Deluxe Sandbox

Once the swingset was completed on the weekend my Dad and I went to work on Joshua's new 'deluxe' sandbox. You can see the plans we used here at Disney's FamilyFun site :

http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/season/feature/sandbox1/

I had purchased the lumber for the sandbox about a month ago and had it delivered with some materials for my workshop floor and the hardwood for the house. This saved us on money on having to get seperate deliveries and I figured it would give the wood a chance to dry out a bit, which will make the stain stick better.


It took us a little less than 2 hours to carry the wood over to where the sandbox will be, cut and stack it ready for assembly. Since the main frame is 2x12s, most of the cutting was done with a circular saw.


Once all the cutting was complete, it took me another 1.5hrs to assemble all the sandbox, including the lid sections. On one end of the sand box is a hinged lid for the toybox, the other side is open to allow storage of the lid sections.

I'm going to sand the sandbox with some 80 grit sandpaper to take off the mill glaze, then we'll apply a couple of coats of a deck stain to improve the appearance of the PT wood. 6 yards of sand and then we'll be in business.

Swingset Completed

My Dad helped over the weekend to finish putting together Joshua's $100 playset. It took a lot less time than I thought it would, we had it reassembled before lunch.

I still need to replace a few screws that are holding the slide up, I've been through three stores looking for #10 1.5" exterior (PT) deck screws but haven't found them yet. I'm going to try a 'real' hardware store next.

Last night I picked up a new belt sander to clean up the playset before we stain it this weekend.

Hardwood Complete

Actually done late last week, but I'm happy to have finally finished off installing around 1600 square feet of pre-finished hardwood flooring in our house.

We took about a month to install it, working some nights and weekends. I think my actual install rate was about 60ft/hr, faster or slower depending on closets and corners. That puts the total at 26+ hours which seems right. There was lots of other stuff going on at the same time which is why it took us so long.

The next thing I have to finish up is adding all of the baseboards. Since the house had none I'm starting from scratch. It'll be a mixture of stained and painted but we haven't figured out the details yet.

Here's the view from Joshua's room towards the sitting area (his play area) and the master bedroom upstairs.

Things to look for after you move in

Since we've moved into the new place I've been changing out all of the incandescent bults to compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). The CFLs are cooler (temperature wise) and use much less energy than the incandescent bulbs. Though more expensive initially they'll more than pay for themselves in the long run.

Once the CFLs do burn out (5 years?), our local recycling center will take the CFLs and dispose of them properly, so the environmental issues (mercury) is not a concern for me.

The light fixture in my new office was flickering while I was working, leading me to wonder if it was the electrical, the fixture or the bulbs. Here's what I found when I pulled the glass cover off to change it to CFLs :

Probably the clown renters decided to put two 100 watt bulbs in a fixture that was rated for 40 watts. Idiots. I'm glad the house didn't burn down before I decided to change these out. I immediately when and checked the rest of the fixtures, luckily this was the only one that had the wrong bulbs.

We had an extra fixture from one we replaced earlier so I threw the damaged one in the trash and now my office light is back to normal.

Back to Woodworking

The new house has a nice big 2 car garage out back for my woodworking shop. About 24x24, 9ft ceiling. It's uninsulated and had a concrete floor, one window and a loft for storage. The loft has about 7-8ft of space with full standing height, the rest slopes down to 4ft in the back, 1 ft in the front. The loft will store our Christmas decorations, camping equipment, and anything else that is rarely used.

Before moving in I put in a plywood subfloor over 2x4 sleepers. We even put a coat of paint down to make it easier on the eyes.

Though the shop is still a disaster area as everything is spread around on the floor, I wanted to get some more work done on Joshua's new bunk bed so I did a bit of sanding and glued up the other bottom panel this morning.

I've got more hardwood flooring and trim to install in the house, but I can't do that while Joshua is sleeping and it was nice to take a break from home renovation to do some 'real' woodworking again.