So, this is it--the last blog entry of the year. At the moment, we're enjoying our tree, our cats, and some of the crazy NYE shows on TV. Our original plans were to go to First Night Pittsburgh tonight, as we have for the past several years. Jenny started to come down with a cold yesterday, though, and this morning woke up and was pretty ill. So we're at home today, staying warm. Read on for a recap of the past week or so, during which the blog has been quiet, but we've been busy!

Wow. The crazy multi-tagged post with a bunch of stuff that normally doesn't fit together. In short form: I finished the hall table, and now Jenny and I are getting ready for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We're hosting my family on Christmas Eve, and Jenny's family on Christmas Day. It should be fun.

I just lost this entire entry because I'm dumb sometimes. ARGH. Here we go again....

Today was a good shop day. The hall table is almost ready for finishing. Today was drawer day, and fortunately, I didn't do anything as stupid as I did just a few minutes ago when I lost this entry. :)

Click the picture for a bigger version, and to go to the album with the rest of the pictures from today!

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at the Jenny and Jonathan household. We've been bouncing all over the place doing Thanksgiving stuff, working on stuff for the house, and being generally busy. Today was great fun, though.

We had decided a while ago to go out this weekend to get our Christmas tree. We were unable to get a big tree last Christmas because we had just finished the living room a week or so before Christmas Day, so we were both eagerly anticipating this Christmas when we could get a big tree again.

Argh #1: Two of my old woodworking clamps gave up the ghost today. They weren't great clamps. I've been slowly trying to replace some of my oldest clamps with good clamps. My oldest clamps are some cheapy bar clamps from Home Depot that I bought back in 2000. They aren't all that strong, and the workmanship is pretty poor. I didn't know all of that at the time, though--they looked like fine clamps to me. One of them now has a permanent bend in its bar, which affects how far apart I can set the clamp heads.

Yesterday was a great day in the shop. I went out in the morning with my Dad to buy some white oak and maple at Mars Lumber (great folks there). I am building two multi-purpose tables to sit on our front porch, and be available for parties and the like as well. The tables are pretty basic four-legged deals with 18" square tops and a single drawer on one side.

We had a great time on our little trip. My Dad had some extra time after we unloaded the car, so he stuck around to help me rough cut parts and surface everything. After he left, I glued-up the board for one top, cut most of the other parts to size (with the exception of the legs, which I still had to rip out of the blocks of 8/4 that we had surfaced earlier), and did the trick with one of the apron pieces to slice the drawer front out of the middle of the board. I was pretty happy with myself.

Today, I went down and marked for mortises, cut a test mortise and tenon, and then set about cutting the rest of the tenons. I don't have a tenoning jig for the tablesaw, so I usually use a combination of the bandsaw and tablesaw to cut everything to size. Everything went swimmingly. I had the legs marked-out to cut the mortises using the drill press and hand chisel clean-up method. I was intending to do a two-sided taper on the legs, but I wanted to cut the joinery and do a dry-fit before I cut the tapers.

Here's where things started going south. I had some issues using my drill press to cut mortises in white oak when I built my storm door a while ago. It just doesn't have a whole lot of power. It's an import that was bought as a gift for me from a local "tool sale" event. It has served me well, until today. I was cutting using the slowest speed available (recommended for the bit I was using), and making sure that I pulled-back to clean-out the chips and let the bit cool pretty often. Well, at the bottom of one of the holes, I heard a "zzzzt" from the motor. It seized, then let out the magic smoke (or, rather, the bad-electrical-winding-burning smell). It was clear at this point that I would be cutting no more mortises today--at least not the easy way.

I went upstairs to check on the local woodworking stores to see how late they were open, hoping to score a hollow-chisel mortiser. I missed both of them by 20 minutes. Argh.

After I calmed down a bit, I ordered a pizza for Jenny and me, and we had some dinner. After dinner, I figured I'd go back down to the shop and do a few other things, then clean up for the night. I cut the top panel to size, then dry-fit a few of the mortises that I had cut already to see how they looked.

ARGH!

I forgot to take the width of the legs into account when I did the math to figure out the length of the aprons. All of the aprons were about 3-1/2" too long.

I marked one apron to use as a template so that I can cut the other three to size. I'll have to "play" with the drawer-side apron a bit to see if it will still look right after it is shortened.

After these two blows for the day, I figured it was time to clean up and turn off the lights. Tomorrow I'll make a trip to Rockler after work to get a mortiser, and we'll go from there. This was *almost* a one-weekend project. :)

jonathan

So here I sit getting ready to head to lunch, and I find myself with a few minutes to write something. 

Jenny and I have been working lately on things that have been vaguely house-related, but have been covered in other entries.  We've been hanging curtains to replace some of the nasty old ones that came with the house when I bought it.  We've been cleaning (and cleaning, and cleaning some more) for various social gatherings.  We have been re-organizing the back bedroom so that it could function again as a guest bedroom and not be quite so cluttered.  We've been working on general yard upkeep.  We've been hosting social gatherings for various events.  I've been in the woodshop making gifts and working on a few small shop projects to help me to make those gifts.  We've also been spending some time resting from work and doing some things that we enjoy, like picnics and a little bit of bike riding and the like.  The rest of the time has been spent working or tending to other obligations that have been keeping us both quite busy this spring. 

While all of this has been going on, we've been thinking, too, about projects in the house.  I'm working on getting a few estimates for the work on the porch, which we must absolutely do soon.  I also need to meet with our landscaper friends to get an estimate on repairing the retaining wall that borders the alley.  The wall might be able to wait a little bit.  The porch cannot wait any longer. 

I've also been thinking about the work in the middle bedroom that we want to do.  That was the first project that I ever started in the house.  It ended up getting back-burnered for a lot of reasons.  My sister and her former boyfriend helped to strip some of the wallpaper in there that I hadn't finished, so the really hard part of wallpaper stripping is essentially all finished.  There's a lot of the old, thick adhesive left on some parts of the walls, but that dissolves pretty easily with Dif.  We also have to think about whether we want to do the woodwork in that room--I would love to do it, but we need to determine if it is feasable.  There are some odd electric issues in the room, too.  There's nothing really problematic, but some odd things were done to get outlets into different spots in the room, and I need to have my Dad come down to help me figure out what we're going to do about the resulting mess.  The room will need a light fixture (it didn't have one when I bought the house--just a crappy ceiling fan that used to have a light fixture below it).  The room will also need a throw rug to cover the middle section of the floor.  The outside few feet are all hardwood, but the middle section is just unfinished subfloor boards that bring the middle part of the floor level to the hardwood.  Odd, yes, but we can deal with it. 

Before we can do anything in there, though, we need to clean out all of the stuff.  The room has become our storage room.  Some stuff needs to be sold or given away.  Some stuff needs to be stored for possible future use by other people.  Some stuff needs to be stored because it means something to us.  Some stuff just needs to be thrown away.  That's going to be a big job.  I want to start going through that stuff soon to figure out what is going where. 

I've also been thinking about some needed stuff for the house, including a linen closet on the second floor to hold all of our towels, sheets, etc.  I have plans for some small tables that I'm building for us to use outside on the porch.  I also have some more gifts to make for people for various things. 

Oh, did I mention that this is my last "free" weekend until probably the middle of July?  Argh. 

So there it is.  Now it is lunchtime. 

jonathan

Jenny and I are finally starting to get over the flu.  Jenny has it worse than I did--I'm finally feeling mostly better now, but she's still working on it.  Tonight makes 13 days for me.  Ugh.  I still haven't recovered all of my stamina yet, but I'm getting there. 

This weekend we hosted my sister-in-law Annie's bridal shower.  It was fun.  I smoked chicken in the new smoker, and Mom and Babcia helped with making the salads and baking cookies.  Dad helped me with grilling and general logistics.  It was a good time.  I think Annie had fun, too.  :) 

I built a clock as one of Annie's wedding presents.  Some readers here have known about this for a while, as I was keeping a build diary on here in a separate area.  I'll soon move those or link those here.  I need to complete the last entry, though, before I do that. 

I ordered bunting and a 45-star flag (historically accurate for the building of our house) last week, and it was supposed to arrive on Friday.  Then maybe it was supposed to arrive on Saturday.  Now it is Tuesday and it still isn't here.  I'm a little bummed.  Oh well.  I should have it in time for the Fourth of July, though. 

My June is shaping up to be pretty busy.  The first weekend in June is my birthday.  Yay!  Hopefully Jenny and I will get out to do something fun.  The following week, I am gone for three days to DC for work.  I'll be back for the weekend, then I'm off on Friday to help Jenny prepare for Annie's wedding on the 21st.  The morning after the wedding, I have a 6AM flight to Vancouver, BC, where I'll be for a week.  I'm taking the train home from there as a bit of a mini-vacation, which should get me home early in the morning on the 3rd of July.  Yikes.  Busy busy June. 

July and August should be a bit more calm, fortunately.  Jenny and I are taking our vacation in early August, so that should be fun.  In the meantime, I have a bunch of house projects that need my attention, including the front porch, getting the plumbing work coordinated, etc. 

The current project in the woodshop (after I spent most of this evening cleaning-up from the clock project) is a custom door threshold for my aunt and uncle's new house.  They have an odd doorway with a 1/2" height difference between two rooms, and it needs a threshold.  I have the initial piece cut for it and the router table set up to make the rabbet, but I was getting a little tired and didn't want to do anything stupid, so I shut down the shop and came upstairs again. 

I've been having some trouble making timely updates here for the past week or so partially due to the fact that my main laptop battery is hosed.  It will no longer take a charge and the laptop acts as if there is no battery there.  I had work order me two batteries today, so hopefully I'll have them soon.  Not having the batteries means that I'm not having the laptop on as much, since it can't survive power outages and I can't keep it on while I move among different rooms. 

We still have some clean-up to do around the house after the party.  We've been back-burnering that, though, while we rest and recover a bit. 

There's someone around here who has decided to use one of those stupid motorized mini-bikes as transportation from their house to someone else's house.  This isn't a scooter or any real form of DOT-approved transportation.  This is one of those little two-cycle "mini sportbike" things.  They usually are riding it past our house and towards the lower end of Parnassus every weekday at around this time.  Someday I'll stand outside with the hose and accidentally spray them down when they go past.  Argh.  Come on, folks.  They are illegal to have on the streets, so don't buy them and then wonder why the entire neighborhood wants to see it accidentally crushed into a tiny ball of recyclable metal.

That's all for me.  :) 

jonathan

I need to apologize for the lack of entries here over the past week or so.  We've been busy with family events and getting ready for Annie's shower this coming weekend.  Insert into that time both of us getting sick with a flu like thing, followed up with what is probably a sinus infection or something.  Ugh.

We've been working to make the house fit for lots of family company, in preparation for Annie's shower.  We're excited about hosting it, but we want everything to be "right".  I also have the soooper seeeecret project that I've been working on that is just about finished.  Jenny and I have been putting a lot of work into things around the house.  It's paying-off in terms of a cleaner house and lots of organization, but wow--I've been putting away things that I had forgotten I had.  :)  In the midst of all of this, we've been looking at getting a dog (a Basset Hound, in fact, from a local rescue organization), and I've been doing a bunch of one-day shows for various organizations.  Oh yeah, and trying to get over these colds. 

High points are the new smoker (see last past), my wife being absolutely wonderful, our cats being really nice, a happy new screen door in the back of the house, and the sooooper seeeecret project being almost finished.  Oh, and maybe one of my favorite parts of the past week or so is my new watch.  Jenny told me last year that she wanted to get me a pocket watch for our first anniversary.  I had been telling her how I wanted to get a good pocket watch.  Then it took me a little over a year to find one that I liked.  I couldn't find any "new" pocket watches that I really liked, so I started looking at old watches.  I ended up doing a lot of research into pocket watches, and decided that I wanted a Railroad Grade (RG) watch, preferably 18 size, and something 70-100 years old.  I found one last week:  A 1909 Hamilton 926.  Here's a picture from the dealer that shows good views of all of the major features.  It arrived today, and it's ticking right now.  :) 

jonathan

Jenny and I had a little adventure today.  We started out with a trip to our new ReStore here in New Kensington.  That is a completely awesome place!  I liked Construction Junction in Pittsburgh, but I always had issues getting there when they were open.  This place has great hours, plus they are literally within walking distance of our house!  Well, if we want to actually bring anything home, we would probably want to drive there.  We found a great chandelier with hanging stained-glass globes.  We also found an awesome cabinet that I think would be perfect in our kitchen.  We didn't buy that yet, but I think it might be on our list. 

We came home with our new find and ate some lunch.  Then we decided to head up to Lowe's to get a new screen door for the back door and a few other small things.  We wanted to get the screen door for the back door for a while, but with Annie's shower coming up, we wanted to have something in place back there soon.  We ended up finding a door style that we liked, but they only had it in vinyl.  We ended up getting it anyway.  When we someday turn that room back into a back porch, we'll have to get two doors anyway, and we'll get wooden doors that match at that time. 

On our way out, I spotted a stack of Delta T2 table saw fences in the tool section.  They were on sale.  One of them accidentally jumped into our cart.  :)  Installing that will be a trip, I'm sure, but I'm excited about having a really accurate fence on that saw.  I haven't even had a chance to unbox it yet, of course.  Maybe tomorrow. 

After we got home from that trip (and I got soaked tying the new screen door to the car roof), I headed down to the workshop to get working on the super secret project.  Between work on it yesterday and today, I've made some good progress.  I got to a good stopping point, and took a break to work on the screen door installation.  The back door used to have a crappy aluminum screen/storm door of atrocious quality.  That eventually fell apart (literally, it fell apart when someone opened it during a party here and the stile with the handle just completely came off of the door, and the whole thing collapsed into a heap of aluminum parts on the ground).  I never removed the last bit of aluminum frame from that door, so I started work on that.  I took all of the screws out of the side that had the old hinges on it, and that part came off quickly and easily.  I turned to the other side, and discovered that someone had decided to attach this with an entire tube of caulk.  Then, apparently after it was installed, they used another entire tube to slather all over the trim and frame again.  That involved an hour or so of cutting large hunks of caulk off of the door frame.  They apparently used the same treatment on the top frame part, but it was easier to handle simply because it was shorter. 

Looking at what I was left with pointed clearly towards the fact that I was going to have to re-caulk the places that actually had to be sealed, and re-paint the crappy, peeling, dirt-stained trim.  Argh.  So I got the primer, white paint, and caulk gun and went crazy.  While waiting for the paint and everything to dry, I installed the door hardware and got it ready to hang.  I ended up hanging the door and leaving it propped open so that the inside corners of the frame could finish drying--they were still a little wet when I was finished. 

While I was working on all of that stuff, Jenny was going cleaning-crazy in the house.  Every time I came in to get a tool or something, Jenny was busy cleaning a different part of the house.  The house looks and smells great now. 

Now I'm exhausted, and it's definitely bedtime.  More work to do tomorrow, but it's all good.

jonathan