Carter’s Room

Carter and I completely reworked her room recently - we just finished. We painted the walls, put her old bed back, and tore up the carpet and replaced it with a solid bamboo floor. It's nice and bright in there now. And a lot more girly, as you can see. Not to mention cleaner!


Slide-Out Panty – Part 2

Since the last post on this project I've got the wheels mounted, painted the shelves, and affixed the red oak false front. Although I had some chip-out on the oak front when I routed it flush - I may need to replace it before I'm done.


Camp Knife – Part 3

I got the handle on and polished the blade a few weeks ago. Next I've got to work on a sheath - right now I am protecting the blade with a cardboard blade cover I cut from a cereal box.


Haiku

Sean is doing a poetry unit at school, and his most recent assignment was to write a Haiku. He showed me what he wrote, and (I'm sure there is some parental bias at work here, but hey!) I really liked it. Here it is - he entitled it "Jellyfish".

Jelly in water
Sees the light by the bright sun -
and glows like a gem.

Slide-Out Panty – Part 1

I'm building a slide-out pantry to fit in the gap between our refrigerator and the wall on it's right. It will give us a great place to store our spices so that they are much easier to see - right now they are in a normal cabinet next to the stove, where all but the ones in front are impossible to see. This pantry will make use of some space that is currently wasted anyway. I'm going to veneer an oak panel on the front of it to blend it in with the rest of the cabinets - so it looks like it's always been there.

Photobomb

Carter made a leprechaun trap for St. Patrick's Day to try and catch herself a leprechaun. I tried to take a picture of it for the blog, and Sean photobombed it!


Camp Knife – Part 2

I got the bevels filed, and the blade sanded to get rid of the file marks. At this point it is ready for heat-treating. (In reality, I am currently a lot further along on this knife than these photos show - I just haven't caught up with photos yet. Stay tuned for an update that shows the real status.)


Backpack Breakdown – Part 5



A: This patch is from an old Nickolodeon show the kids and I really got into - Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was an awesome show - it's one of the only cartoons I've ever seen that had really story arcs, and an over-arching story arc that carried across all three seasons. I would recommend it to anyone - kid or adult alike. This patch is the symbol of the Air Nomads, one of the four elemental factions in the show. I have patches for all four kingdoms - I just haven't put the rest on yet.

B: This patch came from Crawford Notch State Park in the White Mountain National Forest. It's one of my favorite places to hike, and it's where my love of hiking first started.

C: Boldt Castle is a spot Carter and I visited on her road trip last year. The castle is situated on Heart Island in the middle of the St. Laurence River. It's in the process of being restored, but you can wander the entire castle - even the sections that have yet to be restored at all. We had to take a boat shuttle out to the castle, which Carter thought was pretty cool.

D: I found these heart patches on Etsy. They are the health bar from the original Zelda game on the NES - one of my favorite games of all time.

E: This one came from the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey. It was one of the stops on Sean's road trip last year. Pretty nice aquarium, actually - I liked it better than Boston's. Sean really dug the shark tunnel.