While the quality of the images are fine, the creativity is outstanding. I’d use other superlatives but my hyperbole might sound excessive and appear insincere. It wouldn’t be.

I’m including two images from her collection here. The one to the left is a cameo she created from … get this … an Oreo cookie! Done in an ancient Greek style, it’s wonderful. To the right is an extremely clever bit of work replacing a light bulb filament with a moth; likely not a good light source, absolutely brilliant in other respects.

Rather than taking up time and space to wax about her artwork or poach more from her site, I’ll just stop while you click-through to her site and poke about. The site is small but well worth the trip.

Late last year a local weather guy pushed hard to get a new radar station working off the Olympic Peninsula … I follow his weather blog and think he does an exceptional job. You can even see a link to it on the left: Seattle Area Weather Blog. Anyhow, the new capabilities of the radar allowed us better than ever views of what was coming (weather-wise). So we were prepared. Maybe over-prepared!

On Monday the Seattle Times proclaimed we might get 14” of snow in the Seattle area by Wednesday! By Tuesday we were down to 4”-7” but all indications were that Wednesday would be the day. And it was.

So, aside from the headline hyperbole on the amount of snow, they nailed the day. Unfortunately, most weather reports indicated a hit-and-run sort of storm that would be cleared away by the rain and warm weather coming on its heels. Well, we saw a cooling front come in (or sit tight) and today we’re all about freezing rain. For the last 12 hours, we’ve had freezing rain coming down. It’s bending willowy trees, causing fences to sag, breaking off the occasional bough, and making it darn near impossible to drive anywhere. Oh, and we’re seeing our power fluctuate. We’re lucky, many are already without power!

Anyhow, we’re sitting tight.

On Monday and Tuesday I drove in to work but left when the weather looked bad; Wednesday I just worked from home; and today it seems like I’ll do the same. Suzanne drove in Monday and Tuesday but took the train in on Wednesday. Today she’s evaluating her options: most of her staff isn’t going into work and she’s weighing out which projects must get done.

Around the house we’re warm and dry.

*And then we lost power.*

After I typed that we were warm and dry, we started the period which I’ll call the “and then we were cold and wet” period. With a *poof*, my machine went down. I wasn’t too surprised as that day (Thursday), we’d lost power about three other times but this one was different: it stayed off. So, over the next few hours we made do, I took a nap, and Suzanne worked by phone. Around 5 PM I realize the power wasn’t coming on and that I needed to make arrangements for work I was going to be doing that evening. Originally I was going to work from home but now I couldn’t. So I walked out to the street, assessed the situation, came back, got my cold weather, staying overnight, hope you don’t get stranded on the road gear … and headed into work.

I made the 23 miles in about an hour and with much sweating and concentration on the road. Traffic was light and moving very slowly but, even then, it was treacherous. Seattle is just not a city used to snow or ready for it.

At work I managed a project from 7PM until just after midnight and, once that was done, tried to get some sleep. Unfortunately, the only place to stretch out was a “common room” that saw far more traffic than you’d imagine at 1AM on a Friday morning during a snowstorm. So, under my leopard print down throw I tossed and turned fitfully for an hour before I resigned myself to being awake and found an Xbox on which I played “Skyrim” for the next three hours.

Around 5 I took a shower and then settled in for a short day of work. The weather was clearing, or at least warming up, and more people were in than you would have thought. Around 10 AM Puget Sound Energy’s “who has power” map suddenly showed power restored to all neighborhoods. I was delighted, finished up a few loose ends, and hurried home.

To find the power off, the house around 50° F, and enough snow in the driveway that I couldn’t drive up.

So, I shoveled the driveway (oh, my poor back … I’m getting old!) and then rolled into bed. Around 2:30 I got up and puttered about. Suzy was at work and we made arrangements for me to get her in the evening down by South Center Mall … where a friend from work would drop her off.

I got her around 5:30, we had dinner at a local Azteca (I way over-ate … I usually get a to-go container but our fridge was without power so I ate it all. Ugh), and got home before 7 PM. I immediately went back to bed and Suzy followed some 4 hours later after sitting up by the fireplace and reading.

I woke up today at 3 AM and walked the house. It was odd to have it so cold in the house but in the wee hours I could see that it was a mess. Boots, jackets, gloves and scarves; unwashed dishes, the paper from the previous day, and clutter was all around. I looked out at the darkened neighborhood and in the high distant clouds saw a blooming flash of blue-green light and remembered Suzanne telling me this was what it looked like when a power transformer blew. And, I went back to bed an hour or so later anticipating the power to be out a good long time.

At 7AM I awoke for the second time today and Suzy told me the power had been on for about an hour; and that the chill was just leaving the air. How soft I’ve become, I thought; but it was good to have warmed air pushing through the venting in the house.

We grabbed a bit of breakfast at the local Panera and on getting back home started the cleaning. It didn’t take long as most of it was clutter but we had to sit for a second before tackling the refrigerator.

We were thawing a turkey to enjoy this weekend and Suzy had a quick look the night before and saw that it wasn’t safe to eat. Besides that, we lost a rack of ribs (that hurt) and some dairy and veggies but not too much else. The veggies were purely old and would have been wilty but not “bad” and the rest wasn’t too hard to toss out: once you lose a turkey and a rack of ribs, throwing away an open container of cottage cheese is nothing.

That’s our story for the winter storm that hit Seattle. A tree in the backyard lost a lot of branches and our gardens will take a big hit coming back from all that freezing rain; but we didn’t get stuck on the freeway, we’ll make a grocery run later today to restock, and our chickens and pets weathered the last few days just fine. Aside from the snow sticking around (which we’re not used to), all is well in Seattle.

And I hope the same for wherever you are.

Eggs.

While we typically only eat them once a week or so, they’re part of our daily lives with the chickens. With our original three hens we had a weekly high of 19 eggs, I think. It could have been 20 but that may be wishful thinking. We then had a dry spell where we actually had to buy eggs from our local market but that was when we’d lost a few hens and our replacements were all very young.

Now we have a lot of chickens but they’re not all producing. Still, we get about 3 eggs a day on average (although now that number is climbing) … a nice number; enough for both Suzy’s baking and our eating.

Then came the discovery that our tailless red was holding out on us … see this link for that story. We tried “forcing” her to use the nest box by locking her in the coop … it’s got food, water, and running space (for very short runs) so it didn’t seem like deprivation, but chickens are social animals. To avoid too much stress, we locked her in with another hen who was ready to lay. The thinking being she’d learn where to lay. Instead, we ended up with a little red tailless hen who was bleeding. Not sure what happened, but we’ll now collect her eggs from wherever she lays them.

But this brings me to say that with her contributions, our eggs-per-week total is climbing! Days collecting 4 eggs isn’t uncommon and we got 5 eggs earlier this week! We had a day with just two eggs, so we’re not overwhelmed, but, this week we have 19 eggs with one day left in our counting; I believe we’ll have a new high in the eggs-per-week category!

Last year I mapped out our 2010 egg production (see it here) and I’ll get to creating the 2011 chart shortly!

Out and about.

Christmas Eve was a blurry hurry as we ran about doing this and that. We hosted the family and that took a lot of effort. Then it was just us for Christmas, us for New Years, and us for the weekends between. The “social silence” felt good but we’re about to break out of that mold today! Suzy spotted a fun tour called the Chocolate Indulgence Tour.

The tour is hosted by Savor Seattle Food Tours who are considered to be “the #1 rated attraction in Seattle”. A bold claim considering I haven’t exactly been living under a rock but have only now heard of them, but I’ll certainly give them a chance!

Suzy heard about them through … you guessed it … Groupon and we grabbed tickets for their 2-hour walking tour of the Seattle Chocolate scene. For those uninterested in clicking the link above, let me bring some of the information on that site to you!

Give in to Seattle’s sweet side!

Chocolate has become so important to Seattle culture that it is rivaling the other famous bean in town. On this tour, experience chocolate in all of its delicious forms – white, milk, dark, and every tasty combination in between! Taste the cookie that Seattle Magazine named one of Seattle’s best desserts. Find out what is served in the Oval Office, and indulge in renowned chef Tom Douglas’s signature desserts. You will be surprised by the chocolaty connection that coconut cream pie, cheesecake, red velvet cupcakes, and gourmet popcorn all have in common. Learn about where chocolate comes from, how it is made, and tips on the best ways to savor them.

While I’m not a chocolate foodie, Suzanne is. I tried to develop a palate for fine dark chocolates but I never got to a point where I truly appreciated it versus the calories I was packing on. Yes, I realize you nibble, but even then … not a great tradeoff. I’m just a salts-fats kinda snacker and chocolate ain’t my thing. But, it’s certainly tasty and I very much look forward to enjoying this tour.

Around the house.

I have a couple “to do” chores around the house this weekend: continue to clean out the garage, hang new curtains in front of Suzy’s office, and straighten up my office!

When I built the shelves for the garage loft, we moved our holiday decorations up there. This made space in a nook under the stairwell that I plan on using as a bit of a lumber storage for all my short pieces, cut-offs, and various other woodworking items. I don’t think I’ll be up to building that this weekend, but I will move some of the seldom-used items up to the loft.

As I mentioned here, we have another set of shelves in the garage that we store lots of stuff on/in. Right now it’s a bit of a mess but we’re at a point where we can tidy things up, give our food/kitchen items their own shelves, move the paints/chemicals to a separate spot, and generally arrange things more efficiently. This is on my list for today. It’ll be easy if I don’t “chocolate myself out” with the tour I mentioned above.

As for hanging curtains … we already have some serviceable curtains in front of the new sliding door but I installed those just after we bought the house and they’re not my finest work (the connections are a bit loose). Also, we’re looking for a sliding system that goes better with the sliding door and will block the light without impeding entry or egress. I’ll take pics when I’m done.

And, finally, cleaning up my desk. What a pig pen it’s become. Piles piles piles. Time to clean it out and tackle some of the projects represented in all this stuff.

So that’s it. A rambling stroll through things on my mind before the weekend starts. I need to jump into the shower and prepare for our walking tour … starts in a couple hours and we have a train ride to experience on the way there.

Hope you have a good weekend and thanks for stopping in.

106 of the most beloved Street Art Photos – Year 2011

But, to be completely fair, this isn’t just about graffiti, it’s about public art and some of the best of it from 2011. Now, I suppose when you run a site called Street Art Utopia you can claim some measure of authority, but I’d never heard of this site before I ran across a link somewhere as posts of the “Best of 2011” started hitting the interweb. But, based on my review of this site (and no other), I won’t argue their assessment as this collection being the “best”.

Regardless, there’s a lot to like here.

A cathedral window frame over a graffiti-tagged wall, Lego bricks repairing a broken wall, clever lost/found postings, popular culture references inserted into daily life objects, and, yes, lots of graffiti. They have a lot … well, in the article I’m referencing above, 106 to be exact … of art. And the site is written so it only loads those pictures within the frame … no long load times.

Another thing I like is that all is squeaky clean (yes, one image could be construed as “naughty”) but none are overtly sexual or vulgar. Which, given the amount of “stuff” you can find on the Internet, it’s just a nice respite to enjoy a collection of pictures that don’t resort to prurient overtures. Yes, I’m getting old.

If you have a bit of time and want to spend it wandering through clever images, I recommend the Street Art Photos site; and what better place to start than the top 106 from 2011.

Enjoy.

For more information on the above, see:

• Stained Glass Window
• Lego Bricks
• Found Love
• Star Wars reference

… OK, I just deleted about five paragraphs and hadn’t even gotten to talking about what we remodeled! I gave some history, explained our motivation, and really strung it out. So, here’s the deal, let’s just jump into some pictures and see what story falls out!

Oct 3: The day they start

The first day they spent doing some investigation work to find the main support beams and setup their operations. It was also the day I lost my workshop as they slowly took over the third bay of our garage (my shop area). I was a bit disappointed as I’d expected a swarming crew and a transformational change; we got two guys for what looked like a few hours of work.

Oct 4-7: First week

After the first day, things did pick up but it was still just a crew of two. They were scheduled to be onsite until the 28th … three weeks of work with a final week of finishing touches.

On the 4th and 5th, they continued to build out the “loft” structure in the garage and really took over my shop in earnest. I ultimately moved everything except my saw and a work table into storage.

They then began some of the outside work. The deck railing was removed and they began to frame in the room.

Oct 10-14: Frame-in and removing siding

On the 14th we left for a long trip and that was too bad: it was fun seeing things moving along after a long time planning. We’d started discussions with the company in late spring or very early summer and the long process of getting permits, having engineering buy-off the plan, and getting on the construction company’s schedule took more time than either Suzy or I had anticipated.

But, this week we became “that house with a blue tarp over it” as the framing continued and they removed the exterior siding.

Oct 17-21: Making progress

We left a camera with the crew and asked that they take daily pictures while we were OOF but we missed pictures of them hanging the trusses. I’m still asking one of the guys from the crew if I can get some snaps he took from his camera. But, we’re still doing OK in the picture department.

Now, a LOT happened this week: sheeting was installed on the exterior and by the EOW they had Tyvek (moisture barrier) in place, the electrical wiring was installed and they completed the roofing work; additionally, they did a bunch of stuff to level the floor and add the required structural attachments.

That said, this was supposed to be the last week of the heavy lifting … with just pick-up work during the final week. Clearly we weren’t going to make our deadline.

Oct 23: The day the rain returned

I didn’t snap a picture of the problem, so you’ll get a long explanation. It was prime “get things done” time and I wasn’t able to use my shop … I was going a bit nuts. But, I decided to build an exterior storage area anyhow. I detailed that project here but it was frustrating in that I couldn’t get to a lot of my tools, it was raining outside where I was installing it, and then, as I was sawing timbers in the middle of my garage, I started getting rained on. Yup, rained on inside the garage.

It was a Sunday and we had to call the contractors in to deal with both the rain coming in and any potential water damage. On the back of the house, where the new room’s wall rose above the roofline, they had severed and capped a gutter. Unfortunately, the gutter wasn’t supported and in the heavy rain, the cut end sagged a bit and water spilled over the capped end, ran along the sheeting, and into a seam. What a mess.

We had fans running for the better part of the week to help dry things out

Oct 24-28: Final pickups? Nope.

So, it was clear we wouldn’t make our completion date and when I asked about plans (“what are you going to do”), I got aphorisms: they were going to keep their noses to the grindstone, put in extra innings, and make it happen. But, from what we (anxious home owners) could see, they did none of these. Now, we like the crew and I don’t feel animosity either way or that there was gross negligence, but snappy sayings wasn’t what I was looking for.

I don’t know what I was looking for, maybe. Anyhow, what we got was the windows installed, our “eyebrow” (the mini “fake” roof above the garage doors) built out, insulation installed and they began to sheetrock the interior. While it looked like it was coming together, we did appear to be well over a week behind.

Oct 30: Extra innings

While Suzy and I work long hours, it was pretty clear the crew working our remodel got in around 7:30AM and were gone by 4PM on most days. In the last week I might see one of the guys still on the job when I got home around 5:30PM, so they were making some effort. Today, however, we got a little “weekend time”. It was nice to see a recognition from the crew that they had to step it up to finish. Not “too little, too late” … but I would have liked more, sooner.

Oh, and because the rain was returning, we had to park our cars outside so they could use the garage to pre-paint some of the siding. This was Suzy’s idea … nice thinking!

Oct 31-Nov 4: Finishing the interior

Well, “finishing” is a little generous but this week they completed sheetrocking the interior, hung the exterior siding, removed the original sliding door, and started mudding the sheetrock. And, because it was fall in Seattle, the humidity and dew points were very high, they couldn’t work a couple days this week as the mudding hadn’t dried. So, we got to live with a droning dehumidifier running non-stop in the room just off our bedroom for about four days.

Nov 7–11: Much nothing about nothing

This is when the job really started to bog down. We were getting some of their time, but it was clear they’d scheduled another job after ours and they were starting to split their time. So, this week we got some paint on the walls and they started installing the flooring. So, while my title for this week is a bit ungenerous, they were now clearly running over the contract and our attempts at communicating with the head of the company were met with terse and infrequent responses. Sigh.

Nov 14-18: Finishing touches

While they weren’t “done”, the work would look complete this week. The floor was finished (modulo a vent), they installed casings around the windows and doors, and had cleaned up the work area to take away all the trash, tools, and other materials. While it was really nice to look this finished, we were unable to move in as they still had to install the doors, put in the light switches, and complete the owners’ pickup list.

Nov 21-Dec 2: The great nothing

Sometime in this two week period we heard back from the construction company on our door: we would see it sometime in early December. A bit disappointing but we had to be happy we were hearing from him at all! While we’d given him the specifics on the door we wanted during our discussions in early summer, it wasn’t ordered until sometime later. That “later” date was never mentioned. Anyhow, the door company had “runs” on specific wood types and our clear maple/pine/whatever species wasn’t scheduled to be run until around this time.

Not much we could do except wait. So, rather than leave this section empty, I’ll include a picture of a Japanese maple we have out in the front yard.

Dec 4: Major work done

Today was the day they scheduled doors to be installed and any final work to finish up. Yes, it was a Sunday but the hope that we’d be done was exciting. Well, “done” except for a missing window screen. Unfortunately (how many times have I used that word in this post?), the floor vent they brought didn’t match our wood so we asked them to get it in a carbonized bamboo.

They did a nice job of installing the sliding doors straight, level, and operating very smoothly. There are bumper stops at both the ends and center but one was missing and they needed to order a replacement. So, while it meant we’d need to schedule yet another visit, we were quite happy with how the door and valence turned out.

Dec 5-21: More nothing is still nothing

While we waited to hear from the construction company on “what was next”, we just sat tight. “Communication” didn’t appear to be their strong suit but we were holding back enough of the final payment we were sure to have their attention. Sooner or later. Unfortunately, we had no idea of what was the holdup (the delay ended up being a problem finding the vent in our wood choice).

So, while we wait, here’s another picture from our year: a mini-deer decoration that I’m going to try and build at a larger scale.

Dec 22: The day they finish

They just had a few items to finish on but it took a long, long time. One of the windows was missing a screen, our floor vent was without a cover, and one of the stops for the sliding door was missing. All minor things but the city inspector was unwilling to sign off until it was “done” (and he probably really only cared about the floor vent). But, 12/22 was the day that all the parts were in hand, they had time to finish it out, and the city inspector signed off.

“Done” feels good.

Done means done

I would have never guessed that between the “start” and “finish” dates I’d have

• Seen the Fall colors in our garden come and go
• Enjoyed two plays downtown
• Attended two symphonies
• Spent a week at Whistler with some of Suzy’s family
• Celebrated both Halloween, my birthday and Thanksgiving
• Put up our Christmas decorations
• Started in a new group at work and attended their holiday party

It went well beyond the “three week” estimate we got at the beginning but, with it over, I’m just happy for the new space, think it’s a marvelous addition to the home, and look forward to seeing what Suzy does as she appoints the space and makes it her own. More on that later.

Thanks for reading.

Suz and I have a number of hens and we keep a reasonable eye on them. So, we’d had the full head count earlier in the day as we did yard work and then, about an hour later, we were a hen short! Our smallest red hen was missing.

Well, we did a complete yard search, a search of our yard and the neighbors, and then one of the entire neighborhood. No little red hen. So we’d resigned ourselves to wait.

As evening was approaching I wanted to use the light to see if I could find any clues about what might have happened to her. Maybe something jumped the fence and nabbed her; maybe a hawk strike. Out to Chickenville I strode and found no clues.

On the way back I walked more closely to the fence line and found her nestled inside some pampas grass. We figured she was due to start laying and this was her first attempt at finding a spot. As I picked her up to deposit her in a nestbox, we got a surprised.

See the video for the surprise.

Sturdy my tukas!

When I drew up the plans for those shelves, I had 3/4” plywood in mind for the job. And, basing it off some 8’ tall units I’d made previously, I was thinking about cabinet-grade plywood … not some void-pocked D-grade sheeting. But, when I was at the store and costed out the project at $60-$90 for 3/4” material or under $25 for the stuff I used, I got the cheap stuff and reworked my project plans.

However, I’d never worked with chipboard (OSB) before and just assumed it would work about the same.

I’ll say it simply and clearly and then move on: I’m an idiot.

OSB and cabinet-grade plywood do not work the same, do not handle the same, and do not give you the same quality and integrity of a finished product. I’m sure some of that is because I went to 1/2” instead of 3/4”, but while using a jigsaw to cut the slots (more on this later), it was like running a hot knife through butter, driving pins through it was a joke, and nailing was hit-and-miss (no pun intended). OSB is a porous material so it just ate the glue, it was hard to clamp up (bent like a wet noodle), and if I hadn’t nestled it against two walls it would be an unstable structure to say the least. I’m even regretting that I didn’t fasten it to the walls!

But, it was super easy to work with, very easy to cut, and it was a fraction of the price I’d have paid for the plywood. And yet, beware: following the plans from the prior post will not give you a “sturdy” shelving unit; it will give you a passable, light-duty set of shelves.

The Mistakes I Made Things I Learned

I make mistakes all the time and don’t get too caught up with that fact. I don’t make the same mistake twice (well, not often) but I do continually find ways to screw things up. Out of the gate, I made a couple rookie errors that I’m chalking up to not being in the shop since before the remodel (they started the first week in October). So, in the order that I boned things up or learned something new, here we go!

Cut to the line … just be sure you know which side

While routing the dados in the end panels, I measured off 15 3/4” from one end, setup my straight-edge and appropriate offset (for the size of the router base), and routed the groove. Easy, I then went to the other side and repeated the process, however, instead of cutting on the “far side” of the line, I started cutting on the near side for about 6” before I realized I made an error. With a bit of glue and a thin piece of wood this was remedied but I wondered how I could have avoided this mistake.

So, for the subsequent dados, I not only struck a line, but I struck two lines … and then colored in-between them so I could easily see the wood that was actually supposed to be removed.

Measure Twice … or Build a Jig

I now wear reading glasses for close up viewing and I found myself squinting hard as I knelt on the garage floor, looking at 1/16” increments, and wishing I had more light, was doing it during the day, or I wasn’t on the floor. But somehow, after measuring and checking my measurements no less than three times, I managed to set my straight edge at 6 11/16” on one side (a sixteenth less than 6 3/4”) and 6 7/16” (a sixteenth less than 6 1/2”) on the other. And then cut my slot. Straight across the entire panel.

Holy cow.

That was the night-ender for me right there. I completely boogered that up. Yes, fixable, but when you make an error in measuring after checking that many times, you’re really ready to call it a day. That, my friends … that was frustrating.

To avoid this on subsequent cuts I built little jigs for every cut. What’s a “jig” in this situation? I usually got away with cutting a scrap of wood to the exact size I wanted, and then used that as the offset or the measurement wherever needed. This way I only relied on my tape measure once, not twice.

Omission in the Instructions

In the last post I noted the following for cutting slots in the shelf:

The picture below shows the slots to be cut at 31 5/8” from the ends. This is very specific. Above I noted you didn’t really have to cut the dados in the top/bottom panels at exactly “31 7/8” “ … you could use “32” “ or something, Well, to be clear, whatever spacing you used for the top panels, back off a quarter inch for the spacing of the slots in the shelves.

This is true but only if you cut your shelf boards down to 95 1/2”!! I don’t say anything about cutting down the boards by a half inch in the write up so, if you followed those instructions, you’d have left the shelf at the nominal 96” length.

I’ll update those notes to include this comment.

Use a Jigsaw, Luke!

This wasn’t an error in construction but in the notes on building the shelves I entered this on how to cut the slots:

The tricky part here is “how do you cut these?

If you have a table saw you can cut a stopped slot; you can use your router to cut through, too (but that’s a lot of wood to remove). There’s no right answer but by using a jig to find the right place to cut the slots, you should be able to do this without too much concern for being exact.

“Cut a stopped slot”? Not sure what I was thinking … or why I wasn’t thinking … but you use a jigsaw for situations like this. And a jigsaw works fantastically well at cutting in OSB! I doubled up the vertical dividers on one pass, and then doubled up the shelves on the second, and very easily cut nice, clean freehand slots. I needed a rasp to widen a couple of the slots that pinched a bit much, but otherwise this worked very well.

Getting it Right

After all the parts were cut, routed, and jigsawed, I dry assembled the unit on the garage floor before pulling it apart and moving the pieces to the loft for assembly up there. But before the move to the loft, I noticed all the parts weren’t perfectly 24” wide: on one end they were about 23 3/4” and on the other they were just over 24”. I’d spotted that earlier but , for a set of shelves in the garage that I’d be using once a year, I figured it was fine.

Well, it wasn’t. As I was dry assembling, it just looked sloppy and I had to fix it.

So, I pulled out the table saw, setup a 23 3/4” cut, prepared the necessary outfeed supports, and pushed the boards through. And boy was it nice when all parts were perfectly the same width. I pat myself on the back for not living with the error.

Slots in 1/2” OSB

Cutting slots in the interior parts (the vertical dividers and shelves) allow you to nest them together to form a strong matrix. However, by doing this, you do allow one edge of the shelves to be unsupported and “floppy”. This will be most obvious in the center bay (as the right and left sides will be supported by the exterior side panel).

Slots in cabinet-grade 3/4” plywood don’t need to be supported for the type of weights I’m storing; in 1/2” OSB, depending on what you’re storing, you may need to prop up your shelves.

In the picture to the right, you can see the normal state (image on the left) and when I push down how it defects relative to the other shelf (image on the right). I was pushing reasonably hard but I was still just using one hand.

If you plan on storing heavy loads, you should add some sort of block to help support the free end (the end in which the slots were cut) of the shelf. Most of my boxes are only holding garland or light ornaments and won’t be stressing the shelves; the few heavy boxes we have can be put on the bottom where they will essentially be resting on the ground.

I’ve Nailed It!

After spreading the glue and seeing it seep right into the wood (even after a second application), I tried clamping the unit. The combination of a large, unwieldy structure and the fact that my support blocks were too low to allow clamps to sneak under drove me to try nailing the joints together.

Now, the joints in mind are the plywood edges that are sitting in the dado grooves.

I first tried to use my pneumatic nail guns and drive pins into the joints. My first try with 2” nails saw spectacular failures as the nail would bend and exit the panel out the side. I then went to 1” nails but, even after driving a half dozen into a 24” seam, they had no holding power. The headless pins just didn’t have enough to grab into in the OSB.

I then used roofing nails and that worked reasonably well. Roofing nails are short (nice), somewhat fat (the OSB layers would expand to a tighter fit in the dado/groove), and have a big head (the better to avoid pulling through). So, it took a few tries but this worked out OK.

Move It!

Once I had the unit assembled, I wanted to move it into position. Any attempt at putting a tensile load on one of the panels would result in that panel leaving the assembly; ouch. In the end, I pushed it off the riser blocks (and re-aligned/re-nailed those joints that came apart), and then set a 2×6 against the front, bottom lip and, from a seated position, used my legs to push the whole thing into place.

Once I got it against the wall, I set heavy items on the top and pushed it against the side wall well enough so it was supported on one side while the glue dried.

Next time

While I don’t get hung up on making mistakes, I want to be clear that doing it right the first time is preferable to having a handy fix-it solution. I don’t have any woodworking mentors, though, so I’m sorta winging it. A friend of mine who does a bit of woodworking (and picked it up from his father) said that his dad had a saying, “good woodworkers don’t do it right all the time, they just know how to hide their mistakes”. A reasonable bit of insight, but I’m still working on having fewer mistakes to hide.

I’m under no illusion this shelving unit is “sturdy” but it should hold our holiday decorations. Or yours. Best of all, it’s the idea that matters here: if you have heavier duty storing needs, use 3/4” material! The nested/slotted/egg crate interior shelving can be made very strong, the routed daods will have superior holding to butted joints, and you can add a shear panel back or diagonal supports if you are worried about lateral loads.

Drop me a line if you have a question; I’ll get back to you as quick as I can… right after I get out of the shop!

But, I’m not only good with that, I’m really good with that.

Suzy and I fill most of our empty time with something. Places to go, people to see, stuff to do. And since October-ish, there’s been plenty of that. So much that I feel a bit worn down. So, over the last couple of weeks I’ve woken up, ate a bit, read the paper, played some games, got onto the computer for who knows what reason, and just floated through the holiday. It hasn’t been that empty as we’ve attended concerts, hosted a family gathering, dealt with my car’s problems, dealt with cat problems (all’s well now), and cleaned, shopped, and generally attended to life.

But, adding “one more thing” hasn’t been in the cards. I can tell the tide is changing, however.

Just yesterday I was feeling miserable in the AM (I’d taken the train into Seattle the prior day, went to our large public library, was outraged to find that we have both a “Seattle Library” system and a “King County Library” system … yes, Seattle is in King County, and wasn’t able to check out a book without getting another library card) and figured it was something I picked up on my walkabout and association with the unwashed masses. But, today, the skies had cleared enough to stop raining and show some blue so what did I do? Well, go to the nearby Home Depot and get some lumber for a project!

The remodel on the house had completed and left us with a loft in the garage: storage space. But, it was a blank canvas. So, I picked up three sheets of plywood and plan to build some simple shelves to hold our holiday decorations and any manner of other things.

I built something very similar to this for the main garage and it’s worked out beautifully. So well, in fact, that we’re now storing too much stuff there and I’m really looking forward to using the space in the loft for storing some of this stuff.

To build the shelves to the right you need a couple things: saw, glue, maybe a router and some nails. It’s a bit more complex than an IKEA project but it’ll be rock solid. To save you some of the sawing part, you could have the place you buy your lumber from rip the panels for you.

Lumber: three sheets of 4’x8’x1/2” plywood.

In the shelves I built previously, I used 3/4” plywood and it worked great. But, the shelves ended up costing a pretty penny. On sale, I got OSB 1/2” plywood for under $7.50 a panel … that’s under $25 for the entire shelving unit. Now that’s getting close to IKEA prices!

But, as I noted, it won’t be quite as easy as the “build it with only a hex key/wrench” IKEA projects.

After getting the panels ripped in half (now 24” wide by 96” long), you’ll have six of these skinnier panels. Cut two of them in half length-wise. This will leave you with

• Four panels at 24”x96” – called “long panels”
• Four panels at 24”x48” – called “short panels”

Measurements are rough.

Take two of the long panels and position them side-by-side on the long edges. You can now take a router with a 1/2” straight bit (preferably one with a collar) and route 1/4” deep dados on the ends and at 31 7/8” from the ends. On edge, it will look like this:

These are your top and bottom panels. By positioning them side-by-side on the long edges before you route the grooves, you’ll ensure that your slots for the vertical dividers are aligned perfectly and you won’t end up with dividers that are at an angle. I will also note that, if you don’t hit “31 7/8” “ exactly, that’s just fine. I only used that measurement to try to get the spacing as close to perfect thirds as I could. Go with 32” if you want … it’ll mean your center bay is roughly a quarter inch narrower than the other two but that’s fine.

Now do the same for the end parts!

Take two of the short panels and position them side-by-side on the long edges. Using your router set at 1/4” deep, cut two dados at 15 3/4” from each end. NOTE: you do not want to cut dados on the ends of these panels. It should look like the below (I’ve rotated it purely to fit better in this blog entry):

These are you left and right outside panels.

The interior shelves are where things get tricky, but only marginally.

The vertical dividers are going to look like the picture to the right when you’re done. The “15 3/4” “ isn’t a coincidence … it should be the exact same dimension as you cut into the short panels you used for the sides. The exact dimension. By keeping both the dados you cut in the short panels and the slots you’ll make in the vertical dividers the same, you’ll keep everything nice and straight.

The tricky part here is “how do you cut these?

If you have a table saw you can cut a stopped slot; you can use your router to cut through, too (but that’s a lot of wood to remove). There’s no right answer but by using a jig to find the right place to cut the slots, you should be able to do this without too much concern for being exact.

[Update: use a jigsaw to cut the slots]

So, for the vertical dividers, take the remaining two short panels and cut slots in as shown on the right.

The shelves (the horizontal dividers) are going to be cut very similarly to the vertical dividers but the dimension for the slot will “look off”. It’s not.

[Update: First, cut down the horizontal dividers (shelves) by 1/2” to give an overall dimension of 24”x95 1/2”. This accommodates for the fact that the shelves will nest inside the outside panels.]

The picture below shows the slots to be cut at 31 5/8” from the ends. This is very specific. Above I noted you didn’t really have to cut the dados in the top/bottom panels at exactly “31 7/8” “ … you could use “32” “ or something, Well, to be clear, whatever spacing you used for the top panels, back off a quarter inch for the spacing of the slots in the shelves.

By doing this, you’ll ensure that, once you nest the shelves into the dados in the sides panels, the slots will line up with the dados in the top/bottom panels.

So, for the shelves, take the two remaining panels (they will be long panels) and cut slots in as shown below:

As I mentioned above, this can get tricky unless you are really good at 3D spatial puzzles, or just slow down and mentally construct the model of the shelving unit we’re building.

OK, once you have all of these parts built, you’ll be ready to assemble!

Mate the slots from the vertical dividers and the shelves. You’ll have the interior of your shelving unit ready! The, using a liberal amount of glue and a nail or two, nest the ends of the shelves into the dados you cut into the outside panels. Finally, do the same for the top and bottom: nest the vertical divider and panel ends into the dados you cut into the top/bottom panels using a goodly amount of glue and a nail or two.

Once that sets up, you’re done! I should note that having a bunch of clamps, assembling this on “riser blocks” (a simple 2×4 to hold it off the ground is fine), and being patient will all play to your favor and the ease with which this comes (and stays!) together! While this isn’t a trivial project, it’s absolutely geared for the beginner and about as easy as they come. Just think through the cuts and don’t hurry. In the end you’ll have a nice, sturdy set of shelves for the garage. Or the storage loft in the garage!

Thanks for reading and have a happy New Year!

Well, we hosted last night and the strangest thing happened: we ended early. Without shooing anyone out, without awkward end-of-night yawns, without children imploding in an over-hyped, over-sugared, under-rested frenzy … they all left by about 8:30 pm.

Both Suzanne and I wondered if it was something we said, a courtesy we didn’t extend or what … and then we got about tidying up and sitting back to enjoy the quiet night and the inevitable peaceful Christmas morning. I consider it part of their gift to us!

But, the house is clean and warm, we’ll get up leisurely and enjoy a nice breakfast, open some gifts, and then I’ll call my family back in MN to extend my greetings.

And to all of you, I do the same: Merry Christmas!

Well, we’ve taken to leaving that bathroom door closed at all times but the little fiend has taken his act to the kitchen.

On any given day, this is what I might wake up to finding when I come into the kitchen first thing in the morning!

Suzy’s seen him just “kneading” the towels in the drawer but it makes for a lot of laundry and a lot of clutter to pick up. It’s not like we don’t have cat toys, blankets on the couch, or pillows all over. And what’s with the opening the other cupboards? It’s like living in the “Sixth Sense” house!

But, right now I see that it’s about noon on Christmas Eve day and that means we have guests arriving (Suzanne’s family) in a few hours. We’ve been cleaning and prepping and readying the house, so we should be ready. But, to all I say, Merry Christmas and the Season’s Peace to you all!