Doll bed #2

Doll bunk bed

Here's Afton's American Girl doll bed.  Avery is next.

Girl Scout bridging ceremony bridge

I was tasked with building a bridge to represent Avery's girl scout troop 'bridging' from Daisies to Brownies.  It's made from a 2x10, a few old pallets and some reclaimed hand rail spindles.

The rope ends are epoxied into the spindle.  Hopefully it holds up.

Another rubber band gun

This one is a 4 shot gun I made for my nephew.

Semi-auto rubber band gun

Here is my latest rubber band gun.  It's a 3 shot semi-automatic.  Shannon, this is one of your two so I hope the boys like it as I'm out of time.

Baby rattle

A guy at work is having a baby so I thought I would make him a baby rattle.  Who knows, his kid may like it too.  It's hard to make walnut look good without any finish.  I just used wax so it could be safely chewed on.  This one is also not as rounded as I would like.  I'm going to try a different one sometime.

Another Harry Potter wand

Here's another Harry Potter wand I made for my niece Claudia.  I tried to copy the wand used by Bellatrix.  In total I've seen about 12 seconds of Harry Potter.  This was simply an accident when flipping through channels.  Turns out I picked one of the more evil characters to replicate.

Made from walnut, stained with dark walnut, and finished with lacquer.  This was also my first, angled, round mortise and tenon.  It turned out ok.

Bunk bed with desk, shelves and drawers

While I was home alone I spent almost the entire time building a new bed for Afton.  I wanted it complete so I could surprise her when she got home.  I got the plans from ana-white.com and modified them a bit.  This was more work than I thought.  I worked a few full evenings then spent 2 straight 14 hour days in the shop.  I didn't get it quite done but it was enough to surprise her.

Afton loves the new bed (Avery and Drew do too).

The left side will get 5 drawers.

The desk will get 2 drawers too.

The ladder is temporary.  I'll make a nicer one later.

Swing between 2 trees

Even though we got this enormous play set, I still wanted to build the kids a separate set of swings.... for several reasons.  You couldn't use the swings and monkey bars at the same time.  That was the cause of many fights.  The swings were just too low, no fun, and the swing beam itself has seen better days.  It has a crack and makes some unsettling noises.

Dad and I put together this wonder of mechanical engineering.  The swings are about 9' tall and provide much more enjoyment than those dinky play set swings.

Play set updates

Here is the play set after a coat of stain.  It took my niece Morgan about 3 seconds to figure out that the top of the monkey bars are more fun and dangerous than the under side.

Hey dad, thanks for coming to visit... now get to work.  Dad offered to help shingle the roof of the play house.

And here is the finished product, stained and shingled.

Swing set day 3

The swing set is assembled and the kids are loving it.  It looks much better than it did when I first seen it.  I still plan to stain it but for now the kids can have at it.  This thing was $5000 brand new 8 years ago.  $600 bucks and a few days work seems like a good deal now that it's moved.

Swing set day 1

Here is the swing set after 1 day of staining and assembly.  My plan was to stain everything before putting it together but we ran out of stain.  I want this thing out of my garage so I'll just stain later.

Swing set

I've been wanting to build a swingset and tree house for the girls but it wasn't moving along fast enough.  Miranda spotted this beast while out garage saling and we got it for a steal.  So my next project is to move this thing 1/4 mile, pressure wash, stain, and re-assemble. 

This actually came apart much faster than I thought it would.  I was able to move the thing in one day.  I'm sure the neighbors loved to see this coming down the road.

This is what I have pressure washed so far.  It's out back waiting for stain.

This is my lastest Harbor Freight purchase.  I put it right to work before even adding the handle and wheels.  It's running like a champ so far.

More under-deck fun

New sandbox for the kiddos

This morning I built this ginormous sandbox for the kids.  It has a fold up top so it doesn't turn into an animal toilet when not in use.  When unfolded it has benches for the kids.  It's kind of ugly cause it's made from treated lumber, leftover stained cedar, one piece of composite decking (18" short of material), and 3 different types of hinge.  Eventually I'll stain it and replace the odd piece of composite decking, but for now it's getting good use.  There is 1350 pounds of sand in this thing.