Finishing a Stair Case

We've lived in our house for almost exactly four years now. There are a few things that didn't get done before we moved in and finishing the stairs down to the basement is one of them. I'm not sure what motivated me to start working on them, but I started last weekend and was able to finish them up today.

As you can see from this photo, the treads were just plywood. I took this photo after installing the trim down the sides of the stairs last weekend. When I did that, I made templates for both the tops and bottoms out of cardboard then scrap plywood. They helped a lot by giving me the opportunity to fuss with the plywood rather than the $40(each!) 1x10s I was using for the final trim. With the prep, template making, and installation, it took the better part of a day to get these installed.
I bought the rest of the supplies yesterday from the Home Depot. I used pre-cut pine treads and 1x8 pre-primed trim. I urethaned the treads outside yesterday so that they'd be ready to go today. I spent almost an hour this morning getting the materials, tools, etc. laid out before I started and boy, am I glad I did. By the time I started, everything was at hand, which made the work go much quicker than I thought it would.
Here are the steps I followed for each tread/riser pair.

1. Measured the tread and cut it to length.


2. Measured the riser and cut it to the correct length and width.


3. Drilled two pocket holes on the bottom of the riser.


4. Attached the riser to the tread with pocket screws. This basically made them into a single unit.


5. Removed the tread/riser pair and applied a healthy dose of construction adhesive to the stringers.


6. Put the tread/riser pair in place.


7. Screwed the tread to the stringers from below with two pocket screws per stringer. This really drew the tread down.


8. Nailed the riser to the stringer (from the front) with finish nails.


9. Repeat

There were 12 steps. The whole thing took about 5 hours, which I didn't think was that bad.

Here's the final product. I'm quite happy with how it came out.

A Quick Easel

Elizabeth asked me to build her an easel the other day. She wanted to set up an art studio on her room so I figured I'd give it a try. It's not very complicated. I cut a rough-cut 2x6 I had lying around into 3 pieces, cut the outer two ends at an angle (I just free handed it on the table saw) and bolted the three legs together.

Turns out, she wanted a table-top-sized easel, so she was a little surprised when I hauled this monster up to her room but she took it in stride and starting painting immediately. I guess it just goes to show how two people can talk about the same thing but at the same time can be talking about completely different things. (In the software biz, we call it agreeing on the requirements!)
Once again, this is one of those projects that I was able to do with materials I had on-hand.

Stump Pulling

This stump has been a nuisance since I built the tractor shed back in 2008. It started life as a pretty good sized white pine, about 24" in diameter. I cut it down before construction and figured I could work around it during construction. (It was about 3 feet away from one corner of the shed.) Well, I did work around it back then and I've just lived with it since then, too. But I decided this weekend, after having pulled a few other stumps, that it was time for this big one to go.
My neighbor has used the tractor to pull stumps before this and he told me how to do it. I started off small and worked my way up. It definitely puts the tractor through its paces but it's very gratifying when they come out.
I have to admit that it was a lot more work than I thought it was going to be. The other stumps I've pulled were a bit smaller and more accessible so I could do the whole job with the tractor. Not so with this one. I could really only get at about 45% of it with the tractor so I ended up having to dig quite a bit by hand as well as chainsaw a couple really big roots. After 4 hours and a lot of sweat, though, it came out. It felt great!
Now I can maneuver around that part of the barn much better and I don't have to worry about that damn stump causing problems!

Cat Door Under Basement Stairs

From Blogger Pictures

We have been having a hard time coming up with a spot for our cat box that is accessible for the cat but NOT accessible for the dog. Sarah had the great idea to put it under the basement steps and restrict the dog's access with a cat door. This is the result.
This is one of those great projects where I didn't have to spend a penny: I had enough scrap wood, nails, glue, and even the hinges lying around to do the whole thing.
For the curve of the cat portal, I used a gallon paint can as the outline. Seems to work fine.
Now the dog won't have a perpetually renewing buffet.

Stone Wall for a New Garden

It's been a while since I either did or posted any projects but the dry spell is now over (at least for now!).
Right after we built the house, we had a giant, 3-story pile of dirt and stone. We spent a few hours pulling out the best stone and piling it in the yard. Having a pile of wall-stone is great, but boy, can it ever get in the way. I built a garden wall a couple years a ago with quite a bit of it but still had some left over.

We moved the left over stone to a pile on the side of the yard and there it sat for a few years. In the meantime, the brush really grew up around it and it just plain looked like hell. (I don't have a "before" photo, but trust me.)
Finally, Sarah and I pulled ourselves together and first decided what to do (the hard part IMO) and then started. This new wall for a garden or patio is the result. Each end is punctuated by quite a large stone and the two arms curve a bit to meet at a point in the back.
We're not sure if this will become a perennial garden, a seating area, or a new outdoor kitchen with a cobb oven. Regardless of what it becomes in the future, though, the work had to be done so that we could have fun going on to the next steps.
I learned quite a bit about building stone walls about 6 or 7 years ago when I helped build a large stone retaining wall in a construction project at our Waldorf school. I got to work with an experienced wall building who taught me a lot of tricks about not only putting the wall together but "seeing" the stone, moving the stone (a hand-truck is great), and modifying the shape of the stone with a maul and a cold-chisel (sometimes just a few chips can make a stone fit perfectly).

DIY Desktop Stand for Droid

I've been transitioning over to using only my cell phone for work-related calls lately. The Motorola Droid is a great phone for this. My phone time is mostly on speaker phone so I like to be able to mute the phone during these calls. This is to eliminate some background noise as well as let me do other things during the meetings (don't tell!). So I needed a stand for the phone that was stable enough to keep the phone safe and allow me to press the mute button during calls frequently without fear of knocking over the phone.
Now I could have bought a Droid-branded stand for this but this had two disadvantages:

1. It cost around $30 and I've spent enough on this phone for now.


2. The stands are all landscape and the Droid does not go into landscape mode when it's in a call. Thus the need for a stand that kept the phone in portrait mode.
   

You can see from this photo that I did several prototypes to get the right functionality and look and feel. The angle of the back is 22 degrees. I cut the slot for it with my regular table saw blade; I didn't use the dado set. I just made a couple passes until the hardboard back was snug but not too tight.
You can see from the pictures that I tried to drill a hole so that I could plug in the phone while it was in landscape mode. This was before I figured out that I had to be in portrait mode for what I was looking for. Even if I had wanted to keep the stand in landscape mode, I'd have had to cut up a USB power cable quite a bit to get it to bend enough to work so I was glad to switch to portrait mode.

The base on the final version is about 2.5" x 3.5"; it's a piece of 5/4" clear pine trim. There's a shallow dado that creates a lip that the bottom of the phone rests against. I'm not sure this is really necessary but it gives the phone a good solid feel when it's in the stand. That way, I can press buttons on the top of the screen and not feel like the bottom is going to cant up at me. The hole in the backer board is for the button on the back of my case that is used by the car mount and belt clip I have. I glued the backer board into the slot just to keep everything together. Since it's portrait orientation, the USB power port is conveniently exposed so that I can plug the phone in during long calls. (BTW, I downloaded a service that keeps the screen awake during phone calls so that I can get at the mute button quickly).
Overall, this was a very successful project. It does exactly what I need it to do; it was fun to build; and it didn't cost a dime.

Oily Counter Top Day

There's nothing like a day off to allow you to get caught up with a couple maintenance tasks and today is one of those days. Our kitchen island has a big (4+ x 8+) maple top that needs to be oiled a couple times a year; our Fireslate counter tops (which I've discussed before) also need treating a couple times a year.
I used mineral oil for the island. The top really soaks it up. Whenever I oil the island top, I also take the opportunity to oil our cutting boards and wooden utensils.
For the counter tops, I use Tung oil. I put it on pretty thick with a rag and wipe off the excess after it soaks for a bit.
Needless to say, between all that mineral and tung oil, the house is pretty smelly.
Probably one of the best side benefits of this chore is that we have to completely clean off the counter tops and the island. That gives us a good opportunity to (maybe) not put a few things back and keep the clutter down. Although, I have to say that we (Sarah especially) keep up with that kind of de-cluttering pretty regularly.
This is definitely not one of the more strenuous chores I do, but it's an important one to have done. (And yes: it would have been better to do this on Saturday morning before we left for our jaunt to Concord, MA but we were out of mineral oil, I had to drop the dog off at friends, etc., etc. You get the idea.)