Benches

 My buddy Taylor is renovating his house. They had to take down an old oak tree that they really loved, so he had a portable sawmill come over and cut a bunch of slabs out of the trunk, then he brought them over to my house to air dry for a while. After going to his house and checking out the addition, I'm going to build him an outdoor bar, some outdoor bench seating, a coffee table, some floating shelves, and a dining room table & benches. 

Live edge stuff is pretty straightforward, you just have to work the wood until it's done. No complex joinery or anything. Just plane out the sawmill marks, get the top flat, and clean everything else down good. Put a good finish on it and some legs and you're done. 

The Full Stack

That's a lot of lumber.  Going to make for some mighty fine furniture. 

Rough cut

Cleaned off, I dumped some water to bring out the grain

From the top  all sanded & ready for finish

Now with finish - Old Master's Ascend Exterior

This bench is ready, his wife hasn't decided on what kind of legs to put on these benches. Once I get some legs this one is ready to deliver. The grain really pops, the live edge is cool, it sits great... just need some legs.

The big thick slabs at the top of the stack make 2 of these benches and the thicker one for a coffee table. Taylor loves it.

Finishing a cool bunk bed

 I finished off a really cool bunk bed setup recently. It started with the same basic setup, making boxes on the frames, and making the supports. But they also wanted a climbing wall, a slide, and a few drawers.

Supports are in and this bunk is standing

The middle supports determine how wide I need to make the slide

This is the frame for the drawers

Drawer frame is installed, with the slides

Climbing wall is getting there

Slide is going together

This drawer came out a little small

I swear I had to build 6 drawers to get 3 to fit right

Now painted!

Hardware is installed

Getting my kids involved with the install

Lena really got into it

Finished! They loved it.

Drawers turned out pretty clean.

My helpers

The kid is a natural!

You can make cool bunk beds like this. Just take it one component at a time. This is a twin/twin bunk, standard twin mattress is 38" x 75", so start with a square box there. I use 2x3's for the core, cover it with 1x3 furring strips, then wrap the core with 2x6's. The supports are all made with 2x4's, cut a 12.5" length off of one end, and a 9" block off. The total height for this bed was 75", so I glued and screwed the 9" block 18" from the top, and the larger block flush with the bottom. The boxes then sit on top of the blocks, attached with 3 screws through the supports. Then I add a 1x4 and 1x3 to the top as safety rails, cut to length.

For the climbing wall, I glue & screw 2x6 boards to the end supports, then ordered the playground handles and holds from Amazon. They came with hardware to mount on 2" stock (which is really only 1.5" thick) so that was straightforward. The slide is tricky. I started with a couple of 2x6x8' boards, calculated the angle for the top & bottom cuts. Then I measured for 2x3's to go under the plywood for support, and cut a groove through the inside of both boards to hold the plywood. I used one sheet of plywood for the slide and the drawers. After cutting the plywood to size, install it into the grooves with finish nails. Sand the plywood so it gets smooth, I used 120 and 180 grit for this. Then I coat the plywood with some marine epoxy (TotalBoat) that I had hanging around. Install the 2x3's underneath for stability, so the plywood doesn't flex. Out of habit, I put them every 16" like it was a wall stud or something. I attach the slide to the upper bed with door hinges, they are heavy duty for the weight, and it prevents toys from getting stuck under the slide.

For the drawers, I built this frame that provided a front face and stability by screwing it to the supports and for the back it screwed to the bottom bed, creating a frame that was parallel to the floor. Then I put sides up so I could mount the drawer slides. The drawers are just boxes made of plywood and assembled with the finish nailer.  I put a 1x8 face on the boxes, and mounted the rest of the drawer slides. The important part there is to get the sides on the frame exactly parallel, and don't make the boxes try to fit exactly. Leave about 1/8" shorter than you think they will need so the slide can operate easily. 

This one really did pull out all of the stops, and the kid was so excited! I thought the slide came out a little steep. But really everything was clean, the parents were super happy with it.

Finishing the Walnut Side Table

 I pulled the walnut side table back outside and got it finished off, kind of. I still need to build the drawer. But what is assembled really did turn out fantastic

ok my photo skills were seriously lacking over the summer. My back was out, and I just let everything else fall apart. no actual finished pictures.

Walnut is a porous wood, so you have to fill the pores first. Start finishing walnut by sanding with 80, 120, 180, and 220 grit sandpaper over the whole table. Then I like to use tung oil with a 220 grit sanding block or sponge to grind in that fine dust to fill the pores. After that, sand it again with 320 grit, then since this is an interior table I use a wipe-on polyurethane applying at least 8 coats, and buffing with 0000 steel wool in between. The result is clean and flawless.

This turned out really nice, I have to get a decent picture of it and build that dang drawer.

Finished landscape lighting

 Well, we finally got the last of the landscape lights put in. I mean, Kelley did. We've been waiting for the style we liked to come back in stock, but with Covid it just doesn't look like they are going to make any of those any more, so we adapted and got some different lights.

Kelley the low-voltage electrician

Really glad this is done now! 

Also done, we got in the last tree. Apparently I don't have a picture of it, but it's a golden ginkgo tree in the main bed between the red & green japanese maples. This is going to look really cool when it all grows in! 

Next up in landscaping, we need to fill in the rest of the bed with smaller shrubs and ornamental grasses.