Monday, April 27, 2015

Emily's Toolbox

My niece's birthday is in a few days, we actually almost share a birthday, but I gave her, her present already. She plays with my son's toolbox when she's at our house and she's done a few things in the shop with me so I decided to make her a toolbox too. She's slightly girly so I found a design on Pinterest that had a little frill to it. It uses base and crown molding for the sides and I painted it to try and match her favorite color. I put her name on it using a sharpie but it didn't go onto the spray paint too well so I put a clear coat on the whole thing hoping the name won't wear off.


Thursday, April 23, 2015

Pallet Dog Bed

This is my shadow.




Her name is Cali. She goes where I go, so when I'm in the shop she is too. She's got all kinds of health issues and one stems from laying on the cement in the garage, which gives her the equivalent of water on the knee only it's her elbow. She has a "bed" out there (an old comforter) but it continues to get covered with things and she can't use it. I had pallets to use up so I decided to throw together a raised bed that will keep stuff from getting thrown on it. I don't know if she'll use it because she doesn't really like climbing up on stuff but it's worth a shot to keep her from laying on the hard ground and swelling her elbow.

Here's the very crude bed. Sorry again for blurry pictures. I'm still terrible at photography.


And here it is with an old rug over the pallets and her comforter on top.



Friday, April 17, 2015

Tardis Memorial Bench

I promised to do a post on the Tardis bench I built so here it is. I think I put the pictures on facebook but never did a post about it. This bench was made in memory of Sydney Lemon. She was a young girl from our church who was diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia. Her father is the youth pastor at our church as well. I believe it was about six months from the time of her diagnosis to when she lost her battle with the disease but gained the ultimate reward of eternal life in heaven. Today would have been her 13th birthday. Her journey really hit me as she was diagnosed shortly after I started dealing with the worst part of my depression. I followed her updates on facebook and it really struck me how positive she remained while dealing with this devastating illness. I thought if she could fight that hard against something so big, I could get through my rough patch as well. I prayed a lot for her during that time. After awhile my prayers even changed from curing her disease to just helping to clear the infections so she could advance to the next stage of the fight, as I knew she would fight. I also prayed a lot for her and her family to feel peace, knowing what it was like not to have any at the time. When I heard of her passing, I felt an instant need to create something for her parents. She was their only child and having an only child myself, I couldn't even imagine what they were going through. I had gotten to where I could do woodworking again and it was partly this little girl that got me there. I've never started and finished a project with such focus before. Each step of the build was a blur and before I knew it, I had finished the bench. I chose to alter Ana White's woven back bench to resemble a Tardis from Doctor Who because we were both big fans of the series. I added a little plaque but it would never photograph well for me. It basically said in memory of Sydney Elizabeth Lemon with dates and such. The Things Remembered store in our mall was so helpful with this, just great customer service. I love how it turned out and I hope it's of some comfort to the Lemon family. Please raise awareness of Aplastic Anemia, get more people donating blood and plasma, and finding a cure for this disease.



Thursday, April 9, 2015

Headboard Bench

My parents bought a bed frame when they were first married I believe 34 years ago. It was solid oak and it had seen it's time in their house. They got rid of it about three years ago, I believe, but didn't really get rid of it. It was put in a yard sale but a broken spindle kept people away. My mom didn't really wanna sell it anyway so it ended up in my garage. I told her I could make a bench out of it. I cut the top off and sanded a bit at first but it hung out in my garage like that for quite some time. The piece on the bottom of the picture used to be on the top of the headboard and the footboard was very similar only smaller.




I originally intended to put arms on it but I accidentally left those pieces outside after sanding them and they became cracked. I knew where my mom intended to place the bench as well and decided the arms would be in the way and make it look even more massive than it already was.



From time to time between projects I would sand and paint what was to become the bench. Here you can see the back of it with a coat of primer.



After those two or three years of occupying various places in my garage, I finally decided I needed to finish this thing, and so I did. I thought I got more pictures in between but it looks like I didn't so here's the finished product. They are using it as a footboard bench since their new bed doesn't allow for a footboard because the bed can move up and down. Sorry some of the pictures are blurry and I didn't realize it at the time.





Monday, April 6, 2015

Egg Holder Update

You thought it was done? So did I. I wanted to put legs on it when I first made it but had decided to just finish it and not spend anymore time on it. When some other paint was drying I decided to clean up a little. The first thing I grabbed to throw away were the hole cut outs from the egg holder. I noticed four of them looked ok and would make good legs. I sanded them and glued them on then painted the whole thing again. Needless to say no cleaning got done.