Carpentry weekend
It wasn't quite how I anticipated things going, but yesterday was a wonderful day. Magda went to a series of talks about the meaning of being a presbytera, given here on campus by several presbyteras and a couple of priests. She seems to have enjoyed it greatly and I'm hoping she will post on it at some point.
In the mean time, I stayed home and re-organized the bedroom closet, complete with buying wood, measuring and cutting to make two sets of shelves. Things that I have learned:
In other words, the shelves are done, but it took a lot of adjusting for bent planks on one of the two sets of shelves and my joints are stiff from all the vibration they had to put up with yesterday.
In the mean time, I stayed home and re-organized the bedroom closet, complete with buying wood, measuring and cutting to make two sets of shelves. Things that I have learned:
- I enjoy working with wood
- If the wood is not bent, I can do a decent job
- I need to pay more attention to the quality of the wood when buying it
- If I ever do something like this for a permanent home, it will be a week's project, rather than a day's.
In other words, the shelves are done, but it took a lot of adjusting for bent planks on one of the two sets of shelves and my joints are stiff from all the vibration they had to put up with yesterday.
posted by Virgil Petrisor at 1:35 PM
2 Comments:
A tip: Measure first, then (assuming you go to a lumber yard or "do it yourself" store) ask them to cut the wood for you on one of their table or mitre saws. Many places will not charge you for the work depending upon how much wood must be cut. It will save you some time and (sometimes) allow them to find the flaw in the wood (knots, etc.) and do the cutting for you--often at no extra charge. Also, if you have blueprints for a job in the future, fax or e-mail the blueprint (or basic idea of what your wish to accomplish sketched out) and they can help you with estimates involving lumber.
Just a "stewardship" kind of thought.
Well, in this case my fault was buying a set of eight 1 by 2s which were bundled together. So when I got home I noticed that three of them were bent a fair amount. I did have the big 8x4 board cut in quarters at Home Depot and I had the 1x2s cut to size there, too, but they cut through the entire bundle, without taking them apart. In the end, the shelves are up and I know to check each piece of wood in the future. The only drawback was the extra time adjusting the cuts for the bends. Not too bad, really.
Also, I wouldn't have the store do all the cutting - that's most of the fun :)
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