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A website I made is now a museum exhibit
Three years ago, I wrote about how I found old Kodachrome slides in my father-in-law’s attic, scanned them, and put them online at DavidTewes.com. In an unexpected turn of events, photos from that website are now on display at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. Jon Swanson, the curator of collections and exhibits at the museum,…
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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…
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I’ve Got Bees!
Previously, I posted about about having hives. Not content to stop there, I have filled the hives with bees! I bought three nucs and moved them into my hives on a dreary Saturday. (After taking this picture, I added another five empty frames to fill the rest of the space.) The nucs were positively buzzing.…
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I Built a Custom Closet System
My daughter’s closet was just a 4′ x 5′ space with two hanging bars and a shelf, which was not an efficient use of the space. If I had taken a “before” picture of this project, you would be able to see that, but I didn’t take any pictures until I had ripped out the…
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Turning Billy Bookcase into William Bookcase
Years ago, when we were young and poor, my wife and I bought a Billy Bookcase from Ikea. It looked like this: Now that we are sophisticated wealthy adults, we wanted — no, needed — something classier. So, I painted Billy, gave him a face frame, and added moulding to the top and bottom. I…
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This Desk Used to Be Pink. You’ll Never Believe What Color It Is Now!
White. It’s white now.
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I’ve Got Hives!
Beehives, that is! I’m going to be keeping bees this year, and I built and painted my own hives. One is an ode to Lincoln: One is a rainbow honeycomb pattern: And one was an attempt at a foggy mountain scene: I hope the bees like them. I think they are the bees’ knees!
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Secret Santa 2018: Japan in Maple and Walnut
For my workplace Secret Santa gift exchange this Christmas (you know, the one that very recently took place), my recipient was a Japanese citizen who likes to hike, so I made him a 3-D topographic map of Japan out of maple and walnut. The steps to build it were pretty simple, so I won’t caption…
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I Built a Bed That Is Also a Playhouse and a Slide and a Dresser and a Bookshelf
My five-year-old daughter saw my wife browsing Pinterest, and long story short, I ended up building this bed/playhouse/slide/dresser/bookcase for her room: I planned it out in SketchUp. It’s an original design inspired by a number of beds online, and the slide is based on The Wood Whisperer’s bunk bed slide. (My SketchUp file is available…
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Generating and Cutting Halftone Images on the X-Carve
Halftone is an app I’ve written for making halftone-style carves with Inventables’s Easel CNC design platform. A halftone image uses different sized dots to represent light and dark areas. Upload an image, and Halftone will convert it to a grid of holes with each hole sized to reflect the brightness of the image at that…
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I Made a Stand for a Daily Photo Calendar
We bought a photo-a-day calendar for 2019, but because it didn’t come with any sort of stand, it was in danger of getting broken apart prematurely. I made this stand for it that doubles as storage for the used pages so they can be used as a notepad. Underneath the calendar, there’s a slot where…
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Run Your Own Open-Source Timehop
I like the idea of Timehop: seeing all of the photos I took on this day in years past. I don’t like the idea of sharing all of my photos with a third party, so I built an open-source replacement for Timehop that runs on my own computer and server; it’s called Clockback. Clockback is…
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I Made a Truly Simple Pencil Box
I made this sliding-top pencil box for our three-year-old goddaughter. It’s all Baltic birch; the sides are half-inch and the top is quarter-inch. I carved the design with my X-Carve, painted the carved area, and then finished the entire box with a spray enamel clearcoat.
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Shaker-Style Jewelry Cabinet
I built this Shaker-style jewelry cabinet for my wife. You’ll never guess what’s inside… If you’d like the plans for this cabinet, you can find them on Etsy. The cabinet box itself is only 1 3/4″ deep. These are the four sides; the top is shorter because it won’t be mitered, since the top of…
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I’ve Been Framed!
In a picture frame, that is! I made this 30″x20″ frame for my wife, who wanted one for our wedding picture in the same style as this smaller frame she found: The new frame is constructed of 3/4″ Baltic birch plywood. I started by making the sides (each 3″ wide) and cutting a rabbet into…
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What are these brown things floating in my bathroom?
They’re floating shelves, of course! What else could I have been implying? I made these shelves out of 3/4″ plywood and hung them on French cleats.
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I Built a Kitchen Cabinet to Replace Our Pantry
Come along with me on a journey; a journey of craftsmanship, cabinets, and canned goods. Observe as I detail the steps I took to build this new cabinet in our kitchen so that we could move all of our food out of the cramped pantry and into the light where it belongs (the light where…
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