Book 'em

Nothing quite compares to the feeling of completing a creative project.

Kim and I carried this completed book case out of the workshop and into the bedroom yesterday.  It's the first large piece of furniture I've finished in some time.  Sure, I've done plenty of other smaller projects, but this one has been simmering and slowly coming along for quite some time.  In fact, the drawings I made for it are dated 2008.  Kim reminds me that since then I've created a few other things outside of the workshop, but still.  Five years on a case piece is a long time!

I've written about this project before here on Commonplace.  There was a post about making dowel pegs from firewood.  I talked about preparing the lumber in this post, which also shows the inspiration for the project- an article written by Shaker furniture expert Christian Becksvoort.  His version can be seen on his site- boy howdy, I saved $4,500!  And yes, I adjusted the measurements from his example- my version is about 6" wider.  This post is mostly about Memorial Day, but there is a picture of the dovetails, freshly cut, that hold the case sides together.  And in this post, the shelves were but a drawing taped to the wall and a pile of lumber.

Here is the case with the doors closed, empty of books.  It is made from solid black cherry.  The wide lumber (the top and sides are 12" wide boards) comes from a memorable snowy day, probably 15 years ago, when I acquired it from a barn in western Geauga county- the personal stash of an octogenarian woodworker who could no longer make use of it.  I think of him and his kindness often when I'm working in the shop.  The small table in front is one of a pair that I built about 8 years ago.  The bed frame was built with the same lumber.

Dovetails are a mechanical joint, and here they connect the top of the case to the sides.  The shelves are also connected to the case sides with sliding dovetail joints.

I'm particularly proud of the perfectly matched door knobs I turned on the lathe.

 Here's the case, doors open, loaded with trout and fly fishing books.

The young apprentice says it measures up!

Big pieces smaller

The wag refers to woodworking as the process of making big pieces of wood smaller, and as I was spending a small amount of time in the shop messing about on a project over the weekend, the aphorism seemed particularly apt.

The procedure in question is making dowel pegs.  In cabinetry, these are traditionally used to pin mortise and tenon joints.  The joint is actually drawn together and held by the dowel pin.  The pins are best made when the wood is still green.  Straight grained wood is a must, and usually wood like oak is used.  In this case, the pins are for a piece I'm building using cherry.

Flash back two weeks, when I took down a small decorative cherry tree for a neighbor.  The tree had died so I offered to remove it.  I sawed the six-inch diameter trunk pieces into firewood lengths and tossed them on my pile.  The other day I stood at our kitchen window, just above the firewood stack, admiring the yard.  I looked down and noticed that one of the pieces of cherry I'd cut was straight as a rod and didn't have any knots in it.  Dowel stock!

The process is to split (rather than saw) the still-green wood to allow the length of the piece to carry the strength inherent in the grain of the wood.  So, I work from the back of the above picture to the front.  It begins with the froe and maul.  The froe is that L-shaped tool in the top right.  This cleaves the wood in half, in successively smaller pieces.  Next is the drawknife- the blade with two handles right in the middle of the picture, which I use to get the stock roughly round and roughly 1/2" in diameter.  The finishing tool in the process is the dowel plate in the lower right of the picture.  This is a piece of tool steel in which I've drilled successively smaller diameter holes.  The stick of green wood is beveled at the end to get it started in the hole, then pounded down through, peeling it like a banana to that diameter.  Those three next to the dowel plate are just about finished.  Once done, they'll be allowed to dry completely before being used to pin the 14 or so mortise and tenon joints on my bookcase project.

From the Shop

Colder weather makes for more time for indoor projects, and as such, I'm back at work in the shop. I've not done much in the way of furniture building for more than a year, and am itching to get back at it. Construction and household projects are satisfying, but cabinetmaking is more so for me.

I've got three sets of plans up on the wall. First are two smaller projects: a pair of saw benches, and a long-overdue triple frame for three watercolors by my brother-in-law. Finally, a bigger project, a glass door book case.

This fall I've been building Shaker boxes. These are fun to make and can be done with small chunks of time. Their form and utility are wonderful. My friend Daniel was interested in learning how to make them, so we worked together. I've made two sets of sizes #0 through #5, which are all done but for finish.

A nested set, sizes #0 through #4, sans tops and bottoms.

Stacked #0 through #4, on top of a pair of bigger #5s.

Stack of pine (saw benches) and cherry (picture frame and bookcase) awaiting their fate.

"Don't make something unless it is both necessary and useful;

but if it is both necessary and useful,

don't hesitate to make it beautiful."

Making Wood Smaller

With rain in the forecast for the afternoon, I knocked off a little bit of painting before breakfast, and then after my second cup of coffee, headed outside to make big pieces of wood smaller. I've got two projects in my sights- a quick build of a pair of saw benches, and then a piece of furniture that should give me plenty to work on through the winter. It's a small bookcase with glass doors, out of cherry.

Making big wood smaller. The wood I am using started out looking like this:

Prunus Serotina (Black cherry)
(c) 2002 Steven J. Baskauf

I bought it milled from a man who lives just a mile or two from Louis Bromfield's Malabar Farm in central Ohio. This guy owns a small mill and saws lumber from trees on his own farm and those nearby.

I rough cut the pieces I will need and then fired up one of my few nods to modernity, a Dewalt surface planer. Most of the wood I use is either straight from the sawmill or sometimes rough planed, oversize. I spent about two hours planing up the pieces of wood to nearly-finish dimension. All finish work will be done by hand.

Here is the prodigious pile of shavings created by the Dewalt. This tool is used outside only!

And here is the resulting stack of lumber. It is now in my shop, where the moisture content will adjust from being outside in the garage to that of the house. I likely won't do much work between now and the holidays, but it's nice to know this beautiful cherry lumber is waiting for me in the shop.



This bookcase will be built along the lines of one built by Christian Becksvoort, which he detailed in an issue of Fine Woodworking magazine many years ago and which was reprinted in his book In the Shaker Style: Building Furniture Inspired by the Shaker Tradition (below).

Rooms Finished

This is a home renovation/decoration update. With monkeys.

The nursery is done. It got some plaster work and fresh paint. Grandma Pam sewed window valances, crib ruffle and bumper, and covers for the shelf bins. Crib and dresser are from Pottery Barn Kids.

One little monkey with lots of littler monkeys.

West wall is floor to ceiling bookshelves, formerly filled with books on rhetoric, now filled with baby diapers, supplies and clothes. And board books.

East and South walls, dresser/changing table and Pooh prints.

North and East walls, crib and rocker.

And the bathroom, right next door. Completely done at this point. I ripped out the window sill last week and replaced it with a piece of solid marble, a definite improvement. I found the curtain and rug in a recent CB2 catalog and thought the yellow was a nice accent for the black and white.

Old Tools

You would think that with a newborn child in the house, projects involving old tools would come to a screeching halt. You'd be wrong.

For the last two weeks, Grandma Pam has been a whirlwind of projects (as well as cooking and cleaning). With Anna, she has made puppets for a school project. With Maggie, she whipped up a batch of delicious chocolate frosted eclairs for French food day at school. And late into the night, the house has been echoing with the sound of the sewing machine. In the short time she's been in Cleveland, all three kids have new curtains in their bedrooms, and Sam's room has a fully coordinated decor- curtains, crib ruffle, bumper pad and storage bins, all in colorful, monkey bedecked fabric.

I, however, was quite distracted by the machine with which all of the sewing projects have been created. I knew that Kim had a sewing machine stowed away on our third floor, but it hadn't seen the light of day since I moved in. Pam unearthed it shortly after she arrived, and it has been whirring away since.

The machine is a thing of beautiful industrial design. A Singer 99K, its curves and lines evoke a time when such things mattered. The gleaming black enamel, golden pinstripes, and art-deco embellishments are worthy of a vintage automobile. Its cast iron heft is also a thing of the past in todays age of plastic and aluminum. Lifting it inspires confidence that the tool you are about to use is a serious one, not a toy. Looking at its beauty inspires the worker to create similar beauty in fabric and thread. It sports a "Made in England" badge, and according to my research, was probably built in the early 1950s. It was available in both hand-crank and electric versions- this one is electrified.

As with all old tools in our house, I plan to keep this one in top condition, even if it is only used during visits by Grandma. I've already poured through the owners manual and found other manuals online to make sure I can keep it correctly cleaned and lubricated. I have no doubt it will last another fifty years.

Bathroom, getting close

The bathroom project inches closer to being done.

These pictures show the tub/shower tile done and grouted.

The large black rectangle on the floor is the furnace register.

The medicine cabinet and matching storage cabinet are up. Next for me is to paint the door and get it re-hung.

Finally, we are waiting for the arrival of the tub refinishing crew who will put a fresh surface on the tub, the last piece of the puzzle.

Bathroom reno photo update

Just a quick photo update of progress on the bathroom. I've got the day off and am set to tile the tub/shower walls, but thought I'd get some "before" pictures posted.

This was a couple of weeks ago, a "before" shot of the floor. The tile is now down and the walls have been finished, as you'll see below!



Here's where I am today. The sink (and toilet) and light fixtures are in. Here you see the sink, wall light, and medicine cabinet.

Here's the wall opposite, a bit of the floor peeking out (I've got cardboard down to protect it while I am working on the wall tiles around the tub) and the wainscoting.

An attempt at a wide view through the door. The glass block window in the shower will get a tile sill and surround and fresh grout.

Breugems Brouwerij

Gesundheit!

This brewery, located just outside of Amsterdam in the Netherlands created a very simple papercraft of their historic delivery vehicle, a tasty pre-1967 barn door VW bus. Ken and I are planning a visit to the original to check the veracity. And taste test, of course.

Here is my version. Hey, a guy's got to have a hobby, right?

Next up: a miniature desktop town version of Rothenburg perhaps?

Demolition Man

I'm a walking nightmare, an arsenal of doom
I kill conversation as I walk into the room
I'm a three line whip, I'm the sort of thing they ban
I'm a walking disaster, I'm a demolition man

Cue The Police, "Ghost in the Machine", side 1, last track (or if you have the shiny disc version, track 5, and for you youngsters, bit-torrent blah-de-blah-blah...)

Yes, it's DEMOLITION MAN! I've been slowly- let's say methodically- tearing apart the upstairs bathroom. I'm down to the walls now. Ripping out plaster and lath is a cathartic task, a combination of brute force and finesse, worked alternately with heavy hammer, wrecking bar and flat shovel. I've got three of the four walls pulled down, the lath bundled, and the plaster bagged in plastic grocery bags (it's too heavy for bags any larger than grocery bags.)

I've not uncovered too many surprises, but I'll have to re-do a little bit of the plumbing and a little bit of the electrical before I close the walls back up. The bath/shower will get a vent fan, so that will require some fitting as well. But before that, I've one more wall of purple-painted plaster to rip down, some vinyl flooring to remove and bunches of lath nails to extract.

We purchased the tile for the tub walls and the floor over the weekend, and I'm quite excited about how the whole room is going to look when it is done. It's a good thing to have that end product in mind during this messy deconstruction process!

And now, for your entertainment:

Basement Bathroom done!

After roughly four months of work, the bathroom is done. We've been using it for about a week now and everything is working great. The city will sign off on the permit after final inspection next week.

For those of you who are interested, the final cost was about $3500 for materials. We had two plumbers in to help with things that I either couldn't or didn't want to do. One was relocating the refrigerant line that goes from the furnace to the compressor outside. I'm fine with sweating copper pipes, but I don't care to deal with refrigerant. The other was the drain lines under the floor. After busting out some of the concrete floor, it was obvious that the connections were going to be complex. As with any time a professional is hired, the cost was not insignificant, but well worth it. I did the rest of the work myself. (Maggie helped grout the wall tiles!)

I did not tally my own hours on this project. I worked on it a LOT, many evenings, weekend days, and my days off were spent downstairs. I found it all quite enjoyable.

I'll start on the second floor full bath remodel this weekend. It will get a new tile floor, fresh walls (we're thinking wainscoting), tile surround in the tub, new vanity and toilet, and a vent fan.

So here is the video tour (co-starring Jasmine).

Bathroom update: close ups

There are of course many things for which I am thankful this Thanksgiving, but one particular thing is the bathroom project that has kept me happily puttering away in the basement, sawing, hammering, plastering, plumbing and playing at being a mason.

The room is now completely enclosed, making wide shots pretty difficult, so I thought I would post a series of close up photographs. These could carry the title "Materials" as each one focuses on a different type of building material.

Tile and mortar:

Gypsum, paper, copper and lead: (technically "lead free solder" but that doesn't sound quite as romantic)

Gypsum and paper:

Pine and steel:

And one attempt at a wide shot.

This is the entrance to the bathroom, taken from my shop. The shower is just behind the door, the toilet and sink will be to the right as you enter the room. Still to come- door trim, several coats more of mud on the walls, paint, grout for the vertical tiles, and the last step will be installing the toilet, sink, and shower door. And those will all have to wait until we return from Atlanta, where we join the Claspy clan for a southern Thanksgiving!

Bathroom tile

I spent Saturday evening laying the tile in the new bathroom and it went pretty well. I arranged them such that cutting would be at a minimum. Grout will follow in the next day or two now that the thinset mortar has cured.

Sunday I began putting up the drywall, starting with the outside walls. Once the grout is done on the tiles, I'll do the ceiling in the room, then the walls. So this should be the last time the framing is visible!

Bathroom update

The bathroom addition project in our basement is chugging right along. I've got the walls roughed in, as well as the new circuit and electrical fixtures and most of the plumbing. The shower floor pan is in. Two more water supply lines to run, then it will be time for the rough inspection, after which I can lay the tile floor and start buttoning up the walls. We still need to purchase tile, vanity, toilet, door, shower door and wall paint. It is slow going, steady but sure!