Jun 11 2015

Down Draft Table

When I wrote the post for ToolGuyd — Project: Making a T-Track Table Top on a Budget, a commenter said he wanted more information about my down draft table. Turns out I never posted the project here. I built this several years ago so the assembly pictures are from then and the assembled …

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Mar 27 2015

Breaking Down A Laminate Sheet With A Utility Knife

I have an upcoming project where I want a nice smooth surface that glue and other sticky materials will peel off easily. I’ve previously used pre-cut 30×48″ sheets of ugly patterned laminate for this purpose, because I didn’t care too much what the end product looked …

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Feb 26 2015

Making a Cornice out of Crown Molding

When we replaced the exterior windows and doors in our family room, I trimmed the door out with a fluted casing and a cornice made out of crown molding. Now that we remodeled our family room, I wanted to trim out the double doors into the …

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Feb 18 2015

Treehouse Bed

My son’s treehouse bed is possibly the largest, most complex project I have attempted. It took over a year to complete. After planning and partially building this project, I discovered the finished pieces wouldn’t fit out the door. This set me back several months as I tried to …

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Jan 30 2015

My Son’s Scrap Bin Imperial Shuttle

My kids love my shop. I’ve always told them they can use any materials they want as long as they give me a drawing of what they want to do. My scrap bin is the exception, they can dig through it and use anything they find without asking. So of course …

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Jan 29 2015

Adding a Mouse Door to Some Baseboard

You’d think my main reason for installing a mouse door in the baseboard was to add a bit of whimsy to our family room addition. You might be partially right, but my real motivation starts with trying to lay baseboard in my kitchen. A few years ago, when I …

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Jan 17 2015

Thrift Store Find: Mission Style File Cabinet

Browsing one of the local thrift stores a week or so ago, I found this interesting mission style file cabinet/end table. Now I’ve been meaning to make a wooden file cabinet to replace our cheap plastic one for years and years, but like anything else, if you already have a good enough solution, you hardly …

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Jan 05 2015

Energy Efficient Bulbs and the Cold

Man it’s cold. You know it’s cold when the snow starts to squeak like Styrofoam under your boots. It’s so cold here in the burbs of Minneapolis that CFL’s wont light outside and that’s a problem; we need the outdoor …

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Jan 02 2015

Making a Baby Gate Puppy Proof

Baby gates are designed to keep babies out of trouble, not to keep a 50 pound German Shepard puppy at bay. Even the staying power of this heavy duty gate was only as good as its friction fit, which due to the chair rail in the way wasn’t very good at …

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Jan 01 2015

Matching Pine Trim to Oak

To trim out the family room, we choose red oak colored with Minwax natural wood stain. The story would end here, but I also needed to match some pine picture rail to this trim. After shopping around, the only picture rail I could source locally came in pine. Now you …

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