Saturday, February 28th, 2009
I have to post this for my father. He wanted to see pictures.
I am not sure I told you this already, but for the longest time, I was using a big 36″ wide solid door as a desk. It was mounted on 4″x4″s. It was huge and worked well, but I needed to grow up and get a real desk, so I took the door desk apart and put the parts in the garage. I tucked the 4″x4″s away in the corner nicely, and leaned the door against the front wall. It was kind of in the way, but not all that much.
Poor Laura has been crowded for a few months now on her side of the garage. It seems as though the ride-on mower, the push mower and the snow blower were all in her car’s way. She was able to pull the car in the garage, but it was a tricky maneuver each time. The main culprits were the ride-on mower and the snow blower. When she tried to walk in front of the car, the push mower’s handle would jab her in the stomach. It was hard to watch. It was even harder to receive those wicked stares during those times I did decide to watch.
A few days ago, I decided it was time to clean up the garage and get rid of that door. It was just sitting there. I figure that if I disassembled my home-made shelving unit, I could replace it with a “door work bench” that could park the push mower and the snow blower right underneath. You’ll see in the photos.
I just want to say that I am a master carpenter when it comes to these types of projects. I even use a level. It’s simply amazing.
To do this project, all I needed was a miter saw, a circular saw, a few 2″x4″s, some screws, a stud finder, a tape measure and a level. It was pretty easy. Let me show you the photos, but please ignore all the items on top of the work bench. I haven’t organized them yet.
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Work bench in the garage
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Showing 2″x4″s underneath work bench mounted in the walls
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Shelf mounted above the work bench in the garage
As you can see from the photos, I simply mounted some 2″x4″s against the side and back walls. Then, I cut the door to size and placed it on top of the 2″x4″s. I used one of the old desk legs for the last corner. Remember, this is a thick, heavy, solid door. Also, since I had an extra piece of door left over, I decided to use some shelve brackets I had hanging around to put up a nice little shelf. I keep a bunch of stuff up there and even drilled holes in it to use some old hooks. Now, I get to hang extension cords and stuff like that.
See how nicely the push mower and snow blower fit under that beauty? I moved over the ride-on mower a bit, tucked those two under the work bench and now Laura is all smiles. Plus, I got rid of the door.
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Thursday, February 14th, 2008
To run the wiring for the dishwasher, I had to cut a piece of sheetrock out of the wall below the breaker box. I did this to get my drill down at the bottom of the wall so I could drill a hole for the wire. I was really trying to avoid this, but I couldn’t figure out any better way to do it. Somehow, I am sure people out there have a nifty little system of running wires through houses. After all, how the heck do they run the wires for home security systems?
Anyway, I cut out a clean piece. It wasn’t hard to cut a matching piece to put back in the hole. When I first started cutting, I figured I could just cut the piece of wall out and then return that same piece back in the wall. Due to the screws holding the wall in place, I was unable to do that. Oh well.
Today, I decided to patch the wall back up and get it ready for paint. I took a few very, very exciting pictures to illustrate how I did this.
This is the “before” photo. As you can clearly see, I did a marvelous job at cutting the new piece of sheetrock.
Since I didn’t have my 4″ putty knife handy (it was in the basement), I decided to go ahead with my 1 1/2″ inch one. This proved to be a bit more difficult getting the joint compound on the wall. I am used to a “smear” here and a “smoosh” there, but this kind of just made a mess. Basically, the trick is to get enough joint compound on the wall and for it to remain wet enough for the tape to adhere to. I had to put on a little extra to get this job done.
Once all the joint compound was on the wall, I finished adhering the rest of the tape to it. When I was putting up the tape, I made sure to press extra hard on it with the putty knife to squeeze all the additional joint compound out from behind the tape.
Finally, I added some joint compound on top of the tape and smoothed it out with my big 10″ putty knife. I love using this towards the end because it does such a great job cleaning up the mess I made earlier. All I have to do now is wait for it to dry and then add another coat. Then I sand and paint. Word up.
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Thursday, December 6th, 2007
I didn’t know sheetrocking was so easy. Is it sheetrocking or drywalling? I am not down with the lingo. Anyway, I got one wall finished. I used the Dremel to make the cuts around the outlets and the doorway. It has this pretty cool rotating cutting tool. It goes through the drywall like a wicked hot knife through melting butter.
I screwed the sheetrock up, put some joint compound on the seams and taped it up. Then, I put a thin layer of joint compound over the tape. I hope that’s how you do it. I read up and that’s what people are saying.
One unexpected little task I had to complete was to move an outlet so it would be accessible from the counter top and not from behind a huge pantry. That was easy enough.
Here are some photos…
I have an appointment at the kitchen place at 4PM to pick out the counter tops and hardware. I also assume I will be giving them a check. When I get back, I am going to put up the other wall. Basically, I can have half of the kitchen drywalled today. Not bad for a web guy.
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