In keeping with my inconsolable paranoia of child safety and resulting over-engineering, what was originally planned to be a lightweight 20-pound free-standing bassinet, I have built a solid 60-pound “sidecar” for my baby. And I can say with confidence that, if and when the “big one” hits, I will be safe in one of two earthquake-proof places: inside my “bunker-like” garage or underneath this baby sidecar. 
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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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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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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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There was a fundamental flaw in our new TV setup: the Kinect doesn’t operate properly from such a low angle. Sitting on the coffee table just under the TV, it’s unable to accurately capture full-body movement.
How can I be expected to express myself under these conditions? How can I possibly throw a javelin 100 yards, or chop flying fruit into a 30 pieces, or even plug 20,000 leaks in my underwater glass cube if the Digital Eye cannot see my every action? What will come of my pet tiger — his name is Pounce — if I’m not there to scratch behind his ears when the TV tells me to? It is truly a gaming conundrum.
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