So you can see that the big units are in. I still need to put on all the molding, side panels, doors and drawer fronts. And a few more adjustable shelves still need to be cut too. A LOT of small things. But at least we can kind of use them to hold stuff for the time being.

What we did during this remodel was put in a new gas insert, and also push out that wall so that we could run wiring above the fireplace and put the big tv there. My plan for that little center speaker you see is to put it within the mantel. Which is what I want to work on next! Here is my rough sketch…

I want to make the top of the mantel removable, so that I can have the option of running things through it like the wire for the Wii sensor bar, and if I need to get at the speaker. There is also a space left behind the wall to make some extra room for the speaker, once we figure out exactly where it will sit. Then the mantel doesn’t have to stick out too far. This is probably really confusing, but there is a method to my madness! :)

One of my questions is, how are mantels usually attached to walls? Are they hung on some sort of bracket or are they just bolted on? I’m thinking I might make the top portion of the mantel first. And I need to think about accomodating the tile which I will make later (I make handmade tile.)

Any mantel tips are appreciated!

The big reason I’m so distracted from my project is I got my new baby Hahn’s macaw. His name is Buzz, and he is the cutest!

These are the smallest of the macaws, and they are excellent talkers. He’s only 11 weeks old and really wobbly on his feet, but he flies pretty well. He is a big snuggabugga and wants to be on someone all the time.

This is the sketch for the 2nd shelving unit on the other side of the fireplace from the first. This one is all one piece, and not as deep as the first one I made. It also has to sit underneath a soffit, so it’s not quite as tall. The bottom half will store board games, as my husband is a board game geek. Then there is a place for the other front speaker, and an adjustable shelf next to that.

And here is where I’m at so far. The case is done and finished. Now I have to make the face frame. This is the back, and the top is to the bottom right.

This one went a little more quickly now that I have a little more clue what I’m doing. Making more use of pocket screws when I can put them out of sight. (Looking at my pic, I could probably use a few more pocket screws, I was trying to throw this together fast before my glue dried.) I used a router for ALL my dadoes this time, and the router and I fought a little bit. So there are some extra gouges but luckily they are all where you can’t see them. I also had a bit of trouble with the plywood. So far I’ve been able to get away with “not-quite-cabinet-grade” maple ply and it’s been really nice. But this time I got a not-so-great piece with a bunch of voids in it. What happens is that when you wet it down with dye, or raise the grain, you end up with a small section with ripples in it as the wood warps. Luckily these are all out of sight too.

I’m still working on the windows bit by bit. They are coming out really nice, and all I need to do now is put on the bottom trim and the sills.

They look really messy as they are covered in drywall dust. I had to trim back the drywall in spots so that everything would meet up without gaps in the trim. But you can get an idea of the design I ended up with. The vertical pieces meet the horizontal pieces with slightly overlapping rabbets.

I used these plans, but made the bottoms all flush to make it a little easier to get together.
http://www.coveside.biz/chickadee-house-plans.htm

I got all the wood cut up ahead of time, and predrilled holes for the nails. This made it easier for the little hands to hammer the nails in, and this way they didn’t have to hold the nails really. They had a lot of fun whacking them together! They then decorated them with multi-colored sharpie markers.

One of the 8-year-old girls could sink her nails faster than either Chad or I. It was awesome.

Just thought I’d share our fun today! It was a great party!

edited to add: Me in my Hahn’s Macaw Hat. ;)

This is the back of the top part of my shelving unit, before I put the back on.

And this is with the back on. I painted it first, then attached it. It’s just cheapy pine tongue and groove. It’s really hard to photograph the color but I think this pic is close. I’ve left the wall side stile off until I can fit it once it’s up there. I finally relented and bought a pocket screw jig and will attach it with pocket screws. Now my face frames are a mixture of glue, biscuits and pocket screws.

Since I got the top part of my shelving unit mostly done, so we recruited a bunch of my husbands friends to heft it into place. This picture is after I got all the holes cut for all the electronics outlets. There is also going to be an adjustable shelf in the middle right, but I haven’t gotten that in there yet. The side panels are not put on yet, I will wait on those until I figure out what I’m going to do about the fireplace mantel and hearth. The TV is above the fire place. The black cord you see is the HDMI cable which is obviously way too long. :) Also missing is the molding around the top of the drawers, and the baseboard and top molding. I’ll do those all at once when I do the other set of shelves.

You might be able to see that I trimmed out the insides of the windows. They look pretty nice so far. I wanted to wait until I got this unit in until I did the rest.

While I was waiting for my blue paint to dry, I ended up making the drawers. At first, I thought I was going to do dovetails, because my dad had given me his old dovetail jig. Then I realized that I actually like the look of box joints better. Then I figured out I couldn’t really do those because my adjustable dado blade wont leave a flat bottom in the cut. Then I found a cool video explaining lock rabbets:

http://www.woodmagazine.com/wood/file.jsp?item=video/player&temp=yes&bcpid=979295690&bclid=1339078484&bctid=1213841038

That looked pretty easy, I thought, and so I started cutting up this 1/2” maple ply that I’d gotten for no particular reason.

Okay, it turns out that lock rabbet joints aren’t really conducive to plywood. because pieces tend to break off. Or maybe my plywood wasn’t that great? It wasn’t cabinet grade, just a step below. But I kept chugging along, and most of the trouble spots are out of sight, so the drawers actually came out pretty nice for my first drawers. I sanded about half of the drawers down so far and glued one up together. Here is my highly specialized drawer clamping apparatus:

I need to get more rope so that I can do more than one at a time!

Okay, here’s my question about drawers. So the drawers fit really well, however I did make one mistake where the bottom got put 3/16” too low, which raises the drawer box 3/16”. Now I have about 1/4” clearance left between the top of the drawer and the cabinet. Do you see any issues with that? I’m imagining that if the drawer get stuffed full someday and something gets caught as I pull the drawer out, I won’t have too much finagling room to get the drawer unstuck.

The snag that I have now is that the inner top of the window only really has room for a 1/2” thick board (The header is in the way). And I can’t get 1/2” boards that wide that I know of yet. So I have 1” boards (which are really 3/4”) and I need to have them planed down or something. Or find some wide 1/2” boards. I dunno. The guy at the lumberyard gave me a couple of phone numbers of people with their own shops near me who might be able to help me plane them down.

Anyhoo, so I spent some time ripping wood to put on the inside window cases. The other thing I did was finish up making the face frame pieces for the upper part of the cabinets I’m working on. Then I started putting together the back of that thing, which is made up of tongue-n-groove and I’ll paint that blue before I put it on. I decided to modify the upper part of the case by adding a couple of stringers (I think that is what they are called?) at the top and bottom, for strength. Because the back is a little flimsy and the bottom of it really needs something to attach to. I think it will look neater too. I’m going to stain everything before I put it together. But I should get the bulk of this thing together this week! Yay!

I want to keep it simple and rustic like the trim on this doorway (this is to my master bath):

So I drew this out:

But it’s really too big of a span and I need to break it up somehow. Thoughts?

After all my tests, I found this woodwhisperer’s video:
http://thewoodwhisperer.com/73-coloring-blotchy-woods/

Which was EXACTLY what I needed to see. I think I could’ve cut out a lot of testing if I’d seen that first!

I played with a lot of dye/wood conditioner/stain combos. As you know, I’m trying to make maple dark, and maple is one of those woods that will blotch all to hell. I tried like 3 different wood conditioners, but they all SUCKED compared to shellac. Shellac is like a miracle solution for blotching. But shellac didn’t let any color in. That’s about when I found the wood whisperer video where he used a combo of shellac with a General Finishes gel stain in Java. That stain is so rich and so dark, it will color anything, I bet. It is awesome. It is a bit chocolately, though, and I wanted just a hint of red, so I dyed the wood first with Transtint in Brown Mahogany, and that gives the finish its red and the layering adds some depth to the color.

So here’s my finishing plan, which I’m writing down so that I will remember it for the next wave of staining:

Sand to 180
raise the grain with water, let dry, sand to 180 again
dye with transtint brown mahogany in water (I don’t know the exact dilution, it’s about 30-40 drops in about half a deli container’s worth of water – I think the container might be about a quart) I basically just flood the surface with a paintbrush, then wipe off the excess with paper towels. Let dry, any grain that came up this time can be taken care of with a 3M 00 scrubby.
Wipe everything down with mineral spirits to clean it off and let dry.
Wipe on a layer of 50:50 Zinssner Seal Coat shellac:denatured alcohol. You have to be fast and get it on as evenly as you can and quickly wipe up excess. Let dry about 15 minutes.
General Finishes Java gel stain – use a foam brush to slap it on, then wipe off. I’ve noticed that if the temp is 70 or more, then it will get tacky fairly quickly and be harder to wipe off, so don’t cover too much at once before wiping. You have to be firm with the wiping, and get most of it back off. One coat is plenty dark, it’s incredible.
General Finishes Gel Topcoat – put on the same way as the stain. At least 3 coats.

I love, love, LOVE the General Finishes. It even smells nice. I’ve never had a stain and topcoat be so goofproof. I’m so pleased with the finish – it is so smooth and pristine, I can’t believe I accomplished it without using some sort of sprayer. The only downside to this system is that you have to wait overnight between coats, and it makes the process take a long time. The maple still blotches a little bit where the grain is the most dramatic, but nowhere near as bad as a regular stain/wood conditioner. It’s just enough to give the wood some character without looking sloppy.

Other notes:
Shellac is made by a bug! Called the Lac bug. I had no idea! It was cool to see some biology (my field) in woodworking.
Transtint dye in alcohol vs. water. I was experimenting putting the dye in alcohol. It goes on fine, but as it dries, it produces this weird color pattern in the wood that makes it look like fish scales. I wouldn’t recommend putting the dye in alcohol because of this. Water works much better.
The reason I raised the grain first instead of just letting the dye step raise the grain is because sanding the grain back down takes off too much dye if I don’t do it beforehand.
If I was doing some more experimenting, I would try the same schedule, but maybe sand to 240 and use full-strength Seal Coat. I’m a bit curious about how that would look. But I am happy with what I have so far.

Here’s a picture of my final finish, I still haven’t actually put the face frame together yet, but you can get an idea of what it all will look like:

It’s a little blurry since you could see the color better without the flash. Though it still looks redder in this picture than it does it real life.

Here is what I finished up today…

This is the casing for the upper shelves that sit atop the drawers. It is ginormous! So I’ll be staining it before I glue it all together. This is the back of it facing up. The hardest part was fine-tuning the joints so that it all fits snugly. I was carrying those big doubled up shelves back and forth to the garage and they are heavy! I’m looking pretty buff now from the workout I’ve been getting.

This is the molding for the top with a little slot for the rabbet on the plywood. The molding that I’m using on this thing is simply a 45 slice off the corner of a board. I wanted very simple lines on this thing. (I know I need to sand out those saw marks. My saw is really wonky.)

And the molding to go on the bottom. (Don’t mind all the loose pieces, nothing is attached yet.)

So sanding questions…

OMG I have so much sanding to do. I already have a little palm sander – will that suffice? Or should I do it by hand with a block? What grits should I be using? I need to make a run to the store and get a ton of this stuff. While I’m doing all the sanding I’ll be making up some test boards with the finish. I seem to have a lot of scrap lying around!

Thanks for looking!

I made the face frame pieces for the drawer cabinet. I’m working with maple now and it took me a moment to figure out why my saw suddenly didn’t seem to cut so fast anymore – this stuff is hard! I guess that’s why it’s called “hardwood”, eh?

Making the face frame pieces was time consuming because I was working with rough cut boards. Luckily they all had one straight edge on them, so I would first make the other edge straight, and then rip them to width. I had some trouble ripping at first, but I realized that it was the blade guard that was getting hung up on stuff and moving (it’s an old saw I’m using and a little wonky). I seem to be able to keep it from doing whatever crazy thing it was doing now.

I decided to fasten everything together with biscuits, although pocket screws would’ve been a lot faster. But I chose biscuits because a) I’d already bought a biscuit joiner off craigslist when I started this project, b) I didn’t already have a pocket screw jig, c) I really don’t want any visible connectors – it wouldn’t be an issue with these drawers, but it would be with some of the other shelves I’m planning, and so I might as well get used to the biscuits. d) pocket screw holes are very inviting for spiders. Spiders!!

So I had to figure out the biscuit joiner thing. First lesson – make sure the blade is all the way retracted into the housing before you start it. Otherwise it rolls down your wood wreaking destruction. Luckily, nobody will be able to see where this happened. ;) It takes some practice to get to know exactly where the cutter is going to cut, but once you have it figured out then you’re good to go. Now I have all my biscuit slots and the face frame is ready to be joined together and fastened to the cabinet. I’ll just use dowels for the skinnier pieces. I think I’m going to stain all the pieces first and then join them together. Not all the pieces are attached in this pic, in case you notice any big gaps. ;)

I was debating what to do with the side. One side is against the wall in the corner, but the right side is visible. I really didn’t want one big smooth piece there. So I was hemming and hawing because I thinking what I might like is boards joined together with a touch of a bevel on the edges. But I didn’t really want spend a lot on maple boards when the maple plywood is cheaper. My solution was to cut the maple ply into “boards” following any existing lines in the plywood facing. I put rabbets in them and the little bevels. Then I glued them up overnight. It worked out pretty well! It’ll give the side some visual interest and make the cabinet a little more rustic. I’ll stain this up before I attach it also.

I still need to work on the top. I had to get more wood because I had the lumber guys rough cut it a tad too small. The top will be plywood, and I’ll put a rabbet in it to attach some simple molding to and finish the edge.

Meanwhile…I am almost halfway done with the top shelving section that sits atop these drawers! I’ve got the sides cut and dadoed, the 4’ shelf pieces doubled and glued together and rabbeted on both sides to fit into the dadoes. I had a little disaster cutting the dadoes in the side and realized that it is more goof-proof if I use my router. But I’m almost done with the case for the upper shelving unit – one little vertical shelf needs its dadoes and the top needs some rabbets.

I think I have one more day of cutting stuff, then I’m going to start sanding, sanding, sanding, and then clean the garage and then stain for a while. I’m at a turning point in my project where I think I’ve done all the skills that I needed to learn, and I have a lot more confidence to proceed. I feel very good about how it’s all going to come out! So excited. But man, I am so tired right now! I’m looking forward to building the drawers because the pieces of wood are a lot smaller than what I’ve been dealing with!

I put my drawer case together and have the slides in there. There are a couple of spots where the measurements were wonky for some reason, but I got it all squared up where it needs to be squared up. I think I may have cut my dadoes a wee bit too tight, because I had to wrestle with this thing quite a lot. And it is big, so there was some sweating and swearing. I think if I had more experience with this sort of thing, I could’ve planned my assembly attack better, and maybe saved some final cuts for when I was actually putting it together. Like, those small vertical dividers – I had to recut those to be slightly bigger. Ah well. The worst is over. I didn’t really trust my glue joints since I fiddled with them so much, so I put a bunch of screws in there too.

I was debating what sort of drawer slides to use. I liked the concealed ones, but they are really expensive, like almost 50 bucks a pair. Then I was going to use some cheaper side-mounted ones, and I was just about to order them when I found a screamin’ deal on some slightly used accuride concealed slides in just the right size on ebay. I ended up paying around $15/pair, and I have extra for the other built-ins that I plan on making. Score!

The little drawers on top have a simple undermount center slide.

So now I have to get the wood for the face frame, top, and side. I’m on a little break from this project as I suffer through the flu, but hopefully I will be working on it again soon!