Me Again!

Wow. this place is a mess. so neglected.

I'm back!! It's been nearly a year since i've posted on this blog simply because i've been lazy. not that there's a lack of things to post on here. boy is this post going to be exciting. so here is a look at what happened since February 19, 2006:

First off, the coffee table is kind of finished. by kind of i mean that the top fits and it's stained a lovely brown but we are going to put a bottom on it so the top can be lifted and things can be stored inside. like magazines and bags of chips and stuff.

ok not bags of chips. anyways....ta da!

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I started with the table because that was what i left off on, but here is the rest of my handiwork...
Shortly after we moved in to our new house (if you read only this blog and didn't know we bought a house, get a life) i busted a hole through an outside wall. On purpose. Man was it ever fun. The reason i did it was because our door to the backyard is a french door with a window in it and i couldn't bust a hole in that for a dog door. So the wall was the obvious alternative.

For quite some time the hole just sat there, gaping, mocking me every chance it got. But i shut it up. With some cloth. it's actually really thick cloth and there are about 6 layers of it. It actually keeps the cold air out really well. snow, on the other hand, was an issue. so i built a little mud room!
This little addition features a flap similar to the original, plywood and 1x2 construction, and a lovely aluminum roof that will never need replacing. it took a while for dewie to get used to it but now it's a hit.

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After the dog door, we painted our bedroom and the bathroom (i won't post that here because i didn't really build anything for that....yet....). For a while things just sat and didn't get done and really i can't say that's changed much. But instead of finishing our existing projects, we started new ones!!

Here is what we did to the entranceway:

I can't find a before picture, which is sad, but in the entranceway we used to have a half-wall with spindles going to the ceiling. very ugly, very dated spindles. so i tore down the wall. good times. the floor is still a bit of a gaping hole, but i've covered the wall and ceiling with wood panelling. very classy. it will be painted and/or stained. we currently have coat racks, and soon there will be a shoe rack and a small chest for things like mittens and scarves.

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Around the time we painted the bedroom, we came up with a cool idea for a japanese theme. so we decided to make the ceiling have a shoji screen look to it. basically a grid of black wood backed by some rice paper. So far we have some pretty cool tissue paper tacked to the ceiling and a bunch of black boards cluttering up the basement. we have to real way of hanging the boards and still trust them not to fall on us during the night.

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For Christmas, we made gifts for the deVries side of the family. it was a long and arduous task and it was a lot of fun. I don't have pictures of all of the gifts yet, those will come soon, but i also made a gift for Kristin.
It's a carrying case for all of her paints and brushes and pallets. She used to carry it all in a shoebox. A shoebox!! The lid comes off to store brushes.......and the top comes off to store paints and pallets!
It was fun to make.

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And finally, after nearly a year of sitting on the floor, our expensive bed finally has a resting place. I built a frame!!
I have no pictures of the details of the frame, because once the bed is on it it goes nowhere until we have to move or paint it. That mattress weighs about 200 lbs.

It's nice to have a digital camera again!

Well that was a great update. I'm pretty sure we covered all the bases. Stay tuned, i might just be able to keep this up if i can keep building stuff!

ian