Almost 10 years ago, during out stint of prairie living, we built our first garage. Times were simpler then: the ground was flat; concrete was cheap; prairie building codes were…laxed. We were building a simple wooden box on a slab, delivered in a nicely bundled package of materials, courtesy of the local CO-OP. A good ol’ fashion garage-raising that, given your hammer-swinging friends and a few cases of beer, you’d have something to show for it by the end of the week.
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A little while back, a friend needed a new stand for their behemoth printer such that they wouldn’t need a step ladder to use it. And while there was nothing particularly ground-breaking about its construction, my recent purchase of a GoPro and rediscovery of iMovie would have you think otherwise…
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It’s been a whirlwind of Christmas functions and work deadlines where months have gone by without a woodworking or photographing peep. But I have at last returned to my patio “workshop” and blog…to report…that I have gone fishing.
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I’m wondering if my reluctance to put the finishing touches on the built-in is because completing the project would mean I’m willing to accept without repair the vast number of mistakes I’ve made along the way. Or perhaps I’m just lazy. Whatever it is, it’s in a good enough state to show my nearly-finished “(multi) weekend” project.
In terms of woodworking, I’m not as much about “measure twice, cut once” as I am about “eyeball twice, cut a few times, eyeball again, trim one last time, measure for peace of mind“. When I set out to build something, I often have tunnel vision toward how I want it to look, not so much the practical sizing.
I agree this is bad practice, but in this particular instance, I win! I finished building and installing the 12 drawers for the built-ins a couple weeks back and it turns out I (accidentally) have over 50 sqft of curvy drawer space! For some comparative perspective, that is basically 1/8th the footprint of my current 20×20 2-car garage.
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DISCLAIMER: This is really just a fruitless rant guised with a smattering of new concept drawings in Sketchup. 
You know what, Board of Variance? Evidently, you don’t like me and, to be honest, I truly despise you. But I am slow clapping your condescending “brilliance” to deny me the height variation…because, in the end, I believe it wins me gloriously monstrous 12′ ceilings for my new workshop.
<rant>
You felt the relentless efforts I put into designing a garage to fit the neighbourhood style and appease my neighbours were unacceptable. In fact, you feel that the “young people”, as you put it, are moving into this area and wrongfully making changes that you are simply astounded the neighbours are comfortable with.
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The “funny” thing about making curved drawer fronts is that they’re pretty tough to open without handles. I don’t begrudge my beloved Lee Valley for not accommodating my needs for custom-fit curvey drawer handles, so in this comedy of oversights, I decided to try a new experiment.
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“Continental drift” is a nice way to describe how our piles of dirty laundry shift from one flat surface to another, as natural erosion consumes stragglers into the sea of hardwood flooring. We have a pretty regimented laundry day schedule, defined by nothing other than “when we run out of flat surfaces.”
It’s time to add some built-in cabinets to our bedroom. But if there’s ever an opportunity to make things difficult, we’ll jump on it. That is nothing short of the truth with this latest endeavor. Sure, ripping apart the bedroom to build two-toned floor-to-ceiling cabinets and a 12-drawer dresser is “challenging” and all…but why not throw in another level of difficulty, curved drawers.
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As of 2008, I had been sleeping on a futon for the last 20 years. In fact, I’m pretty sure I had been sleeping on the SAME futon for the last 15 of those.
It was high time we grew up and bought ourselves a bed. We scoured the Sears and Bays of the city, enduring salesperson after salesperson who tried to convince me the birch-veneered particle board was in fact solid birch. Well, it’s worth noting that I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, my friend.
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I am often asked how long it takes me to build custom furniture. I have a pretty good sense of what the followup question will be to whatever “reasonable” answer I can offer, so I happily report, “Oh…easily 2 years” without an inch of growth on my Pinocchi-nose.
Ok, well, I suppose that’s not entirely truthful. Many years ago, I made said infamous coffee table: a solid 1″ maple top, baltic birch carcass and drawers, supported by sturdy 2″ birch legs tapered to the ground. And while I designed the coffee table and purchased the wood 2 years before I actually finished it, the project was abandoned several times throughout its course, while I planned a wedding, built garages and many other woodworking projects, and, of course, waited for power tools to go on sale.
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