The last one was for router bit storage.

Initially I planned on making this two drawers, but then I noticed what Sawdustroad was doing with his table and came up with this idea. Special note – Thanks for the idea Sawdust!

It would be much better if it had full extension drawer slides on it but I went with what I had for now. I’ll upgrade to full extensions slides if I ever get it completed.

I finished up the bottom drawers today. You can see I had a couple of scratches that I thought were small enough to sand out. That turned out to be a pretty signifcant error in jundgment. About halfway through the sanding it became apparent to me but, like the energizer bunny, I kept going and going.

I thought about flipping it around and using the other side as the face but the color and grain on the other side was too different and I wanted the fronts to match. All things consiered it’s a relatively minor issue though and it will serve as a reminder to me.

But the drawer space is a plenty

I’ve got room for the Bosch power planer, the Kreg Jigmaster, Porter Cable Router case, and something else that I haven’t decided on yet.

This one will be the router bit storage and is going in the top right.

I ran out of shellac today so I called it quits with that glue up.

Here’s where it stands right now.

It’s 3/4” birch ply. I was experimenting with the Minwax Sedona Red that I used in the Winter Contests, that explains the color. The face frame is oak I salvaged from a bathroom vanity that went bye-bye during a re-model job a while back. When I ripped the oak pieces to width I ended up with dowels in my strips that were part of the vanity construction. The pieces wouldn’t have been long enough if I had cut out the doweled sections so I decided to leave them in place and situate them symetrically in the router table so they look like they are doing something.

The finish is BLO, with a couple coats of Zinsser Dewaxed Shellac, and a couple coats of paste wax over that.

I started working on the bottom drawers this weekend. Not the cleanest glue ups in the world but hey, it’s shop furniture.

I still need to cut a hole for dust collection in the router bay and I haven’t quite decided what I’m doing for the top, the fence, and the router bay door. This has been one of those “design it as you go” projects. But I’m pretty convinced that it will include a Jessem Mast-R-Lift. I can tell you that it’s going to be a good size table though. The top will measure 25”x42”. I’m expecting the dust collection might be a challenge, I think got a little carried away with the size of the router bay, it’s 22”w x 24”d x 14”h. I’ll figure it out when I get there.

I nearly spent as much time deciding what to build and then figuring the cut list, as I did actually building the project. So here’s he cut list first.

I’m showing the 2×4 in two four foot sections so I could get it to fit in the post legibly. The actual deminsions ended up being a tad smaller than what’s shown after jointing, planing and sanding. The resawed sections are 1/2” thick and the panels are more like 3 1/4” in the finished product. There isn’t much of that 2×4 left to waste, cutting the pieces drove me a little nuts.

I started out with my 2×4

And cut the sections that were being resawed to width first. From those I cut the rails, styles, panels, and bottom of the box to length on the SCMS.

I used the table saw to rip the rails and syles to width then I ran the rails, styles, and raised panels over the router table. I had to use my portable router table since I haven’t finished buillding the new one for the shop yet

This was particularly challenging for me since I’m not used to working with small pieces like this. I did the detail sanding and shaping first.

Then taking a lesson from Doug Bordner, I put the finish on the pieces before any glue up. In one of his posts Doug mentioned using masking tape to protect the joinery that will be glued up later and applying the finish prior to final assembly, making it easier to finish the inside of the box. This also helped me out since I used two different stains to add contrasting colors and give the illusion of there being two different types of wood here.

Both stains are from Minwax, the darker color is Sedona Red #222 and the lighter is Golden Pecan #245

Here’s some close ups

This will be the back of the box

Here’s the sides

and the front

I was going for an early american colonial look so I sanded the center of the panels into irregular shapes and added some dings here and there to make the box look old and worn.

Here’s a general idea of where I’m going with this

Then I started in on the lid and bottom.

The lid floats in a frame. I routed the grooves about 1/4” deeper than they needed to be then slipped some flexible tubing in them to keep the panel centered while leaving room for expansion.

Here’s a couple shots showing the bottom and the legs

Here’s a couple of dry fit shots to give you a better idea of where I’m headed

I used a stacked dado to cut 1/4” grooves into all the sides

and routed a 1/4” tounge into the bottom so it would float as well

Here’s some shots of where I’m at now. The lid is just resting on the box for the pictures.

I’m off to go pick up some hinges so I can get the lid attached, clean it up, put one last coat of wax on it, and get it entered in the contest.

and started on one of the shop walls.

That glass block window on my fancy OSB assemby table is a replacement for the laundry room.

Shop cat refused to get out of the picture. Here’s the mess that it will be replacing.

Here’s the other half of my French Door that someone thought would make a good table.

and a table that I think will make a good something else (I’m saving this one for the lumber)

Going to try and hang some sheet rock this weekend.

So we moved all the big stuff that we figured we’d be keeping out to the garage, rented a 15yd dumpster and rolled up our sleeves for a weekend. We tore out the makeshift walls that were there, sorted through all the junk, and just kept tossing things into the dumpter until it was full. Here’s what we ended up with.

The house was built in the 1930’s and overall the basement stays surprisingly dry. But as you can see the walls are in need of some help.

We did find a couple of areas with some minor seepage but those were quickly remedied with some gutter repair and concrete crack sealer.

Ultimately, we want to end up with a real laundry room, storage room, half bath, a small rec room/sitting area, and as much shop space as I can negotiate out of this deal. ;)

I wanted to get the storage area going first so I could get some stuff out of my way. I acid washed the walls & floor and applied some Dry-Lock waterproofer just in case.

I used this in the area that used to be the shop and if nothing else it does a good job of keeping the concrete dust down.

I found the doors off to the left of this picture propped up on some saw horses covered with a tarp being used as a table. One of them is the other half of the french doors that used to separate the dining/living rooms upstairs. The wall that used to separate them was removed turnng them into one big room and the other half of this french door was installed in the kitchen. I now have, what I think is, all the original doors to the house which just may find their way back home.

I built shelves for the storage room and got some stuff up off the floor.

I thought this was pretty odd.

Before we started gutting the place, this was sort of a rag-tag shower. It was nothing more than some painted plywood nailed to a frame with a shower head and a floor drain. I had someone tell me that it’s pretty common in older houses built in “mill cities”. The husband would come home filthy from a day at the factory and would head to the basement and wash up before comming into the house. Not sure how true it is but it’s kind of a neat story. Either way I’m hoping for a 4” drain line in the floor. This is where the half bath is going and it would be nice if I didn’t have to bust up the floor.

Here’s some of what used to be the shop which now serves as an area to toss stuff while I’m working on the rest of the place.

I cut and installed the last of the supports for the legs.

Gave it a quick sanding and added some filler here and there

One more sanding and it’s ready for finish. It’ll be posted in the Project section next.

Cut some pieces for a frame to brace the legs and a quick dry fit.

And the legs assembled.

Details of the frame supporting the legs.

One of the requirements for the table was that the top needs to be removable so that it’s easy to bring in for the winter. So here’s what I came up with.

The top rests on the legs, the legs slip in between the blocks, and the 1/4” bolt keeps the top from flipping over. The bolt only gets hand tightened. I intentionally left the fit between the bocks sloppy to allow for movement and so that you don’t have to acheive “perfect” alignment when putting it back together in the spring.

One more dry fit before calling it quits for the day.

Yup…. fits pretty good.