A WoodWork in Progress

I was bored, and decided I wanted to do something with some of the nice wood I had in my collection. I also wanted to do something with box joints. I had seen some videos showing how to make box joints with a router, and it looked like something I wanted to try. The advantage of a box joint is that it is very strong, because there are many different contact points for glue to hold. It is also quite attractive. Box Joint One video in particular worked well for me. The Make Something YouTube channel has instructions on how to make a jig for the router. What I needed next was something to build. Sitting at the kitchen table with my wife, we decide that a new box for our pens and paper that we keep at the table would be a good project for this. I told my wife what wood we had to work with, and she drew a sketch of what she wanted. My wife's request. A sliding lid was not going to happen. He idea was padauk (the red coloured wood) and the dark brown walnut. The lid would be...

As usual, this project stems from a request from my wife. I can't complain about that though, because I really enjoy this hobby, and she lets me buy any tool or supply that I want. Inevitably, it will be used for something for her anyways! She has developed a green thumb ever since we moved to our current house, and her love of gardening is what started this whole hobby for me. She inherited a large philodendron-hope plant from a friend. In the Summer months, it lives on our front porch. They thrive with in-direct light, and the covered porch is great for it. During the colder weather though, it lives inside the house, and has grown quite large. The branches reach out quite wide and the leaves are almost 18" long. It was placed on a small red table that we have had for almost 20 years. The request was for a tall plant stand that would bring 'Phil' higher, so that we could actually walk under the leaves more easily and they wouldn't be in the way so much. The plant ...

My wife likes mirrors. She really likes mirrors. We have 4 mirrors on our ground floor, and that doesn't include the one in the bathroom. When our local Buy-Nothing Facebook group had a large (24x30") mirror available for free, she decided she had to have it - and I may have offered to build a frame for it. (Btw, if you are interested in getting things to upcycle, join your local Buy-Nothing group. You can get things for free that need some TLC. This post is an example of doing just that). We had purchased a large mirror with a box frame at HomeSense last year. Most things at that store aren't too expensive, but I think we paid almost $100 for the 28x38" mirror. It was a simple design, so I figured I would be able to replicate it. I still had lots of 1x3 pine (back in the summer of 2020, I had planned on making another Harmony Bench, so I bought more wood for it. I am never making another one of them, so the wood is available for other things, like the shelves and th...