Chomp!

Time ain't always on my side. Two babies tell me what to do and when to do it. I have 6 lamps I need to make for a dood in Australia. He's being patient, and by that I mean, he didn't reply to my last email that said, "I don't know man... another 4 weeks? 5 weeks?" My mominlaw needs pegboards put up in garage. Nate needs his butt wiped and Claire needs to go to gymboree. And the two cute gymboree nannies that actually talk to me are gonna stop nannying, and leave me with the old grumps. And there are about 12 trees that need to be cut down in the backyard, and hauled out to the street in two days, for "large brush pickup day". In steps my new best friend, the alligator lopper.



My brah Lopper and I did a number on the backyard. A serious serious number. That back fence was mostly invisible, but now very visible after Lopper's chainsaw mouth did its stuff. Sadly, the lopper is not a magic lopper that would make each limb turn to fairy dust as it hit the ground, so he left it up to me to haul to the front yard. Planning on doing this on a Thursday evening, then watching loud rock music that will start at midnight. It's a bad mix, and I know this going in, but after the double nanny dis, an old man needs something to look forward to. And for this old man, it's The Damn Times.

Gittin Horizontal. Gittin Vertical.

Due to our maxed out growing family, our 1300 square foot house, and heavy influx of visitors (mainly of the grandparent variety), we had to add on to our home, and make every square inch work hard. Sometimes pull some double duty. So pa and I built a murphy bed!



AND when it was done, it worked! It goes up. It goes down. It can be slept on. It can be high fived over.



Here's a shot from a post overnight stay.



When guests are away, the desk comes back to life, and the bedroom turns into an office.



Someday there will be a little storage area next to ole Murphy's bed, but only Murphy knows when that will be. He also created this law that deemed Nate shall wake up twice during the night since I'm illin'. You've got a funny way, Murph.

Gettin Bigger and Balder

This was pretty cool yesterday... The kids section of Apartment Therapy, called Ohdeedoh, wrote a little thing on the kitchen I made for Claire. I've been reading that goofy ole blog for years and years, so you know. It's at least pretty cool to me! They said lots of nice things, which is music to my ears, as these days I hear a lot of baby crying and two year old yelling, which is quickly becoming white noise to my ears.

In other "Made for Claire" news, I made this table rather quickly, out of a piece of plywood and an old herman miller swivel chair base I bought at a garage sale about a year ago. I tried really hard make the swivel part not swivel (as the table ends up not level as it spins), but with two year old tyrants, that didn't last. I'm assuming Claire and her hoodlum toddler clan will be throwing this table through her new window soon.

Play Kitchen... REVEALED!

Can you even believe it? I cannot. Baldy is blogging. Don't even know where to begin with the goingson since the last entry one million years ago. Here's the heavily abbreviated version. Christmas came. I made a toy box for my nephew. January came, and we had our second baby- sweet baby Nate. We made room in our house by adding a new bedroom for Claire (see above). I made her a little table, and a kitchenette which I guess is going to get some love here today. Goes like this:

My mom-in-law had these leftover white shelves and molding from an Ikea entertainment center that she gave me. Pa and I just got done building a murphy bed (did I mention I've been busy making murphy beds too?), so we had a bunch of deck screws left over. There was a bit of leftover 1/2 inch plywood from the toy box, so I threw all that into the kitchenette stew.

Some neighbors down the street were throwing out some stuff, and I snagged this corkboard off their driveway, and tacked it to the back of the kitchen. I also had this leftover radiator grill material that I used to make a table lamp, and it magically transformed into the oven door pretty well.

Besides a couple leftover handles and an old towel rack we had lying around, the hinges, spigot knobs, plumbing parts and the oven burner cover/sink all were purchased from the hardware store down the street.

My mom-in-law lives down the street from an Ikea, so I swung by there to pick up the little pots and pans, as well as 4 mouse pads/burners that I saw someone else use when they made their own play kitchen. Claire's pretty into it. Not really in the traditional way I guess, but more in the "Let's-rip-off-the-sink-and-drop-food-down-the-hole-and-retrieve-it-from-the-cabinet" sort of way. Sometimes she puts her fancy lady attire in the kitchen. I'd like she'll still be doing the same thing in about 25 years.

What, am I NOT going to put a picture of this new addition in this post? I'm NOT gonna NOT! More posts to come??? We shall see!

Same Items, Better Pictures?

So I've been needing to take nicer pics of my stuff.



I've been busy. Maybe even too busy to post about this guy I made last! I needed a nightstand, so here's the dood I whupped up.



Also going to put pics in that Plywood book, so I got a new camera, a cheap chinaball light, and a white background.



Also, the Supermarket HQ peep like my stuff, but won't set me up on their site til my pictures, "look better."



Hopefully these pictures will do the trick. If not, I'll open up a photography studio in the spare bedroom.

BaldManLawSuit?

I was cruising the vimeo website watching a superrad video on the guy who makes adrift mobiles, and ended up watching another video by cool Spanish Lampmakers LZF Lamps. At just past 3 minutes into this video, I saw THIS SHOT. Real fast.



Is this for real??? I felt a little bit like I was losing my mind. Those bear a striking resemblance to this guy I've been making in my garage for the past couple years...



I mean, it's just that I came up with the whole shape, and assembly on my own, and I guess it's possible that someone in Spain was doing the same thing at the same time, but... Anyway. I checked out their website to see if this those were available for purchase, but I didn't see that they were. They musta felt that international suit brewing in my gut. Their lamp craftsmanship is way outta my league, so just gimme this brahs! Gotta be too uncanny right?

What Time is It? Plytime.

I've been goofin around with some plywood these days. I cut some strips of it, and made a clock. I was moving em around trying to figure out what might look good. I ended up making the "3" and "9" positions square instead of rectangular like this here.



I also ended up painting the insides of the squares green, for that extra sumpin sumpin factor.



Looks like this clock will end up in this "making stuff from plywood" book put out by Storey Publishing. Details to come on that... Til you learn the ins and outs, you could just buy one off me here in ye olde shoppe.