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Friday, October 18, 2013
Woodworking
This week, while on vacation, my folks came out to visit from Colorado. They stayed for 5 days, and had a great time. Prior to coming out, my Dad bought me a table saw and had it shipped to my address, plus he was bringing me a couple tools of his that he had extra with the idea we would spend a few days building something.I thought of a couple ideas, some I drafted up in Sketchup 3D. But the best fit for making use of his time and experience was an idea I had for the main hallway. I needed a large, rustic, chunky mirror!
The design of the mirror came from Crate & Barrel. They have a mirror, called the Seguro, and it is a great piece, and fitting for our hallway. Only problem is, well, it's $900 freakin bux!!!
The colors and distressed reclaimed look is quite desirable for this mirror, it is large, chunky, and rustic, but hardly worth $900.
When my dad arrived, and we began talking about possibilities, I showed him this mirror, and he bit. A project like this would make a perfect use of his skill, and the miter saw, and table saw I had yet to use.
The following are pics taken along the way.
We bought the wood from Lowe's, 1"x4"x10' cedar boards, chosen for their variance in color and knotted patterns. We sawed the boards in half, lengthwise to give us 10' long 2" strips. The 2" side would give us the depth of the mirror, giving it that chunky appeal. One of the qualities of the Seguro, is if you look close, the wood looks cut with numerous ridges that run perpendicular to the board. We talked about how they may have achieved this, and my Dad thought that the wood was probably old barn-wood and that was how it was cut back in the day. Since we weren't using reclaimed barn-wood, I thought about how to replicate that texture, and so decided flaming the wood with a blow torch would do it.
So two-thirds of the boards I took a blow torch to (simple hand-held bottle of propane) and scorched the surface of 5 boards stacked together, and held with clamps. After the board edges (what would be the face of the mirror) were thoroughly charred, I laid the stack flat on the table, took a wire brush, and scraped perpendicular to create the desired striped pattern. You can see the effect in the 3rd camera pic above.
With two-thirds of the boards scorched and scored, we began cutting all the boards in varying lengths of 7" 9" and 12" long. Soon we had stacks of small pieces we could begin gluing together in random places, taking care that no two stacked high, terminated at the same seem, and also taking care to place a "blonde" piece every so often to get the appearance to vary evenly.
I'll skip the details of all our screw-ups, and typical woodworking tricks of the trade, and get right to the end of staining.
I ended up using 3 different colors of stain: Ipswitch, Classic Gray, and Classic Oak. I started first with the gray, and just painted a couple pieces with small streaks. The gray was to give the mirror a weathered look, and simulate a real aged piece of wood. Honestly, the gray ended up being too pronounced, less like stain and more like paint, but I will get to how I fixed that later. I let the gray dry a few hours, then came back and stained with both the Oak, and Ipswitch, dabbing my brush into one, painting a couple pieces, then dabbing into the other to pain some more.
Once the whole mirror was painted, I could stand back and see the gray was looking a little too fabricated, so based on my Dad's recommendation, I took the blow torch, and started charring again the gray stained areas.
The big concern for all of this, is to take care that each plank piece looks unique, and no two pieces together have markings that extend into the other piece. So after burning a few spots, places where the burnt marks bled into neighboring pieces, I was able to take some sand paper and lighten up the neighboring pieces to bring back the uniqueness, yet retain the grey-to-scorched appearance.
Here is the result...
Enjoy!
Sunday, September 8, 2013
The Loft
Those of you who have followed my previous work will be familiar with my renders. Well, this weekend I was at it again. Haven't quite perfected this one, but its been on my mind so I thought I would start putting together a concept for the loft. While I like the idea of a TV hanging on the wall, it's just not enough. Also, shopping around for media consoles is a lost cause, so gonna have to build one myself.Mainly, my interest was sparked because I have been researching speakers. Can't say I am an audiophile, but I have an interest in nice sounding\looking speakers, and given me and my family spend a good deal of time in the loft, creating a slick, comfy, hang-out spot has been on my mind.
One thing to note, is that boxy straight lines are a little predictable. For this console, I wanted to add a little architectural interest. Adding a convex edge to the tile backslash and valance gave it a subtle WOW, which is accentuated by the crown-molding above. With convex speakers, convex modern sconces, and convex light-patterns, the room gets some dimension, while staying warm and cozy.
I can imagine an industrial coffee table, and end table with thick chunky wood tops, and steel square legs, The window treatments don't work quite well yet. I do like the bamboo blinds, but struggling with the valance.
The following photo is what another couple days will do. Iteration after iteration, the details start to bump out with creative possibility. The previous POCs I started to get the feeling I was drinking a Vinti Cappuccino--too much brown. And while all that brown is neutral and safe, I started feeling that while there were some good qualities present, the room was just not popping for me. The valances did not seem to fit, the orange Fall tones were getting boring, and the console was a little too plain. What is fascinating, is that doing something as easy as changing the wall color, totally opens up a new paradigm, and so, behold!
Now things are starting to pop. Having a dark, svelte blue wall, with platinum white columns, and crown molding galore, really creates some dimension. Now, the valance of white and gray chevrons works, and the green accent pillows give the room some color. Also, the molding on the columns is sorta unique, slightly Japanese, chunky and bright. The console, however may be drifting off some, and I am getting less enthusiastic about this time back-splash, but tile itself is still interesting, just perhaps not this tile. I am thinking a glassier tile, clear, silver, tempered greens, maybe.
A couple more ideas, perhaps I will post in revision 3, might include molding footings for the columns, missing base boards, a platinum white ceiling, perhaps a convex valance, and a couple art pictures.
Here's another revision, shows what another couple days of free time will do.
This one I actually created 3D glass tile for the console. None of the colored tiles were working, so I decided to roll my own. Still not certain this is what I would end up doing, but it looks better than before.
Enjoy!
Friday, May 10, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
Porch swings
In a previous post, I talked about the porch swing I really wanted for the front porch. Well, turns out my folks bought be one off Ebay that wasn't quite the one I wanted, but still a nice swing. Once we started getting settled in, I decided I would use the swing my folks bought me in the back, under the deck. Then late, I decided to get the one I wanted for the front porch. Now I am extra happy, because both swings really fit nicely!For the back deck, I went to Lowe's to purchase some stain, the color is Dark Walnut, though I think the end result was lighter than expected because either the wood, or more likely, I didn't actually stir it that well (as I a found out later). Each slat was removed, stained, varnished, then reassembled by my expert assistant.
The front porch swing I knew would be a bit more challenging, since hanging it would require removing all of the soffit and trying to find suitable points for the eye-bolts. I had troves of photos I had taken of the house during its building stage, but in all, there were only like 4 or 5 that showed the underneath of the porch ceiling trusses. The laterally mounted studs which span the porch were not going to be acceptable, so instead I drilled through the truss, having a nice vertical support stud to place the eye-bolt. The chain that came with the swing was super thick, too thick, rated for 1300 lbs, making the swing capable of sustaining a ton of weight. They looked kinda ugly, so I bought more chain at Lowe's to get something nicer looking, yet still rated to support a great deal of weight. Once the swing was mounted and positioned the correct height and angle, I re-installed the soffit. When I got the the location where an eye-bolt was going to be, I simply set the vinyl panel in place, reached up an over with a long pencil, dropped it down the hole I drilled, and marked a point on the back side of the panel to drill the hole. Actually the previous soffit install job was suffering because the final piece was too long, and would drop down looking like the ceiling was falling out. I trimmed the last piece a little smaller, and now it all looks flawless.
Enjoy!
The Back Deck
The Front Porch
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Towel rack space
Anyone researching the Rome will know that the master bathroom is a little limiting. Small in size, lacking towel bars, shower door location... but trying to maximize functionality, and loving it anyway, I found a place for some additional matching towel rings purchased at Homegoods. If you get the chance to see the master bath before drywall, you will know the right side of the vanity has a ventilation duct filling much of the space behind the wall. To securely mount a towel ring means you may likely require puncturing the duct. In my case, and possibly yours, you may get lucky, since as it turned out, drilling through the wall, at the exact mid-point, 11", I just skiffed the metal edge and retained the integrity of the vent shaft.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Put to good use!
Probably somewhere in a previous post I talked about all the goodies one could find in their dumpster at various points throughout the life cycle of home building. Anything from carpet, to tile, vinyl siding. Well, the vinyl siding was especially useful in my first dumpster project to date.Our dog Charlie has a dog house. Very well constructed, durable, etc. Only problem it was painted radio-active green. It was only a matter of time before before the HOA would be showing up with a nasty-gram or something, so I knew something had to be done. Fortunately, my frugal side came through, and I was able to create a mini-Rome for our dog Charlie, using nearly all recycled, scavenged products taken from our dumpster.
Here are some photos...
Friday, April 19, 2013
Post-closing Update
The Bad News
It's about 3+ weeks after closing, and the house is hanging in there, as is are we. The banister I paid $$$$ for was poorly crafted. Beams were not aligned with balusters, and running your hand down the rail might be great if you were trying to exfoliate your hand, or file your nails, but for smoothness of touch, it was not great. The wood was entirely lacquered and in some places, brush bristles were epoxied into the surface, as if being preserved for future generations. Fortunately, I was able to get some nice folks over to fix it. It still isn't on par with the $$$$ I paid for it, but it is better. There have been some other settling effects in the house, doors getting stuck, spider cracks in the drywall in a couple places, but I'm not too bothered by these, and expect them as normal for the break-in period of the home. Another feather-ruffling point was the fireplace. During our final walk-through, the fireplace was on, and by the end of the walk-through, we were smoked out of the house. The smoke smelled of burnt plastic, as if someone left a zip-loc bag on top before it was installed. To be assured, I was told a smoking fireplace is typical, that they require a good burn-in period (like 5 hours), but there could be other points to consider, such as the possibility the fireplace was designed for gas, rather than propane. Again, the fireplace company technician, nice fellow, came out within a couple days and looked it over to say again, the smell was normal for the initial burn-in period, and also to reassure me that the fireplace was fitted for propane correctly. In addition to the fireplace burn-in, because the burn-in period was so lengthy (more like 15 hours or more probably in total), this and other factors led to us running out of propane the third night in our home. What does that mean? Well, we weren't going to freeze to death, but we were going to have to live without hot water. How long? Well, in theory up to two weeks, while Suburban Propane, Inc. files my paperwork, verifies my credit, and performs a system leak test. In actuality, we were without hot water less than an hour! Read on to find out why...The Good News
OK, so all this crazy-bad stuff huh?!? Well, I'm writing about it because it happened, not because I am upset about it. Quite the opposite actually, in fact I am quite thankful for having probably the best Project Manager in the whole freaking country! Ascertaining the consequences of no hot water is not desirable, but it is manageable. Millions of people go without it everyday. Fortunately however, our PM called in an emergency service order, on the claim we had a potential leak. After all, we prematurely ran out of propane, didn't we? This caused one disgruntled, on-call, Suburban Propane employee to have to come out and service our tank, verify there wasn't a leak, and provide a temporary surplus of propane. I can imagine how much it sucked for him, and he definitely expressed his displeasure upon arrival, but with all said and done, I gave much thanks and appreciation, and a most notable kudos to our PM for a rock-star performance getting us hot water back.As for some other items, well I am less concerned. Not necessarily because there are minor problems here and there, but more so because they'll get addressed. There are a hundred reasons we are glad we picked a Ryan Home, if only you had the opportunity to come out and see for yourself, the place is actually quite stunning! So, to offer a moral to this story, expect there to be a few problems getting moved into your new home. Be happy it didn't burn down, fall down, get blown away, or drown, and be persistent in your intent to get the problems resolved. You may not get as awesome of a PM as I did, but RH does have a reputation to uphold, so leverage that!
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