Woodwork
PLEASE NOTE. I designed and built all of the following items myself. You can do it to if you put your mind to it.
MUSIC STAND WITH CLARINET AND FLUTE HOLDERS.
The music stand I had was flimsy and unreliable. The sheet music kept falling off during page turning. To buy a decent timber Music Stand was going to cost between $300-$400 AUS. So, I set about designing and building one myself. It was built from one 1196mm x 600 x 12mm sheet of hardwood ply board. It only cost me under $70 AUS to build, including hardware.
THREAD STORAGE DRAWER CABINET.
My daughter loves to do cross stitch work and has accumulated a great number of left over threads. They were getting a bit much for her to store, so one day I decided to build a set of drawers for her to store them all in. The unit is loosely based on one that I saw in a catalogue. They wanted over $200 for it. I managed to make it from scraps of pine that I had in my woodwork workshop. It pays not to throw out to many off cuts.
RUSTIC GARDEN SEAT.
Another project where I have made use of left over timber. This seat fits in well beside my man made stream and pond system.
SHEET MUSIC STORAGE SHELVES.
I collect sheet music and I had been keeping it in with all of the books, but it was starting to get a little over crowded in the book shelf. So I decided that my sheet music collection needed a set of shelves of its own. I built it specifically for music with large spaces between the shelving, as some of the older pieces of music were quite large.
CHEVAL MIRROR.
When my daughter left home, I turned her bedroom into the computer and music room where I teach singing. One day I was sitting at the computer when I heard a loud thump. Something in the room had fallen onto the floor. I looked around, but could not work out what had fallen. Then, I walked over to the wardrobe and opened it. As I did, the mirror that had been stuck to the inside of the door for the last twenty years, slowly fell toward me. My reflexes quickly sprang into action and I managed to save it. I had no need for a mirror in this room now, so naturally as it belonged to my daughter, I thought i would give it back to her. Then I thought, "What will she do with a piece of unframed mirror?" That's when the idea came to me. I would give it back to her as a Cheval Mirror.
DVD and VIDEO STORAGE UNIT.
We all accumulate DVD's and I am no different. I stored mine in a drawer in the TV unit. Frankly, they were hard to see and hard to access. So, the only solution was to give them a place to sit where we could see and access them easily. Hence another woodwork project was created.
TWO GLASS DISPLAY CABINETS and VINYL LP RECORD STORAGE UNIT.
Both I and my wife have our little collections. I collect clowns and my wife collects owls. We needed somewhere to display them as they were spread around the house collecting dust. I also had a collection of 300 vinyl LP's that were stacked on the lounge room floor. This was going to be a new experience for me as I had never worked with glass before. I was very happy how it turned out.
BATHROOM TOWEL RAIL.
This was one of the first things that I built for our house. The design is my own. It sits on the wall right over a heating duct. Very nice in the winter to dry yourself with a nicely warmed up towel.
COMPUTER DESK.
When we got our first computer I shopped around for a desk for it, but I was not happy with what I saw. Most of them were badly designed and made from chipboard with a fake veneer covering. So, I set to and designed one to suit our needs.
FACE WASHER RAIL.
A simple little project that gave us a place to put a face washer by the bath.
NIC NAC BOX FOR TOP OF VANITY UNIT IN BATHROOM.
The vanity unit was getting a little messy with all of my wife's make-up, hand lotions, cleansers, and everything else that women use in the bathroom. And it seemed to be getting more all the time. Most of it hardly got used. It just sat there. I just had to do something about it. So I made a box with drawers to put it all in. Magic! No more clutter! Hooray!
KITCHEN WALL CABINET and SHELF.
Another project where there was a need to clear a bench top.
REMOTE CONTROL CADDY.
The remote controls and TV program were always lying where you could not find them. Now when the TV is switched off, the remotes and TV program are all put in this handy little caddy.
BATHROOM WALL CABINET WITH BATH MAT RAIL.
Our medicines and other dangerous items had been stored under the vanity unit. I thought about this and decided that with young children around it was a bit unsafe. This wall cabinet solved the problem and also made them easier to access without bending.
LAUNDRY SHELF OVER CAT LITTER TRAY.
We needed a shelf in the laundry, but the only space left was taken up by the cat litter tray. This little unit houses the litter tray as well as proving our much needed shelf space. When the old cat has gone, I will add more shelves and a door. That won't be for a long time though. She is 19 years old and still going strong.
PICNIC TABLE and PERGOLA IN BACK YARD.
This pergola and picnic table are built from cypress pine. The legs of the table are in the ground and set in concrete. The pergola legs are sitting on stirrups which are set in 600mm of concrete. We are growing Wisteria plants over it. The arch at the end has a Blue Moon Rose climbing over it.
MODEL RAIL COFFEE TABLE.
I am into N scale model rail and I thought I would try my hand at making a coffee table specifically to house a model rail. I have also made another floor for it that I put into it, when I need to take out the model rail to work on it.
My wife displays her china cups and saucers in it when the model rail is absent.
I designed and built all of the above items myself. You can do it to if you put your mind to it.