Category: Woodworking
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A cabinet for art supplies and arf supplies
This weekend, I finished building a craft cabinet to hold all of our kids’ art supplies; plus, it has a built-in faucet for refilling our dog’s water dish so we don’t have to carry it to the sink every day. The faucet for the dog dish is spring-loaded, so it only runs while it’s being…
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Today’s Functional Print: Baluster Retrofit Hardware
I’m in the process of remodeling the stairway in my house. I wanted to replace the old wooden balusters, some of which had broken and been repaired multiple times, with new metal balusters. Pictured above: the old balusters, minus the most-recently broken one that is missing. Ignore the green tape and in-progress trim. The old…
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I designed a clothes rack that can be made out of one sheet of plywood
My wife manages a free clothing warehouse for foster children and parents; consequently, she needs lots of sturdy clothing racks that: To meet this need, I designed and built a rack that accommodates up to 288″ of hanging space in a 30″ x 75″ footprint, and it costs one sheet of plywood plus the cost…
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I made a spice cabinet slash measuring cup cabinet slash measuring spoon cabinet
Ever since we finished remodeling our kitchen, we had been storing our spices in a drawer using an organization method known as “a pile.” I promised my wife I would build a cabinet to organize the spices, so I did: The spice shelves are adjustable; I also included a magnetic bar to hold the measuring…
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I Designed and Built a Simple Roll-Out Chicken Nesting Box
Chickens lay eggs — this much is true. Chickens also eat eggs — this much is also true. If you want to have chickens, and you want to have eggs, you need to either quickly collect them or prevent the chickens from reaching them. I designed and built a simple plywood nesting box that allows…
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I Made Some Karate Belt Racks
A couple of years ago, a friend of mine needed a karate belt rack for her son who had begun racking up the belts in his karate class (pun definitely intended). The racks available on Amazon were of suspect quality, so I made one for them out of maple. Two years later, she has another…
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How to turn your Irwin Quick-Grip clamps into decking clamps
If you’re building a deck or replacing decking, you have probably found that it would be helpful to have a clamp to hold the deck boards in place while you attach them. You could spend $52 for a specialized decking clamp, but you probably already have at least one Irwin Quick-Grip bar clamp that you…
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Cooking Around the World: Machboos and Maamoul, the original M&M
Bahrain is up next in my challenge to cook the national dish of every country, and I made chicken machboos plus maamoul cookies for dessert. The chicken machboos was not too different from the many chicken and rice dishes that serve as national dishes for other countries, but it used some more fragrant spices like…
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I Built a Folding Dog Gate
I built a folding dog gate to stop our labradoodle from walking on the carpet when her paws are muddy. It’s based on one my wife saw on Pinterest, but this specific design is mine. I modeled it in SketchUp first to make sure that I had the hinge layout correct. I wanted it to…
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I Built a Mid-Century Modern Nightstand
When I was tasked with making a 31″ tall nightstand for my mother-in-law that would fit in a 9″ wide space next to her bed and provide drawers and a shelf. I decided to use the opportunity to try a furniture style I haven’t tried before: mid-century modern. From what I can tell, “mid-century modern”…
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I made some picture frames (banana for scale)
I made some picture frames for my sister to put her daughters’ school photos in. I’ve included some bananas for scale. The frames are walnut with red oak inlay and a chamfer around the inside edge. The inlay strips were added after the frames were assembled. I finished them with a couple coats of clear…
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COVID Christmas Ornaments
Inspired by a picture my wife sent me of almost this exact same thing, I made some COVID-themed Christmas ornaments for the family members I won’t be seeing at Christmas this year. You can make your own too, if you have an X-Carve; the Easel project is right here.
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How to use your router to install your router lift for your other router
I bought a JessEm Rout-R-Lift II router lift for my shop. It needs to be recessed into a workbench, but it doesn’t come with a template for cutting an appropriately sized hole. You can buy an MDF template for $27, or you can do as a I did, and make your CNC router carve the…
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Box with a Vengeance
My son needed to bring a box to school earlier this year for holding valentines, and he asked if I would make him one, so I made him one. It’s walnut with a maple inlay, and it has a slot in front so that valentines can be put in without opening it. This was my…
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Shake, rattle, and… Oregon???
I made these baby rattles for some friends and family who were unfortunate enough to give birth outside of Oregon. The bodies are maple, the beads are walnut, and the holes are filled with sweet sweet Oregon air.
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What do bees from Silicon Valley make? Kumail Nanjihoney
Made with my X-Carve Halftone app.
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Whoever named the fireplace, good job
This was the fireplace in our living room. It never worked properly since we moved in, since the previous owners didn’t use it once in twenty years. Fixing it would have cost as much as replacing it, and in order to replace it, we would have had to tear out the surround, and in order…
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The name’s Bed. Murphy Bed.
Remember that scene from Full House when Jesse gets trapped in a Murphy bed? Well, I do, and I realized that if John Stamos ever visits my home, I wouldn’t have a Murphy bed for him to get stuck in, so I built one: I used this hardware kit and set of plans from Rockler.…
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Cornhole: The board so nice, I made one twice
I built a set of cornhole boards. If you’ve never heard of cornhole, it’s a game where you throw a bag of corn through a hole. It is widely considered to be the inspiration for every major modern sport.
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I Turned One Desk into Two End Tables
I got this old desk for free. Once I got it home, I realized it was too big to fit anywhere in our house, so I left it under a tarp in my shop. A year later, I was cleaning up my shop and found a giant desk under a tarp. I decided to either…