Day Nine-fifty-seven: boxing day

We've had a little project going on in the background behind the tables, lights, etc. We even teased it a couple weeks back. As the magicians say, "Here is the big reveal."

In our overhaul of studio two (e.g. new overhead light) we revamped the desk/chair setup by repainting an old table. Good for us, but that meant there was no longer any convenient storage attached to the desk. You know us well enough by now that when faced with such a dilemma our choices are to build or convert something to fit the bill. In this case we needed to build something custom to fit the space. Here are the specs to fit under the desk. The basics are that it needed to be 15.5 x 15.5 x 25 inches.

We decided to make the top and bottom a single piece each cut from an old .75-inch piece of plywood that we had previously intended to be the top of a dresser, hence the stain.

A little measuring and cutting on the table saw and we had our start.

We had to pick up some pine boards from Home Depot to make the sides and middle shelf.

sides:

sides cut to the right 7.25-inch width:

We planned to notch these side pieces to hold the shelf, so we cut the shelf about 14.5 inches wide. 

Because the base and top are 15.5 inches square, that meant we had to carve about .25 inches out of the boards at the right height, which in our case was the 14-inch mark. We could have used the router but since this was going to be quick we just set the table saw at .25 inches and used it to cut the channel. We used this technique when we made the laundry hamper and it worked well then.

Next everything needed to be painted and the insides got a coating of sealer (to protect the paint) because we figured it would be easier to do that in this state than when it was all assembled. Here are all the pieces. The squares are the top and bottom, the small pieces are the shelves, and the four together are the sides.

Speaking of assembly, we reached into our bag o'clamps and secure everything because we decided to hold this all together with our favorite hidden fasteners: glue and dowels.

Once that all dried we had something that was starting to resemble our design. All it needed was to finish painting/sealing the outside and to add a back and feet.

Presto.

And here's the whole effect. If we didn't know better we'd swear that these were part of a set.

Day Nine-fifty-one: climbing out of the darkness

This weekend we made a detour into Electricity Town. It's a nice place. Bright. Full of energy. But danger lurks seemingly behind every wall. Or in our case, ceiling. In the room affectionately known as "studio two" (or "studio deux" in Canada) there is one ceiling light far back along one wall. We're not sure why anyone decided on that placement, but there you have it. This left about 75% of the room darker than it needed to be. We got by with floor lamps but finally bit the bullet on a more permanent solution.

Here is the forlorn half of the room crying out for some wattage.

So what's missing here is a lot of quality time spent in a warm (not blistering, but still uncomfortable) attic crawling along and digging through insulation to find the box attached to the existing light. The simplest way to create a second light that would come on with the same switch is to start from the existing fixture and run a wire to the new one. Once we found the existing one it wasn't too hard to thread some wire through it. Then we needed to install a ceiling box for the new light and run the other end of the wire through it.

Here's how everything turned out. Two light boxes and a wire between them.

Here's a close-up of the new box.

With that all done, next we had to attach the new wire to the supply wires for the existing light so that the electricity could start the trek to the new light. Then we re-installed the first fixture and installed the second one and presto! Here they are with juice.

Here they are at rest.

And here's a solo shot of our newest addition.

Day Nine-forty-four: the tables are set

Between last weekend and this one, we put the finishing touches on the two new tables for the studio.

When we left off we were working on attaching the side and end sashes to our frames. With ample glue, clamps, dowel rods, and time we managed to get all eight of the pieces onto their respective frames. (That green box in the background is another project in progress. More on that later.)

With this all done we turned to attaching the legs. We had hoped to use our corner clamps to hold the legs in place but realized that they wouldn't leave enough room to drill into the leg. What to do? We improvised by making this 90-degree jig and using a bar clamp to hold it (and by extension the leg) steady. It worked like a charm. We also clamped the table down to the work table to keep it from sliding around while trying to drill. This project reinforced the truism in woodworking that you can never have too many clamps.

Lather, rinse, repeat four times and we were in business. Looks a bit like a foosball table

The final step was to screw through the five cross pieces into the bottom of the boards that would be the top and presto!

Here are a few action shots of this little guy. It goes great with the recently refinished sewing table.

With two-thirds of this work area done we turned to the bigger brother. This time we actually decided to attach the top first by again screwing through the five cross pieces. We both clamped the table to the work table, and (in the bottom photo) we used a new 3-foot bar clamp to hold the three boards together to minimize the seams down the length of the table. Remember what we said earlier about never having too many clamps? We needed it again to hold everything in place when we attached the legs using the same technique.

Ta-da! Another table is born. So much nicer than the old drafting table. But how would everything look together?

We must say that we're mighty pleased with how these turned out.

And here's the whole system in use already. This proves another truism, that a level surface abhors a vacuum.

Day Nine-thirty-four: tables for two

A new month brings new projects.

In the studio the artist has been making do for many years with a couple of ho-hum work tables. They're fine, they get the job done, but they're nothing special and certainly don't help complete a room that is in the process of a facelift. (see here and here for a refresher) What to do, what to do? How about make a couple new ones to order? We thought we'd give it a try.

First we had to figure out the exact dimensions, which turned out to be 19.5 x 46.5 and 30 x 46.5. This would let the artist array them alongside the sewing table for a nice 46.5-inch square. Then we needed to decide on a style. After some searching around and looking at pictures, we decided to use this plan as our base and make a couple modifications. Then we needed a little lumber from The Depot. The 2x4s will be the legs, the 1x2s on the right are for the inner shell, the 1x6s are a decorative cover over the 1x2s, and the 1x10s on the bottom left will be the tops.

Then we had to fire up the saws to get everything down to size. For the top that meant ripping the boards lengthwise so that each of the two tops (19.5 and 30 inches) would be three equal sized boards wide.

With everything cut to size we could bring the pieces inside to do the staining and sealing to get the right color to go with the dark sewing table. This is Round One:

Here are all the side panels and tops in their natural state.

Here's everything with an initial coat. A couple more of stain and then sealer and we were in business.

With this going on we worked in parallel out in the garage to make the inner frame out of the 1x2s. This process consisted of a lot of cutting, clamping, and precision drilling because we wanted to use dowel rods and glue to hold everything together. Here's our setup with a drilling guide that works like a poor man's drill press.

Here's the result.

We also experimented with using the other style of corner clamp and freehand drilling.

For all the extra bits of dowel rods we used the dremel to saw them off flush like so.

Here's the frame for the smaller of the two tables all glued, doweled, and clamped.

Lather, rinse, repeat and we had both frames ready to attach the other parts (or we had two short ladders for a treehouse?).

Step one was to clamp the side in the right place before drilling for the dowel rods. We opted to use dowels in a part of the table that won't be seen because...well, we didn't have enough 1.25-inch screws and weren't up for a trip to The Depot.

Here's where things stand now, with the two sides on. Next we need to attach the two short pieces on the ends, then the legs, and then the three boards for the top (which we will screw up from the bottom through those five cross pieces in the frame). And then we have to go though all the same steps for the bigger table.

Here's a rough approximation (unglued) of what the table will look like from the bottom.