Twin over Full Bunks

I finished the twin over full bunk I started a little over a week ago. I have been scrambing like a mad man on cocaine but the beds went together nicely. I have a few little tricks up my sleeve that make my work go faster. Those idiots at Home Depot have to be so sick of seeing me there every day exchanging broken router bits or exchanging the wrong size bolts or hauling more lumber in the back of my Honda Civic than these wanna-be rednecks who drive lifted Double Extended Cab Super-Hemi Duramax Cummins Power Strokers will probably ever haul in thier lives. How many times have you seen a truck like the one I just described with something actually IN IT???

Mom and Dad's Bathroom Cabinets

Well I have wanted to put cabinets down in the basement bathroom of my parent's house for years. I finally got around to it this year. I made them huge like this so my parents have room to hide more junk. I had them buy regular knotty pine from Home Depot because getting hard wood to the remote town they live in would have been a nightmare. I think they turned out fine for pine.

Double Armoire

Melody wanted a place to put her clothes. She saw something she liked in some furniture store in the Valley so she sent me her sketch. She wanted me to match the bookcase I made for her last year. So I came up with this. It breaks apart into two units so it can be moved. It took forever but it went way more smoothly than last year because I learned so much on that one. This is my best work yet.

Blake in the Box

I went down to AZ for 3 weeks during Christmas. I got to see my first nephew for the first time. I offered to make something for Loo Loo. He wanted to make a toy chest for his baby. So we designed one up and he and Randy helped me for 2 days and we came up with this. I had Loo Loo out hand crafting the little feet.

Bunk Beds

I had about a week off classes over Thanksgiving break and the weather was lovely so I shot my wad of cash on some 4 x 4's and made a bunk bed I had always wanted to make. I made all the joints of mortise and tenon style. The bed has 6 18"deep drawers under each bunk. Now I can throw away the rinky dinky trash dressors in my room and me and Chippy can store everything that was in the dressors in the bunk bed drawers. This bed is too heavy. Me and Chip can barely lift it up. But at least one of these nights after a heavy snow when my 70 year old matchstick, chicken-coop roof falls in, Chip and i will survive thanks to this grotesque mamoth of a bunk bed I have made.

Jared's Deck Complete

I finally finished Jared's deck today. I think it took about 6 weeks. I am very satisfied with the way it turned out. It was nice to work for Jared again. He always makes sure I have everything I need when I need it and when he sees I need help doing something he helps right away. Below are some more views of the deck.

Jared's deck under construction

Jared called me over to fix his deck. The one that was there when they moved in was garbage. It looked like a 7th grader built it. Part of it was sitting down in the dirt rotting. It wasn't bolted to the house and it wasn't level. So we tore it apart and reused some of the lumber. We built the new one "from the top down". Instead of trying to guess at where to dig the holes and where to set the posts we built the frame on the ground then bolted it to the house then leveled it. It is held in place by temporary stakes. Then we hung the posts down into the holes temporarily bracing them plumb. Then we poured the concrete in the holes. When the concrete cures we will take off all the temporary braces and stakes. Most dummies and novices just go dig holes wherever, dump concrete in them and shove posts in. How are you supposed to get things plumb and level and square and parallel like that?
I will put up more pictures of the deck when I finish. So for all the millions and millions of readers that see this blog post you are just going to have to wait a few weeks until I update this post.