Completing the kitchen renovation

There has been one last thing to do to completely finish the kitchen reno project that I did back in the springtime.  We have been using this corkboard to pin up notes and reminders for years.  It hung above out kitchen table.  Also on the wall is a phone jack box for a wall phone that we have long ago stopped using.  There is also a thermostat for our electric baseboard heat.  Along one side of the cork board...we had a hanger in the wall that we hung a monthly calendar on and from taking the calendar off and on from its mounting, well, it became worn and the hole became a nuisance.  I had built this pen and pencil and bill holder that hung over the old phone jack box, so that was hidden, but everything as a whole just made the wall a challenge.

   So, when we remodeled, I was determined to build something that would alleviate the problems.  This is what I came up with:



Now, the calendar is still on a hook, but the hook is mounted into a backer board and cleat and is all wood, so it is much stronger and can the calendar can be taken off of the hook and replaced back on with no fear of the hook loosening up.  The corkboard is new and is replaceable when and if it is ever worn out.  It would be a simple one day project to make up a replacement board.

  Inside the shallow cabinet on the end opposite the calendar, there are two shelves.  One will hold a bin that will hold pencils and pens.  The other will hold a bin that will contain household bills that need to be paid.  The cabinet serves also to hide the former phone jack box, so it's out of sight.    The cabinet is comprised of all quarter sawn red oak just as the rest of the cabinetry in the kitchen is. 

  Getting the new corkboard spurred me on to go through all of the crap that had found itself cluttering up the corkboard.  Plenty of trash didn't make the grade and now, it is much easier to see what is on there and it is just that much nicer to look at than the confusion that was on there previously.

Prayer bench donated to a church

   During my long 37 year career as an industrial and commercial insulator...I had made many friends...however, only a special few I would say became really good buddies.  Not that we get together or anything, just that we formed a working bond while on the job...enjoyed each others one of a kind personality and our funky sense of humor.  One, I will only refer to him as Joe here in this  blog....was/is one of those special guys.  Away from the insulation trade..Joe did some nice tile work. 

   When I got around to renovating my kitchen after retirement, I knew that I would want Joe to do his magic to our kitchen project with a great backsplash.  He was thrilled that I wanted to enlist him for the job and honestly, I would have had it no other way. 

 Anyway, when it came time to talk about payment, Joe beat me to the punch and offered me a deal.  He had a friend that

 wanted to donate something to her church.  He mentioned something about a bench of some sort.  I had no idea at the time just what he was looking for, but we shook hands on the deal and I figured that it would be another opportunity to do some designing of a piece of furniture.  I have really enjoyed designing furniture over the years and continue to enjoy sketching out and fabricating furniture from scratch. 

  Well, he eventually got back to me with a picture of a prayer bench and it seemed pretty easy and straightforward to build.  I saw some design flaws in its construction so I made some minor changes in the area of adding strength.  The pictures alongside is what I ended up with.  Hope they like it!

It's "Keezer" Time!

Now that I am retired...myself and a former co-worker who is also retired have breakfast each Friday morning to shoot the shit and stay in touch.  Besides that...it gets us out of the house and maintains a social life for us.  Matt asked me to help him with a  project he wanted to build.  He is big into beer and wanted his own beer tap set up at home.  He didn't want to buy the pre-made beer keg refrigerators that are on the market.  He searched the internet and came up with a set of plans utilizing a chest freezer..hence the name "Keezer"  Keg freezer I imagine.  Anway...the project necessitated that the lid be removed...a riser collar be installed on the cabinet of the freezer and then reattach the lid.  The collar would allow the placement of beer taps without drilling holes into the actual chest.  I did do that and I free handed box joints on the collar corners.  A mistake in measuring by Matt resulted in my needing to cut the depth of the collar and losing one of the teeth of the box joints.  Still, the collar fit amazing and it looked great once attached by silicone caulk and it works well. 


He went a step further and asked me to fab up a nice hardwood top to dress it up.  I had a length of white oak sitting around the shop for quite a long time...not knowing what I would do with it since I basically work with red oak.  This project would be a great way to get a use out of it.  Kept it simple with a minor bead detail circling the perimeter of the top on the sides and applied three or four coats of full strength polyurethane and then a couple more thinned coats for a good application that smoothed out in the cooler shop and left no brush marks due to a slow settling in of the finish.  The difficulty level of this project was minimal...but still, it made the Keezer look really nice and will be proudly used for years.

Rackin' Up the Fishin' Poles

I have to give lots of credit to my wife!  She has been putting up with my storing my fishing poles in our coat closet in the house.  Had some spare time today and was inspired  by the fishing pole rack my brother Dave has in his garage.  It is a simple design really, and I spent about two hours today erecting this one.  Problem solved.

A Captains Bed for a Little Girl

This is the second such bed that I have built in this fashion.  If you take a look through the archives of this blog, you will find it.  That one was for my niece.  This bed is for a buddy's daughter who was in need of a bed.  I was happy to build it.

A Hutch for the Kitchen project!

In fabricating the new kitchen cabinets....the wife wanted to include a slide out garbage container deal.  Which is good...I would like to eliminated the sight of the garbage can from the kitchen also.  However, it cost us a few drawers.  To make up for that....and to make up for a coffer mug shelf and a spice cabinet that were also lost to the new remodel, I built this hutch to take up the slack.  Came out really great with slide out drawers on the bottom behind the doors...a large pull out drawer just below the counter top and then up above...a mug nook and slide out spice drawer, as well as some additional storage behind a pair of doors at the top. Some pics of it's fabrication:

Our kitchen remodel this summer

It's been a while since adding any new projects into my blog.  A good reason for that is that I was busy a bee renovating our kitchen.  Before even getting into the demo of the old kitchen, I was busy in the shop fabricating the new red oak cabinets that were going to be installed in the renovation.  Here - a few pics of the cabinet building:

  Those pictures being from the shop....here are a few of the kitchen remodel once the cabs were built and ready to install:

  It was a heck of a large job, but I have to say...very well worth the time and expense!