My next project...

This upcoming weekend, I am going to build some shelves in Logan's room. he wants some for his books and some to display his "collections". While I can't make a secret room, he and I have brainstormed how to have a shelf or two be "fake" with a hidden space for him to keep certain things safe. I'll let you know how it turns out...

Look What I Made...

Since summer was delayed for me by about 5 weeks, I decided that I wanted to start things off with a bang and build something in the workshop.

Looking through an old book, I found plans for a hammock stand. Since we clear cut the back yard, there has been no place for the hammock to go, so this project made sense to me.

I decided that if we could get the materials for under $40 I would do it.

DAY ONE

So on Sunday, July 26, we went to a nearby Lowes and priced everything. I needed a total of 6 2x4s in two different lengths, a variety of carriage bolts, 3 dowels and some lag screws. Logan was a supreme help in finding everything and Nan and I did some quick calculations and decided to go for it. Total price upon checkout was $37.22.

That afternoon, I cut all of the boards to the needed lengths. I also went ahead and made all the needed joint cuts. All of the miter cuts were straight forward (either 45 degrees or 25 degrees....the latter of which was slightly trickier since my saw has defaults at 15, 22.5, 31.6 and 45 degrees!)

The lap cuts were harder, since I do not have either a table saw nor a band saw and I needed to make a total of eight lap cuts. But, at the end of the afternoon, I had all the cuts and had bolted together one of them to make sure things looked okay....and they did!

DAY TWO

I started the day by finishing off the four main struts and tightening all of the bolts. That turned out to be the easiest part of the day.


It was time to connect the arms and to do so I needed to drill 1/2" wide holes for the dowels to go through to add support. The first couple of holes were sketchy, but I eventually got the hang of it (with the help of a drill extender that I did not know I had!).

Today was a purple shirt day!

Once I got one side finished, Haley and I added the braces with a series of lag screws.


Haley and I took a break to attend a bookmaking workshop at the Burnham Library with Jon Chad from The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction. (It was a blast. I'll blog about that later.)



When we got home I finished assembling the hammock, but discovered that imperfections in the wood and my measuring meant a trip to Lowes on day three to exchange the two hanging bolts I bought, as they were too short.

DAY THREE

This day consisted mainly of returning a few pieces of hardware and figuring out what exactly I needed. We also bought two 18 inch sections of chain to help hang the hammock, as it is rather short. I also hand mitered some of the ends of the arms to allow them to sit more flush.

All in all, it took about eight to ten hours of actual work. I'm not too disappointed in the final product.

A View From The Roof

Last week I finally got up on the roof to fix the leak near the main vent. It was relatively straight-forward work. Here are the views from the roof of our house...I might add them to Google Earth at some point...

There is Nan on the deck, as I look to the south west. The fake chimney looking thing is what I needed to fix.

There is a smidgen of the pool and Nan's garden area to the south east.

Here is the whiffle ball field to the north east.

A tighter shot of the pool area and Logan and Haley!

The swing set looking due south.

Due east.

A blurry shot of the north (I think this was the first one I took and was a little shaky!)


It's me in my bright yellow working shirt...in case Google is using its satellites while I am up there. Nan wanted me to write them a message but they haven't rephotographed the area in 6 years so I did not bother...

My Weekend Haul....

When Nan first left Lane Press, we decided to save some money by hauling away our trash and recyclables ourselves.



As we continued the practice after she found new employment, we discovered that the Chittenden Solid Waste District had sheds to drop off other items.



Normally we find moldy encyclopedias or well used camping chairs. This sort of debris does not conform to my usually fastidious cheapness, but this weekend we found two incredible items. First was this Stihl FS45 weed whacker (GAS POWERED!!) that the older lady dropping off said had only been used once or twice.



After about 10 to 15 minutes of tinkering, I got it started up and she worked like a charm! Our electric weed trimmer is more dainty (hence "trimmer" and not "whacker") and has been giving me trouble recently (Sears is 0-for-2 with lawn equipment in my book, after our first mower crapped out on us last year) so this is a welcome addition to my growing collection of "toys".



To balance out the environmentally unfriendliness of this behemoth, we took this push mower that the same woman was dropping off. It works well on the wispy grasses that populate portions of our lawn and gives a good work out at the same time.



We paused briefly to consider why this woman was dropping this stuff off and came up with a positive story of an older couple whose last child has moved out and they have decided to move into a condo so they no longer needed items to help maintain their lawn. I truly hope that is the case.