I’ve been working on a railing for the upstairs part of my house that opens up into the main a-frame. Here’s the general process on how I made it. First off, I did several designs and sketches in Sketchup to get a feel for what I wanted. A lot of the basic layout and sizes could be tested out in the program to get a good feel for what it would look like:

The picture above doesn’t have the curves in it, but that was going to be the hardest part. I had to figure out how to bend them. That lead to this bending jig to make half-curls like the ones in the upper right hand corner. Notice the full size template I printed from sketchup underneath as a rough guide.

Once the bends were made the rest of the stuff was just laying it out, clamping down, and tack welding:

Notice the use of some simple guide blocks to get the sizes right and equal on everything. After tacking I would move it off the wooden table (to not burn it all up) and finish the welds. I really need a nice large metal welding table…but I have no idea where I would stick it in my packed garage.

I did a trial fit on the upstairs after it was all together to measure for the vertical pieces that fill into the a-frame portion on the sides:

After welding those on, I suspended it across my carport to paint it. I used my Mini-mate 4 HVLP to spray some thinned enamel paint I got from Ace hardware. Here it is primered (with the bug covered up to avoid any overspray):

I then painted it flat black, and installed it. The feet are bolted to the ground with 1.5″ lag bolts, and the sides are screwed into the walls with some wood screws.

I still need to finish it by creating a nice piece of wood to put on the steel top; that will give it a nice feel to the hand and blend in well with the rest of the house’s wooden stuff.

Here are some details of the curves as a fancy HDR image. Notice the cube in the background:

The yard at Project Hutchinson now has a small orchard. The lumber store over in Santa Cruz was having a sale on fruit trees, so I went and grabbed a few. In front of the barn there is a Katy apricot tree, and two pear trees. Apparently there needs to be two pear trees to bear fruit.

In front of the treehouse/platform is a tri-graft peach tree:

I can’t wait to be eating some fresh fruit from our yard!

I’ve since fenced in each of the trees; the deer are relentless in our area. Eventually I want to fence in our entire little green patch of sunlight in order to have a large deer free garden area.

Louise and I need a shoe rack that looks nice. I decided to design something pretty in Sketchup. Here is what I came up with while on vacation:

The vertical side pieces have a slight curve to them, and the bottom pieces have a slight arch. I’m planning on using cherry for the outside, and staining the outer pieces slightly darker than the inside sheet pieces (which will be 1/2″ cherry ply). The shelves will be 3/4″ maple. The overall size will be 52″ tall by 28″ wide by 16″ deep.

Download the Sketchup file (coming soon, email me to get it).

The remodeling project continues! We ordered carpet after I finished painting the built-in dresser frames. Unfortunately it was a big ordeal when we went through Home Depot. the color and manufacturer that happened to make the stainmaster carpet we wanted had a two week lead time. No problem. Two weeks later they call us and said they made it but didn’t pass inspection. We figured that was okay, and just decided to stick with it. Two weeks further on they called again and said the same thing! So, at this point we picked out a different color/kind that was manufactured by a different company. A little over two weeks later it was delivered and installed.

The weight set sort of takes up too much room, but I’ve promised to start using it. True to my word, I used it the first day, and I was sore for the next three.

Almost all the drawers are done for the dressers; well, I have them all made, and I just have to spray the last four of them — I couldn’t do them all at one time since I didn’t have enough room in the garage.

How about a before picture for comparison:

I did everything myself, aside from installing the carpet. Except for painting the walls! Louise painted all the walls.

Before shot of the above area:

Well, I’ll still have to do the trim…but that can wait.

Before — there was a closet in the corner that I thought was ugly and removed. I rebuilt the wall and drywalled it:

That’s all folks!

The built-in dressers are coming along. Here’s the first set in front of the bathroom. Louise picked the color.

Here’s the big pile of maple and poplar that I got for the project:

Building the face frame was super fast and easy to do with pocket jointery:

I wanted to start work on my built in dressers for the upstairs, but first I needed an out feed table for the tablesaw. I wanted something that doubled as a work space, and added some additional storage. I also wanted a built-in sanding table, but I decided to do that another day.

So, using some pocket hole joints, old 2×4s and 2×6s ripped clean and glued together, I made a really rock solid outfeed table. The top is two pieces of 3/4″ MDF glued and screwed together, with counter top stuff on the top to protect it and add a smooth surface to slide pieces of wood on.

It went together really fast, and has already been a great help. In particular, it makes sawing long pieces much safer, as they just catch onto the outfeed table instead of dropping down.

In the above picture, you can also see the updated router table that I made.

….built-in “knee wall” dressers for the upstairs!

Here’s a couple of pictures from SketchUp. I will give anyone the models, if they are interested in seeing how I designed them.

I purchased a bunch of wood from aura hardwoods yesterday, and I’m hoping to start building tonight!

I’ve been working quite a bit on our upstairs remodel project.

I removed an old closet, and installed lighting in the ceiling. This helps tremendously with the look and feel of the room; it was always dark and shady, mainly because there was no built-in lighting. I also framed the wall in preparation for a door and drywall:

I removed the old drywall on the side. I’m planning on building built-in dressers.

The back window was a single half-triangle. It look completely out of place and asymmetric, and because the windows didn’t open, it would get really hot and stuffy in the room. So, I framed out an opening for another half-triangle, and two lower windows that would open:

Here’s the same wall with the windows installed:

Unfortunately, the new window (on the left) didn’t have the same frame; it was wooden, and is all they offered. I had to end up building a matching wooden frame for the old window.

The other half of the upstairs already had matching triangle windows, but the windows underneath were slat-opening. They are horribly energy inefficient, and two of the four didn’t open. I removed them, and you can see the replacements waiting for me to put them in:

Finally, there were two more opaque windows that didn’t open. One was cracked, and the other one I accidentally cracked while messing with the drywall by it, so we had to get some new ones. We went with vertically opening ones, but the main problem was installing them. There wasn’t quite enough space to use the latter, so I had to drop a climbing rope from the chimney and hang from it to install the windows. The hardest part was lugging back up the 3/4 plywood and nailing it back on (all, by myself!). It was a nightmare to do, and the project isn’t 100% done, as I still have to put trim around the windows.

Before the siding went up:

Anyways, I’ve been doing the drywall work, and starting to tape and mud.