Waiting for the Washer and Dryer

Wow, doesn’t that title sound like some kind of TV story?  If you’re familiar with the expression about “chasing your tail” you can understand how the past week or so has been.  Seems as if it’s one little project after another and each of them seem to have hurdles to overcome!  Let’s start with the Laundry Room and the new utility sink.  What it looks like now can be seen from this picture and happy to say the appliances are scheduled for delivery this Wednesday — woo hoo, no more laundromat!  The plumbers came on the day promised and after half a day had added the supply and drain for the sink.  I drywalled it and then had the same guy who taped and textured the shop come in to do this.  Such a small job he was happy to do it on his way home.  That took 3 days since you have to wait between coats.  Once that was done it was my turn to paint (dry overnight), install tile (dry overnight), and then grout, yep you guessed it: dry overnight!  Seems like most of these steps were relatively quick to do but then you had to wait.

Plumbing in the faucet was another story.  Since it is wall mounted I needed to get the exact size nipple and these types of faucets require that you “play around” with the pieces to get them to line up correctly.  As luck would have it, one side needed to be backed off just slightly to line up and that caused a tiny leak.  That meant completely disassembling the whole unit and then try to give that piece one more complete revolution to seal properly.  It’s a really cool faucet from Kingston Brass, chrome plated and everything so you can’t just grab on to it with a pipe wrench and crank away!  Used some scrap pieces of wood to protect it from the jaws and after the second attempt everything lined up and was water-tight.  Little bit of shimming to one leg to compensate for some unevenness in the tile floor and now that the stand is attached to the wall and we’re good to go.

Another project was coming up with a set up to photograph my work for the Etsy store.  I’ve been getting a good number of sales and likes lately but my inventory is running low.  Since photographs are all that people see I feel they need to be good and have a consistent theme to be recognizable as your own work.  I’ve always used burlap for my background so wanted to find a way to do this again here in Phoenix.  Using the 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby I purchased a yard and a half of it.  In Las Vegas my work was photographed in an  upstairs bedroom but I wanted to do that in the shop now.  After ironing the burlap it was rolled onto a cardboard tube and suspended on a couple of bar clamps mounted to the assembly table.  Seems to work just fine, here’s what it looks like:

Photography in progress

Clamps to hold roll

Close up of clamps, smaller one is in the tube

Another thing I need to do is now photograph the 15° Box prototype and get that listed on the store.  Also in “convo’s” with someone else on Etsy that is interested in a custom box.  They’re fun to make and help keep my joinery skills up.  Nice to as a source of revenue!

Earring Inspiration

There is a painting Diane completed quite some time ago that features a lady standing in front of a 60’s era Studebaker.  Love the painting and was part of the photo shoot when Diane hired the model.  Anyway, decided it needed a silver frame with an automotive theme of some sort.  Unfortunately the grille which could have been an inspiration isn’t really that inspiring!  I photographed the earring you see on the left thinking that it would be a good choice.  After going through the steps needed to replicate it on a frame corner I decided it was too literal and clunky.  At first I was kind of bummed out thinking that I had spent a considerable amount of time in the project but in the long run it was a good, learning activity.  From sizing it to fit the frame, then making the pattern from a thin piece of plastic, then figuring out which gouge or chisel fit the best, to finally carving it just builds up my skill set.  Here’s a small photo sequence:

Choosing chisels & gouges

Practice corner

Gilded with silver patent leaf

The only silver leaf I had on hand was some patent that was quite old!  Not sure why I had this patent leaf as I really don’t care to work with it.  Hard time releasing from the paper backing and I really do prefer loose leaf.  In any case, you can see that it’s a pretty bold carving, perhaps better suited for a southwestern themed painting.

Any time spent doing what you like is time well spent, even if you don’t always get the results you’re after and life throws you a curve ball.