas exchange. The rules were simple: after drawing names (including sister- and brothers- in-law and not-quite-in-law), each person could spend up to $20 in materials required to make something for the person they drew. They could use a photo of a cute nephew that they had printed and framed (see, homemade!), knitted a fabu scarf, cross-stitched some pretty scene, etc etc etc etc. We "drew" names in November, thinking that was plenty of time to get stuff done and shipped off to the recipient. And for the majority of those involved (including the super duper busy school teacher), it was plenty of time.
For me, the lamer, it was not. And last week, I FINALLY shipped off the present I made for my brother in law. In my defense, I hosted Christmas for John's family at the house, and I was DEAD sick the last week of Nov/early December with what I believe to be the swine flu, and then I was DEAD sick with food poisoning for several days leading up the Christmas. And then some personal ish happened at the beginning of the year, so all the creative gift things took a back burner.
There, now that I've made my excuses, this is what I made:
A Magnetic Knife Holder! See, my brother in law is an awesome chef, and awesome chefs need awesome places to store their awesome knives, where all can marvel at their awesomeness. It's true. And a knife drawer is a scary scary place, and a knife block takes up precious counter-top real estate. And John was lusting after these magnetic knife holders back when we first bought the house, so we thought (hah! as if we actually THOUGHT this project all the way through!!) we could EASILY make one of our own.
John originally bought a pretty piece of padauk for the project. But when we discovered just how HARD of a wood it is, the idea was scraped and I decided to use some hard maple shorts that we picked up at a local lumberyard. Rather than do the smart thing and hollow out holes using a forstner bit (ala this nice tutorial), I decided to use an Ikea Grundtal knife magnet as the base. Now, keep in mind that I think I know WAY more about wood working than I actually do, which proves that watching hours and hours and hours of The New Yankee Workshop on Sunday afternoons as a child and taking one wood working class through the local community college's continuing education program is MEANINGLESS in the real world.
So what I did was (and forgive the butchery of correct terminology used incorrectly) this:
First, I shaved about a piece of 3/4" x 2" x 3' maple into thin 1/8" strips using the table saw (I never said I was smart).
Then I took another 3/4" maple and cut the width/length down to accomodate the 20" x 5/8" Grundtal knife holder, adding about an inch on both sides and top and bottom (so the wood was roughly 22" x 3". Now for some reason, I thought this would be an EXCELLENT time to use a plunge router, which I had NEVER used before in my LIFE. So I haphazardly routered out a cavity in the maple block, roughly large enough to accomodate the Grundtal knife holder. After that, inserted the magnetic knife holder, added some extra nickle-sized magnets that were lying around (for extra magnetism), and laminated the 1/8" strips of maple on top of everything, using regular old wood glue. Now, if the 1/8" strips of maple were ever to come off to reveal what's underneath, it would look like a drunken termite had a heyday gnawing away the inside of the the wood. Seriously. Plunge routers are WAY harder to use than I had ever imagined, and I stupidly didn't set the depth stop correctly, so the depth of the cut changed frequently. And I didn't think to make some sort of JIG for the routing, so the inside edges are crazy crooked. So basically, it looks like an aerial photo of sand dunes--I'm not even kidding.
But anyway, I got it all laminate together. Only I didn't think that it'd be a super cool idea to make sure ONE edge of the lamination was flush. So instead I laminated the (2) 2" strips of maple to the 3" knife block holder, with roughly 1/2" hanging off either side. BRILLIANT. I thought I could just use the table saw to cut off the excess, which sounds perfectly reasonable. Except it isn't.
Oh no, it isn't.
See, something happened (still dunno what) and the table saw KICKED the knife block off to the side (into my side, actually--I got my first table saw injury!!) and gouged a HUGE hole in the side of the holder. At that point, I was ready to admit defeat.
But my brother in law (the awesome chef) is an awesome person (truly), and I didn't want to fess up to being retarded and not making him something for Christmas, especially since I'm the frigging idiot who decided to pressure my siblings into MAKING Christmas gifts. So I sucked it in (and bandaged my kick-back wound), and gave it another go. When I realized I didn't have enough maple left to start over, I decided to patch the gouge. So I laminated a new piece of wood to the side of the holder, waited for the glue to cure, covered all visible cracks with stainable wood filler, and properly cut it down to size. And it worked!
After several sandings with increasingly finer paper, the holder was ready to be stained. I chose a nice Red Mahogany stain (I wish I could say that I chose it because I thought my brother in law would dig it, but the truth is that it's the stain I had at hand...and I thought he'd like it?). Six coats of matte poly later, we have this: Look, you can BARELY notice where I patched the kick-back gouge!

I was a little worried the holder wouldn't be able to actually hold knives, so I tried it out on some we had at home. It actually works quite well!

I got done with the knife holder sometime back in late March, but it took me until last week to finally mail the sucker. Part of the problem was that I couldn't find anything to mail it in (all the mailing tubes I had were too short or WAY too long). Part of it was that I'm incredibly lazy and forgetful. Regardless, I shipped it to him last week, and word is that he likes it.

I think in a year or two, when I've either forgotten how insanely hard the seemingly insanely simple project is or when I take some more woodworking classes, I just might make one for my knives--it might, however, be the death of me! Click for bigger/more pics, if you'd like (ignore the dirty counters and cabinets!!!)