ejhuzy's Finally Done Thread! Pictures too! - Page 3

Thought I'd let you guys know what I've been doing all summer (besides watching movies ). I've tried to get some items on my to do list done, but summer is tough. Lots of stuff with the kids and vacations and all.

A little over a month ago I cleaned out our back storage area in our basement. We had a garage sale and sold everything we could. Once the area was cleaned out, I built shelves to help organize the area. I don't have a before picture, but here's a shot of the "IndyGreg Shelves" that I build (thanks Greg!)



Once the shelves were done, it was time to build an area where I could work and keep all my tools that I bought during the HT build out. Here's a shot of my workbench during the HT build. It was cheap and served me well.



But it was time for something better, plus I needed somewhere to store my tools. This was fun to build

Floyd,

Small world isn't it? You've actually been to the place I ordered from. I actually thought about driving out to Baird's once, but I didn't have time (over 5 hrs from me) so I just had them ship to me. I spent a lot of time on their web-site, if they were 40 minutes from me I think they would have gotten sick of seeing me.

Good luck with your build.

Greg,

Nice stuff! I have a room that holds the house family PC. I'm sure she'd love it to look like that!

Yep, that's black granite on top of my bar. I went back and forth between granite and a wood top. We went with granite because I thought it would last longer.

Thanks again for the shelf design.

Now that I've finally got the back room shelves and work bench done, I've moved on to building my ticket window. Let's be clear, this is my ticket window because I'm building it. But's it's Bud's (chinadog) design that I'm stealing. THANKS Bud for documenting your window so well.

I struggled with whether I should build the window out of pine or oak. Oak would match the nearby bar, but is considerably heavier and more costly. Pine would match the trim and doors in the basement. I decided on pine, but when I made out my material list I noticed that I had almost all the wood necessary to build the window in red oak. The wood was left over from building the bar, so I went with oak. My only concern with using oak at this point is how heavy this beast is. I'll cross that road when I go to hang it.

Here's how the window started out.

My first issue was dealing with the piece of plexi-glass that I bought from Bud. The piece I bought was a little bigger than what Bud used and the bottom hole was bigger than I liked (no complaints though Bud). From reading Bud's thread there was concern over how to cut the plexi (which isn't really plexi, it's thicker and sturdier). I don't have a table saw, which I think would have worked great.

I needed to cut off about 10" from bottom and then cut a new ticket hole. I used a miter saw to cut off the bottom and that worked like a charm. No issue at all cutting the plexi.

Then I used a jigsaw to cut out the new ticket hole at the bottom.

Last was trimming about 1.5" off each side to make the window narrower. For this I used a Ryobi hand circular saw that is battery powered. I was little worried about this, but it too cut the glass nicely.

To be honest, the hardest problem was finding something to trace to make the ticket hole at the bottom. For that I used a dish that the wife had. Turned out to be perfect.

Here's how it looks after all my surgery.



It's not perfectly square, but given how's it's going to be installed it should be fine (guess I'll find out shortly).

Work is proceeding nicely on the ticket window. Here's some shots of the bottom shelf portion.



Underside to show construction.



The pine shell will be covered with some chair rail trim I have left over from the HT room.

Got all my stuff ordered.

Got my 4" speaker thingie from Go2Marine.



Got my 3" x 1/4" TICKETS letters from Woodland Manufacturing. I used the Times New Roman Bold font.

By the time they get here, I should be done with putting poly on. Did I mention I hate putting poly on?

Funny day. My speaker thingie was supposed to arrive today. So I get a box and what is it? My TICKETS letters from Woodland. Quite a surprise really, since Woodland estimated 10-15 business days for delivery. They came in 5.

Speaker thingie is delayed until tomorrow. Gives me tonight to paint the letters and do some touch up staining/poly.

Window is 90% together. To do list:

1) Attach the bottom shelf to the top.
2) Install the plexi and fluted trim.
3) Paint letters.
4) Install speaker thing and letters.

One little problem has occurred to me. The wall where this is going to hang is a stagger studded wall. So the studs are 24" on center. It's quite possible that I could not hit a stud where this is supposed to go. That's a problem given how heavy this thing is. I had planned on using some sort of french cleat.

Any creative ideas out there?

Well, I promised Bud if he showed me pictures of his french cleat design I'd post pictures of my progress. (That sounds dirtier than it should)

First, I'm finally done staining and poly'ing everything. Did I mention I had putting on poly? One of the best ideas I heard on AVS was from Craig's build. He used that wipe on poly and that stuff is great.



Next, got started painting tonight. Boy does spray paint cause a stir. I ended up taking it outside. Anyone able to figure out what it's going to spell?



Next obstacle is figuring out how to rip a 2x4 at 30 degrees without a table saw.

Yeah, I'm going to probably go that route. My brother in-law has a table saw. I was thinking I might be able to do it with my mitre saw if I cut the board twice (once from each end).

Made some progress today. The guy that framed my basement is a good friend and he ripped a 2x4 for me. I got the window side cleat installed. Went over my plan for hanging the wall side cleat. That's where the progress stopped.

I'm still painting the letters. I can't quite seem to get them right. First I was still seeing the wood grain. Now, I keep getting small air bubbles in the paint. I'm wondering if I need a new can of paint? Maybe I'm putting the paint on too heavy?

So I moved on to try and attach the speaker thingie to my plexi. I had a half used tube of clear and tried to use that. It was too hard and I didn't feel like a late night trip to HD. So, I'll pick that up tomorrow.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the speaker thingie attached and the plexi/trim installed.

Made quite a bit of progress since my last post.

First was the french cleat. Once my buddy ripped the 2x4 for the cleat, I had to attached the window piece. Here's a shot from the back of how it looks:



The cleat is the funny colored piece of wood under the sandwiched 3 layers of 1" stock. The back of the cleat is flush with the back of the window. This way it hopefully sits flush with the wall.

Haven't attached the other piece to the wall yet, but that'll happen soon!

Went to the store and picked up some clear silicon for the speaker thingie.

I've never been a good caulker (keep the snickering down). One trick I've picked up along the way is to mask the area first with painter's tape. Then, put on lots of cault. Then, using a finger wet with a soapy solution, push the caulk into place. Once the edge looks good, remove the mask.

Well, for the speaker thingie, I couldn't figure out how to make a round mask. Then I realized the plexi is already covered with a paper mask. All I had to to was cut a circle out around the hole for the caulk to apply to. Here's what it looked like:



After that I put on a load of caulk, stuck the speaker thingie into place and cleaned the edge. Once it looked good, I removed the brown masking.

Came out nice and clean! (see next post)

So the web site I bought the letters from also sold me this nice template to help with applying the letters straight and uniformly apart from each other. The template looks good, but it didn't have a straight edge below or above it.

So first job was to make the template square and to fit on my header. I used my handy roller fabric cutter and a straight edge to make a nice bottom edge. Then, I centered it on the header and taped it down. Looked like this:



You can see that the template has strategically placed cutouts for each letter. I added a one or two myself to make it even easier. The idea is to mark the sub-straight in the cutouts and then place the letters over those markings. It worked pretty well. Easier than without it I'm sure.

See next post for photo!

After the letters were added, it was time to put the plexi in and add the covering trim. I thought long and hard about glueing the plexi into the grove, but I didn't do it. After putting the trim in place just friction fitted, I almost didn't nail it into place. It fit to nicely that I was thinking I didn't need to nail it and then I'd be able to easily remove the plexi if I even had to.

Well, I nailed the trim in place, but didn't glue it. I was worried the wood would shrink over time and the thing would fall apart.

Here's a shot of the window with the plexi and trim in place. All that is missing now is the curtain. That's this week's project.



Bud, how'd I do?

Thanks Bud, that's quite a compliment. It's really close to yours. The major differences being the trim I used and being built out of red oak. Like I wrote earlier, I tried to use all the wood I had laying around. For example, the trim below the shelf is chair rail I had left over from the HT. You get the idea.

Thanks Orlando. Once you finish your panels (I think that's what you were working on last), you should definitely build one. Once I finish the curtain I plan on posting a complete parts list and to do.

Quick update. I dropped off the red velvet and trim for making the curtain at the local sewing place. Should be done in a few days. Can't wait! Probably hang the wall side cleat this week.