Descending Ashtray

This afternoon, I think I finally completed the framing of our ongoing attic remodel. Now that there’s a child on the way (coming April 30), the clock is really ticking, and I’ve been trying to devote more time to the project. Here are a few photos of the work thus far.

This is a view of the shower. This was one of the trickier aspects of the project, not from an actual framing standpoint, but in choosing how the shower pan was going to work. I went back and forth between purchasing a pre-made, pre-pitched urethane pan or creating a traditional mortar pan in situ. After reading a few articles in Fine Homebuilding and watching several videos, I decided to go with the traditional mortar pan, mostly from a cost standpoint. The urethane pans look pretty simple to install, but they are very costly (mine would have been around $900), and I am always a little hesitant to go with the newest of new materials. Foam just seems like it could fail after a few years, having a bit of flex to it. Mortar has been the standard for at least 50 years, and who am I to argue with tradition? The doorway will get a hinged glass door after tile goes up. Haven’t decided whether I’m going to tile the ceiling above the shower yet. Any thoughts?

You know that old adage, “Measure twice, cut once?” Yeah, I should have applied that to the framing of the bathtub. I carefully calculated all the measurements for width, accounting for the width of a full piece of tile for the tub ledge, thickness of the cement board, declination of the North Star … and still came up several inches short the first time I framed for the bathtub. Second time was fine, though. When laying in the tub, you’ll be able to view the sky through the skylight above. At the bottom right of this photo there will be a vanity for the sink.

Here’s Sarah standing in the bathroom doorway. We’ll have a vintage wooden door on a sliding track here (not hinged). The bedroom closet is to the left of Sarah. I think the closet doorway will have a curtain rather than a door, although I sized both doorways for a 30×80 door just in case.

At the opposite end of the attic from the bathroom will be our bed (left side of this photo, where the garbage can is). There’s quite a bit of room down here, and it should be fairly spacious. There was an existing toilet vent to the right of the big window, so rather than move it, I framed a little wall around it that will contain a simple built-in cubby. A little inset box in that wall will house some sculptures, I think, lit by an overhead low-voltage light (still need to talk to the electrician about that, though).

I’m going to call for an inspection tomorrow. I have been pretty conscientious, and am hopeful of a pass, but we’ll see. The kneewall on the right side of the photo above is new; replacing an original kneewall in approximately the same place. I had intended to leave the original kneewall exactly where it was, but it was built resting on top of the subfloor, which I didn’t think was safe. After jacking up the roof, I re-built it, and moved it forward a few inches so that it would be sitting on some floor joists instead. I doubt they’ll have any problem with that rationale, but they may have issue with my stud spacing in the wall: 24 inches on center, which was how the original wall was built (each stud supports a roof rafter). I replicated the old spacing so I could have room for wider built-ins, but they may not like that. Cross your fingers!

Thanks to all the friends who pitched in to get us this far: Andrew, Thom, Tyler, Dan, Bruce, Greg, Nicole, Amanda, Becca and Blu. You, too Porter-Cable FR350A Framing Nailer. And let’s not forget you, DEWALT DW716 12-Inch Double-Bevel Compound Miter Saw. Couldn’t have done it without you guys.

I can’t help it. Cutting boards are just fun to make. Most everyone on my gift list has already received a cutting board from me in recent memory, but I enjoy making them. It’s also a really good way to reduce the pile of “too nice to throw away” offcuts, and I’ve got the process pretty well dialed in now (see also my post on how to do end-grain cutting boards):

1. Cut scraps to consistent length. This time I did two lengths – about 18 inches long, and about 12 inches long. This gave me two sizes of cutting boards.
2. Plane the scraps on both sides to make sure they’re all parallel and smooth for gluing.
3. Lay out the boards. For the bigger boards, I went with symmetrical layouts, but for the smaller ones, I did some asymmetrical layouts.
4. Glue! I put a bead of glue on one side of the board, then spread it with a disposable brush. Then I put another piece on top of it, and repeat until the board’s all glued up
5. Apply clamps. Again, you can never have too many. I’ve got ~10 Jorgensen F-clamps, and I usually put 4 per big board, and 3 per small one, which limits my batch size to about 3 boards/day. In weather below 50, it’s a good idea to bring them inside if your workspace is unheated, as the glue won’t set below that temp.
6. Once the glue’s dry, I plane the whole board smooth on both sides to clean up all the drips and squeeze-out. Works great.
7. Square up the ends on the table saw using a crosscut sled or miter gauge.
8. Round over all the edges and corners with a roundover bit in your router (mine is a Bosch 1617 mounted under my table saw
9. Finally, I sand both sides to 220 or so and add a few coats of mineral oil to finish.
10. Pass ‘em out!

The woods I used this year are Birch, Maple, Doug Fir, Walnut, Zebrawood, Oak, Padauk (the red wood) Cherry and some variety of faux Mahogany.

Last weekend Sarah and I joined friends Thom and Amanda on a tour of Portland’s modern homes. In the home I was most enamored of, I spotted this interesting coffee table. How do you think it’s held together? I didn’t feel it was appropriate to try pulling pieces off, but I did lift it with Thom’s help, and it seemed to be hollow.

This is a site specific table that I am making for our neighbor, hence the unusual shape. The spindle legs are perhaps a little more traditional of a style then what I would normally make but it was a fun project to work on and figure out. The spindles themselves are not square stock at the top and bottom. They are more of an arrowhead like diamond shape which made it tricky finding the center point for turning them. I also learned early on not to use a wide gouge on the transition between the square and the round part of the spindle. The first attempt splintered out really bad and made it unusable. The second attempt went much smoother. I wrapped masking tape around the part I wanted to stay square and used my narrowest scraper to cut into the spindle at angle that moved the knife away from the grain instead of into it. Anyway the rest of the legs turned out pretty good. Then I Kreg jigged everything together from the bottom.

I probably should have taken more pictures to illustrate the process, oh well, maybe next time.

(I realized after posting the picture that it is kind of hard to see that the top is a trapezoid shape. In the picture it looks like a long table that is foreshortened. It is kind of an optical illusion.)

End-grain cutting boards are a step up from the simpler long-grain versions, because the end grain provides a milder cutting surface for the knife. They are also a bit more work to make, but not too hard, as you can see from the photos below.

I keep a special pile of scrap that’s about the right size for cutting boards, and selected some mystery wood, fir, birch, walnut, cherry and bubinga for this piece. Bubinga isn’t something I normally have around, but since this cutting board is a wedding present, I bought some at Woodcrafters to give the board some added color. Here are all the cutting board pieces laid out for gluing. They are all of different thicknesses, but I will glue them up and then plane them down to uniform thickness later.

You can really never have too many clamps!

Once the glue had cured overnight, I de-clamped the cutting board and ran it through the planer until the board was perfectly flat on both sides. It looks pretty good at this point (in fact, Sarah wanted me to stop here), but I wasn’t done yet. I set up the table saw with a stop block to crosscut the board into pieces of equal width. This width is the basic thickness of the finished cutting board, as we’ll be rotating the pieces 90 degrees in the next step.

Once the board was diced up, it was time for re-assembly. The first step was to flip the pieces the long way (the north-south axis) to alternate the grain patterns of the pieces, creating a sort of checkerboard effect in the finished piece.

Next was the second and final glue up, making sure that I rotated the pieces 90 degrees along their east-west axis to have the end grain face-up. Glue went on the long grain side of the wood.

Once the second glue up was complete, again waiting overnight, I prepared for a long winter’s sanding. I used a belt sander for about an hour to level both sides of the board, cleaning up glue squeeze-out and the inevitable irregularities caused in gluing up a project like this. A planer won’t work on end grain (it will beat the knives to kingdom come and tear out big chunks around the edges), although a hand plane might have done the trick had I thought of it. Once the board was level, a little bit of food-safe oil really brought out the deep color of the woods. It’s a pretty substantial board that I’m sure will last a long time.

I also want to go on record as having completed this wedding present before the wedding, which is a first for me!

I have been working on this flat file for a while now and it feels good to have it done. The drawers are 35″ x 44″, a fairly good size for plenty of paper and matte board storage. The most challenging thing was getting the drawer slides to work. I built the cabinet first before attaching the top, and had trouble with it staying square. But once the top was screwed on, the slides and the drawes lined up perfectly. I ended up using 16 steel balls for each slide. More balls gives it more support when opening and closing the drawers.

A close up of the homemade slides on the inside of the drawer.