Carpentry Accomplished

HA. BENCHES ARE DONE. THEY LOOK AWESOME. Cafe curtains are done too!  See? Isn’t it nice and bright and cheery?

I have a galley kitchen, and this dining room is at one end. It is compact, with a good layout and lots of sun. To the left  s a built-in corner cabinet for dishes (not visible).  I made curtains because the dining room is one of the few windows in our apartment where people might actually be able to see inside. We overlook an urban landscape – the interior courtyard of a busy city block. However, if you’ll believe it, you can see an urban chicken coop and garden out that end window (p.s. chickens make weird noises).

I put together an animated slide show of us putting the pieces so far into the space, to amuse myself.  If you’re reading this in an email you may not see it (MOM, AUNTS), in which case you have to go to my website to see it.  (I made the animation at Gickr). So who can spot Callie?

I designed these benches myself. I have the proof right here, in this Plan I drew up. There’s another page showing where I think the screws should go. And you know what? With the exception of a couple of board widths, these got built exactly like my plan shows.You must, however, excuse my inability to do perspective drawing. Also that in perspective drawing I forgot important pieces – the cross pieces that hold the whole thing together. That DID actually become a problem when I was trying to show Jeremy and Jeff how to build the thing.

After much dithering, sawing, drilling, screwing, sanding, painting and whatnot, it’s all finished. And my design? These things are rock solid! They’re held together by these 10″ bolts that normally hold together garden posts.  I did try hard not to over-engineer it, and I think I succeeded.

I realized while building this that the process of building furniture is ridiculously similar to sewing. They’re both

• detail-intensive in the same ways (planning, measuring, measuring, measuring),
• they require specialized knowledge (dried board sizes, width of fabric, types of screws, types of needles),
• they require specialized tools (sewing machines, saws, levels, seam rippers, clamps, angles, scissors),
• and they take a lot of time to get it all right.

In sewing you have to IRON and MEASURE before you do anything, in carpentry you must SAND and MEASURE first. Or twice. The part where you screw or sew stuff together is a minimal part of the activity compared to the prep and finish work. Not that it isn’t hard too, just prep works takes lots of time …

I enjoyed it this. It is rewarding to try something completely new and have it turn out so well. I’ve got my brother to thank for that, he has the specialized knowledge that I was missing, and also the brute strength when it turns out your drill is too weak to do the job. Jeff and I spent a lot of time painting amongst the many rainstorms we’ve had lately, and finally, FINALLY yesterday we could bring them in.

Next up?  Cushion covers. Not easy! That mess above is what I’m referring to. Why, people, WHY did I put a zipper end next to a fabric end next to a corner while inserting piping? Am I trying to make myself crazy? Oh well. I only had to redo … never mind. I’m not going to think about how many times the seam ripper has made an appearance until I’m done.

Getting There

The most fun part of crafting is … CRAFTING. I reserved 75% of this past weekend for making stuff – curtains, pillows, mitts, benches. Good times!! Stuff is really coming together. And it looks AWESOME.

Jeff has said on more than one occasion lately that he thinks I might not be satisfied until 75% of the stuff we have is made by me. I said no, 75% must be handmade, not necessarily made by me. Ha! Not really. I don’t think I have enough time to amass that kind of collection! Not that I won’t try.

However, I can manage only a short post tonight that does not include my recent attendance at an Etsy craft night or the knife skills class, for I must return to typing up my self-review for my job. Next Sunday is my six-month review that ENDS my probationary period. YAY. Well, yay if I’m not fired first, I guess!  Hard to believe I’ve been here in the Bay Area for six months as of Thursday.

TTFN.

Huge project progress

Suddenly, it’s the last day of February. Did this month just whiz by or what? Maybe that’s because the kitchen has been quite a project. Just finding the materials and designing the patterns was enough for one month! We decided to get as many of the raw materials as possible from local stores, which was interesting. It’s definitely kept me busy on weekends, and I’ll be busy for a couple more weekends finishing. I’ll post about the non-kitchen goals separately.

By the way, our kitchen projects were inspired by this blue and yellow distressed shelf and letters that Jeff got me for Christmas from OldNewAgain. I love the sunny feel of it, and that there’s a little jam jar for flowers. I’m also trying to work within our kitchen’s lingering fifties feel and the simple, quirky aesthetic of my sixties-era dish collection. There are elements from the kitchen shown in the cutout below (I can’t remember what magazine it’s from), but the benches and table seemed right for our little space. I don’t like the chairs though. I’ve actually read horror stories about children and animals getting stuck in hairpin legs like that and getting hurt.

1. Kitchen table: Yes! We got it Saturday and had dinner at it last night. Jeff and I got super picky about the table. We decided the optimal table was a 40″ round table – not easy to find – and similar to a Saarinen tulip table. Those are expensive and hard to find second-hand, but there are a variety of knock-offs. We settled on the CB2 Odyssey based on sturdiness and build quality.

2. Benches for the kitchen: Almost! Progress is slow owing to my lack of expertise. After I designed them we went to a local lumber store for materials, where Jeff and I faced the fact that we were woefully out of place. We are giant nerds, and though we were willing it was a good thing my brother was there and knew what to do. Much sanding, fiddly math and drilling later, we nearly have some pretty and sturdy custom benches. They’ll also double as bookshelf-storage underneath. I named them Woodhenge, haha … see?

3. Cushions, pillows, curtains, appliance cover, oven mitt: Almost! I am awaiting special accent fabrics  – I had to wait to order them until after I knew the bench sizes, the style of the table, and what sort of coordinating linen I’d find. I was going to use Central Park, but we decided we liked Kate Spain’s Fandango collection more. I picked these fabrics: Portico in celadon for the bench cushions and Sarabande for the curtains, plus coordinating fabric. I ordered enough for future projects like napkins, a round table mat, and placemats.

The other fabrics I’m using are a white cotton I already had and a heavyweight linen. I got the linen and other supplies at local store Discount Fabrics. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven in there. Also, in case my inventiveness fails me, I got this pattern to get me through making box cushions with cording. So now everything’s washed, measured, ironed, cut out and partially sewn. Just awaiting the other fabric.

The challenge in making everything yourself is mostly about pulling together a thousand tiny details. I really like how things are turning out so far, so hopefully that will give me the inspiration to spend a bunch more hours working on it!