House 173

Sometimes I post old projects just for posterity - this is one of those posts so please bear with me.  When we first bought 173 back in '97, one of the first things we did was paint the kitchen, of course it really needed much more than that but back then there just wasn't the money.  But I had gotten a Craftsman router and I was dying to use it.

And when we moved in we inherited a small collection of old metal shelf brackets.  So I chose these two...

And because the kitchen table is hunter green...

After sanding the daylights out of those old brackets, I used the old Krylon...

 to paint them hunter green to match the table...

Then came the fun part!  Mind you, not only was this the first time using my router, it was my first time using any router!  When I was a kid I watched my dad use a router tons of times, but you know how it is - when you're a kid you don't pay much attention - mind caught up in thinking about the other kids at the school playground, wondering wha…

A couple weeks ago I finished the build of the little accent table for the upstairs hallway...

Then it was a matter of putting on the finish.  Here's a picture of the table that was my inspiration for this little project:

I have no idea where I found that picture so if you recognize it please let me know so I can give proper credit.  Anyway, I had to make some alterations to my plan.  I really wanted to have the back legs look like this but I just couldn't cut them to look half way decent.  I mean, they were so bad I didn't even take a picture.  I really need to get a band saw!  But I didn't want those legs to be just plain slats, so I laid out where the shelves would go and figured where I could place some holes...

...then used my Forstner bits to drill some holes of different sizes, just for interest.

Anyway, after the build was complete I prepped all three legs with some wood conditioner...

Then I stained them using my stain formula mix of two stains... 2 parts Gen…

So, the class I'm in is winding up and I have a couple days off work so I wanted to get in the workshop and do something.  One thing I've been wanting to do is make an accent table for the end of the upstairs hallway.  Here's where we left of in October:


It's really difficult to get a good picture up there, but you get the idea.  The problem with that spot is that there are two doorways at the end of the hallway so whatever piece was to go there certainly could't be particularly big, otherwise you'r have to squeeze by whenever you went into a room.  I don't like that idea, so I had to come up with a solution.  I decided to make the table top in a half-round shape.  Lowes sells some round boards for making end-tables and the like, but they were too thick, which would throw things out of scale at the cramped end of the hallway.  So I figured I'd have to do something I've never done - cut my own circles.  I started with one of these boards from Lowes:

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