He's Alive

It's getting close to Easter and I love this song.  Besides being an awesome song in itself, David Phelps is unreal.  If you don't like it, you should probably be punched in the face.  No, I'm kidding of course.  But, if you do like it, enjoy!

Book Shelf Finished!

Here are a few pictures of the finished product.  I thought Kim did a good job of making everything look good on it.  She painted it as well.  My painting skills are not quite up to par.  

Book Shelf

This will be the newest addition to Ellie's room.  Kim wanted her to have a book shelf and I found this idea online and she loved it.  It still needs some trim work, sanding, painting, backing, etc. but when it's done it should look pretty good.  I was surprised at how well the shelves did.  We bought cheap wood and it was crazy warped in spots.  So, I used my router and made grooves in the sides to slide the shelves in.  That worked wonders along with some screws.  I'll be posting pics of the finished product soon.

Aloe Plant

This is our aloe plant in the front room.  When we got home from our honeymoon, Kim's mom had left a tiny pot with the little head of an aloe plant sticking out of the top.  We kept it in the kitchen window seal in that pot for the longest time and Kim kept watering it.  Finally, it got so big that we had to move it to a different pot and it has been growing like crazy.  It's amazing how big it is now.

Shane and Shane-The One You Need Guitar Chords

For anyone wanting these, here are the simplified chords--You have to capo on 6 for the original key. Comment if they work well for you.

The One You Need Guitar Chords

Makeup Table

Recently, Kim was telling me that she would like a small table to put in the bathroom that she could use to sit down and put on makeup. She gave me a rough idea of what she would like and I ran with it. I used poplar wood for the table and pine for the stool (although, the seat for the stool was poplar). Here are some pics from the process and then finished result. I don't actually have the top attached yet though. I placed it on the table to get the pictures, but it's not attached. Because the expanding and contracting of the wood through the seasons can cause a table top to crack, I'm still researching how to do it right.

So, the clamps on here make it look like I did such a wonderful job with gluing together. And it IS in fact glued. But, I was experimenting with a dowel jig (which did work pretty well) and mounting the frame between the 2x2s. I dropped the ball on the middle mounting. They were just crooked and I never could get the table even close to square so I busted it all apart with a hammer and started over with screws. And this time I mounted edge to edge and it worked MUCH better.

Here is the stool before stain. This was another disaster remade. Originally, I used 2x2s for the legs and 1x2s for the frame pieces. But, I was having issues with keeping it square because of the frame pieces. So, I tore it apart and used 2x2s for the frame as well and it worked wonders. Then, I used 2 planks of leftover poplar wood glued together for the seat.

This is the table top finished before sanding. I had to glue three pieces together to make it and once sanding and staining was finished, it looks like one piece..

Here is the drawer that is definitely not dovetailed together. It you've never tried making hand crafted dovetails or box joints, try it. You will pull your hair out. Just look at me!

This is the frame being set outside on a nice day to help dry the putty. I honestly have no idea if the frame for the drawer is anything close to legitimate, but I tried. So far, it seems to be holding up just fine.

These next few pictures are the finished product (again, aside from the top actually being attached). The stain turned out awesome. Hopefully it will last!

My Wife, The Artist

Kim doodled this little masterpiece in Sunday School the other morning. She always gets a little thing of milk on Sunday mornings and was trying to draw the cow on the label. She showed it to me and then she proceeded to laugh uncontrollably. You gotta love those times. Poor "Sugar" needs to see the eye doctor I think..