Response To Light

Well I finished the wood trim. I only had to paint it ten times with Minwax. So far I have used Minwax for two projects and the end result was mixed. If you don’t paint it just so, you end up with sections that are darker than the rest. Thin coats are the key and I guess I rush a bit too much.

As with all things I made a few mistakes but overall it looks great. While the wood is Oak it doesn’t have a heavily Oak feeling. In finished the wood trim I started to think to myself that I was actually done. However, I have one more thing to do — laminate the shelves.

The only other “negative” is that I now have to do the same trim to all the other countertops. Oh well.

One of the things I struggle with is staying focused on unfinished projects. There are so many things I want to do and it is so easy to just ‘work’ on them. I want to make some of the cabinets in the garage mobile for the drill press and the bandsaw. I have a plan to build a little cabinet for the foot of the bed that will hold (and hide) dirty clothes. I want to work on the downstairs bar. And the computer room is still a disaster area after living here for a month and half. So you can see there is no shortage of projects for me to work on.

While tempted to work on other things this weekend, I went back to the Kitchen Island which had laminate installed but needed me to finish off the ends. Two weeks ago I went out to purchase wood with the idea of capping the ends with it. However when I made first cuts, the ends did not line up correctly. I was using the wrong angles. In attacking it this weekend I had already deduced how to arrive at the correct angles. If I grabbed a corner, the total angle was 135 degrees. Since there are two pieces of wood that needed to fit in the angle, I divided the number by 2. This gave me 67.5 degrees. Minus this by 45 degrees and I ended up with 22.5. Funny enough when I went out to cut the pieces, there was 22.5 degrees as a stop. I guess you live and learn.

Starting with a small corner I slowly made my way around the island. This included putting glue on the wood and the ends and then air nailing the pieces together. One problem I did have was that the wood was slightly warped so none of the pieces were flush with the laminate. I had lots of ideas about how to even these spots out. Most of them included using a router. It then occured to me that could hand plane them. This might seem obvious to a lot of you but I have never used a hand plane in my life. Off to Totem to get a hand plane.

Having now used it, I must say it was quite easy. The hardest part was adjusting it to get the right shavings while planing. There is a certain joy in making the shavings. Next I sanded everything with a palm sander and much to my surprise everything was flush. Woohoo! (When I started I thought this was going to be much harder).

Next up was trying to decide on a profile for an edge. With leftover wood I tried a few edges. They came out terrible (I’m still working on my routing technique). I decided to use a simple round over bit. One of the nice surprises was that I could use my Ridge laminate trimmer instead of the Skil router. As you can see in the picture below, it all turned out great. The only thing left to do is decide on a stain (something dark and glossy) and the island will be finally finished. Then on to the the other counters

Let me know what you think.

As I mentioned in another post, the light fixtures were one of the first things we changed in the house. And the very first light I did was the dining room. My wife had a brushed nickel light that she thought would look spectacular once it was up. Dutifully I installed it first. (A happy wife is a happy life).

It was the first light fixture I had ever changed and it showed. More support ended up on the wire than the chain. The chain was a bit crooked in spots and it was probably a too low. I never said anything because Lynne said she liked it but I didn’t think it really lived up to the lighting in the rest of the house.

Then one day, Lynne admits she’s really not in love with it either and so the search was on to find something. My first thought was to get a chandelier that matched the hallway light. When I got to HD, I noticed it was $250. While we could swing it, I wanted to get something a little less expensive. It occured to me that the dining room is the one room where we could get away with something different. I found one which was $70 cheaper and in my eyes would have been perfect. However, I wanted to get Lynne’s approval before spending the cash.

During our next trip to HD, she flat out said, “I don’t really like it.” This ended the vision I had in my head for the chandelier.

Ultimately, it came down to the one which matched the rest of the lighting in house and a large, expensive leather incarnation which costs double. Since Lynne really liked the leather one, we purchase it and we were off.

The installation was longer than usual since I had to get up into the attic to install a sturdier brace (that thing is quite heavy). Of course since I had installed quite a few light fixtures by then, all of the little things that snuck up on me in the past were gone.

I think it looks awesome now that it is up I do think it’s the kind of piece that you will either love or hate.

We love it!