Wood Shop Magic

 It has been a busy winter!  I believe I mentioned my new source for industrial pallets in my last post called "Pallet Wood Fun."  This time the objective was night stands!

Last summer we bought a pretty nice dresser for our bedroom from the ReStore by Habitat for Humanity.  If you've never been to one, it's like a huge playground.  They have leftover materials from builds, used furniture from donations, tools (my favorite), and many other things.  This dresser that we bought is painted white and has legs and drawer faces that are proud of the front of the cabinet.  It's a pretty nice design and functions fairly well.  There are six drawers and Stephanie and I share it.  The problem is that Stephanie filled one whole drawer with socks... she has sooo many socks!  They are all sorts of fun colors and designs, and they seem to make her happy.  So, with one drawer full of socks, it only leaves two drawers for the rest of her clothes.  She mostly makes do, but we thought that having a little more space would be helpful.  We thought nightstands would do the trick... except that apparently nightstands don't come in pairs? Ridiculous, I know, but we looked for a couple of months both new and used and either couldn't find a matching pair (used), or ones that fit our space (new).  Night stands are apparently 30" to 36" wide these days for bedrooms that are larger than our living room.  I know this because I've designed several of them (bedrooms, not night stands). 

Anyway, I had just taken another load of industrial pallet wood home, so I thought I would endeavor to build a couple of nightstands that matched each other and our dresser.  It was an interesting journey, let me tell you.

I started with 2x6 lumber which, for those of you who aren't initiated into the world of lumber, means that the dimensions of the wood are 1 1/2"x 5 1/2".  I figured out that if I cut a length of it and then re-sawed it on my table saw, I could get (2) 5/8"x5" boards out of each piece.  That meant that I could make the sides, back, and drawers out of the same material rather than buying plywood panels.  I had a few challenges in that I don't have a planer or a jointer, so in the end, the panels I glued up are not perfect.  I did have a large sanding block so, by hand, I was able to flatten each panel.  I now have muscles in places that I didn't know I could have them...

The legs were easy to make, and the whole thing went together with pocket screws drilled into the inside of the panels.  I inherited a small nail gun from a friend and was able to use that to put the drawers together.  

The entire outside of the cabinet was painted white to match the dresser, and then it was done!  Well, I still had to make another matching one for me, but one done and one to go!  The second one was easier, or at least more streamlined.  This time I cut everything I needed all at the same time and bought the right sized clamps to make the process a little easier.

Anyway, I think they came out pretty nice and we now have a matching bedroom set!  In the end, I learned quite a bit, used wood that was destined for the landfill, and supported the local hardware store where we bought drawer pulls... and a lot of screws.

Pallet Wood Fun

 Well, its been a while since I've written anything here, but buying (and fixing) a house is a lot of work.  We've been pretty busy with many different projects.  Honestly, Stephanie and I both enjoy doing household projects, large and small.  We recently put in a new cork floor, milled stained and installed our own "shoe base." If you aren't sure what a shoe base is, I can't help you.  Its what my dad calls it, and I haven't heard a better term.  Its an addition to the wood wall base which in our case, takes the form of a quarter round piece of molding installed to take up the gap between the baseboard and the new floor.

Anyway, this post is about pallet wood!  Doing all of the projects has made me realize that I would like to have a little wood shop.  A dedicated space to put tools and do small projects.  I've slowly been gathering tools either passed down from relatives (my 1957 delta contractor table saw) or buying them on (you guessed it) Craigslist!  These projects however, need a place to be assembled, so the most important project I've done recently is an assembly table / work bench.  

Made of an old solid core wood door (SCWD for my architecture friends who have the pleasure of reviewing door schedules...), and an extremely robust pallet.  Most pallets are pretty flimsy, or at least made of undesirable rough cut, small pieces of wood.  These are great for small projects like the boxes I made for our wedding.  When it comes to larger projects however, larger pallets can be great.  I'm doing some work at a large food processing plant, and most of the machines come on gigantic pallets made of dimensional lumber including 4x4s and 2x8s, and that is pretty useful for some larger projects like assembly tables.

This table is pretty simple, using the 4x4s for the legs and 2x8s for the apron.  It's pretty solid, and should work out well as we continue to find ways to improve our surroundings!

The Boxes: Chapter 3

The Fourth Use.  Well, once I get an idea I really push it to the max.  I designed The Boxes to easily come apart knowing they would have more uses.  Check out this post about The Boxes:  Chapter 2.  Our friend requested some spice racks.  She keeps her herbs and spices in mason jars, and she has a lot of them.  I was once again excited for a project.

The stock list came together pretty easily.  The new design called for 18"x24"x4" open box with handles on the side for easy picking up.  Wood, screws and handles all came from the previous projects.

I cut the pieces to length first and then sanded them well.  Perfect corners don't matter with this kind of thing, so I rounded everything.  I'm also not planning on putting a finish on the box, so smooth edges and faces are pretty important.

Next, I drilled holes and screwed it together.  Not too epic, but it was a pretty easy project altogether.  It was fun, and nice to work on something for a friend.