I’ve still got some cable management to put in place, as well as adding a door to the cabinet, and shelves to the… shelves.  But overall, I’m loving it.. it’s very big

"Finished"

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test fit, primed

So, I’ve been writing more lately, and  posting less about what I was actually DOING (although writing is DOing something, I suppose)

Well,here’s one of the things I did this weekend. We had a chandelier from the 70′s hanging above our dining room table, and a while back I took it down, spray painted it red and rehung it. It worked for a while, because it was unique, but it was still lame, and we’ve been wanting more/better light.

We decided to build a fixture since it’d fit our space correctly, and well, we’re picky about how things look.

After figuring out the design, I set into building it, and already had most of the components around the shop. The wood was leftover 1″x from another project and a sliver of luan. The rods were old pieces of white tent poles that I’ve kept in a corner for 5 years waiting for a use. We just bought the shades for $12 each at Homegoods and some simple lamp parts from Home Depot.

I’ve added a gallery below of the project, and all of the steps along the way (see simple descriptions in captions)

I’ll post some finished pics once it painted and finally mounted (and the room around it is in a prettier state.)

it starts like this.

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I tend to just give stuff a shot, and figure it out as I go along ( then the second time, I’ll plan more, use the knowledge I gained to try to do it better.. but for the sake of this post.. we’re talking about “first times”.. mmm-kk?)

Case in point..  last week, the thermostat housing on my car cracked… dumped all of the coolant, making the car undriveable (unless I wanted to do serious damage to the engine).  So I looked around, found a forum and a YouTube video and decided to give it a shot.

Now, I’ve NEVER done any engine work on my cars..     BUT, a few minutes of research, $50 worth of parts on ebay and I was ready to go..

It took me 20 minutes to get the old parts out.. 10 minutes to get the new parts IN, and it completely fixed the problem, first try.

I forgot to mention that in that forum I was reading, someone had just gotten the same problem fixed at a shop for …. (wait for it…)   $900 — holy crap.  I saved $850 just because I thought I’d give it a shot.

So, this goes a bit deeper (and seemingly, a bit off track, but stick with me), past the car.  I’ve had some really interesting conversations recently with some people close to me about what they’re trying to accomplish. And I’ve seen a lot of frustration and anxiety in those people. Also, these are BIG things.. not making things/fixing things.

In one of the discussions, someone said “I hate the saying ‘Life is a journey’.. I just want to get there.”   I completely understand this.  It’s tough to think that RIGHT NOW is just a small piece of the final outcome of things. But, when RIGHT NOW isn’t what you want..  it’s actually pretty comforting to know that it’s just a small step in a larger path that you’re following.

Another conversation was with my wife, about our kids.  Unless you’re a parent, you may not understand the amount of weight there is in raising a child (or 3). The responsibility can be daunting.. trying to predict the needs of this tiny, future adult.. and lead them accordingly.  Well, neither of us really feel very good at it a lot of the time. But I realized today that everyday, we get better at it. The more we try, the more we learn.. both from success and failure.

I mean, if you think about it, no one waits to be a parent until they’re good at parenting. So, it’s completely unrealistic for us to think that we’re unprepared, just because we have no idea what we’re doing. (I had to read that sentence back to my self a couple of time, but it DOES say what I meant.)

The fact of the matter is, that whatever the “thing” is.. programming, sculpting, parenting, drywall finishing.. you weren’t born KNOWing how to do it. You’ve LEARNed everything that you know, one way, or another. So, why do we stifle ourselves by only going after things that we already are good at..things that we already understand? Is it because we’re THAT afraid of failure? Really? Because I’ve failed at TONS of stuff, and it’s really not that bad.. just try not to make a habit of it, and you’re fine.

Just try it, fail if you have to, but eventually you’ll get better at it.. someday, you may even KNOW how to do it.

In a whirlwind trip to the store and a couple of hours, I made the bones that will be my new workspace.

It’s not finished, it’s not pretty, it’s a little too tall and it’s not square. But it’s a start.

It was really interesting to do in such a short amount of time. (4 hours, including a trip to the store, and dinner) because I was kind of making it up as I went, adjusting and thinking on the fly. I was trying to keep in my mind, “Build quickly, and iterate”.  So, this is the first “version” of my desk.  It will get more refined, more detailed, and more “finished” over time.  But, one of the caveats of “Agile” development, is that nothing is really ever finished, it just gets better. (There’s a life lesson in there, but that’s for another time.)

As I built the bones for the desk, my mind was flooded with more refinements that could be added later, but instead of stopping to think them through, and try to plan for them, I just pushed on. I put those ideas in my brain cabinet for later so that they wouldn’t get in the way of MAKING. And it worked

So now, I’ve got a skeleton, and a box of ideas..   I’ll keep you posted, if you’re interested.

I love to make stuff, and I love to make stuff well.  To make stuff well, I have to (usually) plan them well.

This is where my problem arises. Planning.

Some people have problems planning, they have trouble sitting down, getting the resources/needs together and focusing long enough to get their plan in place. That’s not me. I’ve almost always got the full need in my head, the resources available.. but I plan too long.

For example, I want to build a new desk.  I work from home, and my office is also my music studio, and my work shop, and several other things.  My desk has been a simple desk that I had in college, but now it’s completely cluttered and cramped with computers, drives, audio equipment (and junk)

So, I want to build a new desk… a nice BIG desk.  (Here’s where I spin my wheels)

and it could have an ipad stand routed into the surface, with a charger coming up through the surface..

and it could have a built in light table

and it could have under lighting built in

and it could have a microcontroller that told the desk to light up when I get an email, or IM

and it’s surface could be old motherboards, infused with blinking LEDs, covered in glass

and I could draw on the glass like a whiteboard

it goes on, and on.. (I’ve been planning for about a month now)

but I still don’t have a desk.

So, I’m going to give in to my first desire, to make stuff, and try to integrate the agile approach to furniture. Build quickly, and iterate.  I’m going to try to build the desk in a way that I can swap out the surface later (in case I want glass) and build it thick enough to house old motherboards, in case I ever do that, etc.

That’s it.. nothing profound, I just needed to write it down.  Thanks to my good friend Josh for inspiring me to do that.

it’s been a while since I’d gotten to do any woodworking.. and who better to do it for than my favorite people in the world.

So now, we’ve got a guest bedroom with a good amount of space, so she asked me to build her a big workstation which would house all of her jewelry supplies and tools, along with her sewing machine and supplies (which includes a CRAZY amount of yarn) as well as books and a scrapbooking/letterwriting area.

The room has 2 walls covered with wallpaper (2 layers in fact) as well as a border all the way around the room.

For future reference, if you have to take down wallpaper, don’t bother with the chemicals…  just rent a steamer for $30 a day from your home improvement store and do it that way..  MUCH BETTER, TRUST ME.

So I spent 3 full days (seriously) taking down wallpaper, 2 more days patching, sanding and painting the walls and updating electrical outlets and switches.. but the room looks like inew construction, so it was worth it.

Luckily, we had a good size space to work with.

She and I differ on approaches to decorating/building things, but this one is FOR HER, so I’m just building what she wants and trying not to force my own ideas in so that the space is really HERS.

So anyway, I made the 139″ desk out of a sheet of MDF, stripped down to a 24″ panel, attached end to end. It’s setting on a 2×4 that is mounted across the wall and 2 sets of shelves that I also build from MDF.

I used MDF because she wanted the whole thing painted, so it’s a very cheap solution for that amount of wood.

So, he’s the desk part installed..

since the photo, it has been primed and we got a good deal on some simple laminated cabinets to hang above it.  There will be a 31″ space inbetween the cabinets, so I’ll build more MDF shelves to fill the gap.

We’re planning on putting up a combination of cork panels, and pegboard on the back wall between the desk and cabinets, as well as mounting a good deal of lighting to downlight the space.

More pics as I progress (which will hopefully be tomorrow)