I’m about to start a new construction project and it reminded me that I’ve done a few random projects and not posted about them at all… So, here’s a rundown of the small stuff…
Fixed the dimmer that didn’t work well for 20+ years…
In our dining room there was a weird dimmer switch that had a touch plate that was supposed to adjust by sliding your finger on it or something. It didn’t work right for two reasons. First, if you tapped it it was supposed to just turn on the light, it would often fail at this or leave the light flickering on and off. Second, I could find no reliable way to control the dimming with it, it either went full on suddenly or off to flickering… We lived with it since we moved into the house and I kept meaning to have and electrician replace it. Finally I got the courage together to replace the damn thing. It was actually very easy and the instructions for the new dimmer were very clear. The new dimmer is the proper rating for the LED lights in the fixture and had a normal on-off switch and slider for dimming. The hardest part was finding the circuit that this light was on, it wasn’t on anything labeled in our box as “dining room” and turned out to be on the circuit with the basement and some of the outlets in the kitchen ( wtf? ).
A normal functioning dimmer for the dining room…
Fix the split in the front foyer door
Our front foyer door developed a split in the wood near the door knob a few ( 10, 15, who knows… ) years ago. And I attempted to glue it in the past and failed and had since just had some masking tape over it to prevent it catching on things. Don’t judge me. Recently, I cut out the damaged wood, made a patch and glued and fastened the patch in place with brads and sanded it flush with the original door. I even painted it to mostly match.
Got the paper towel off the counter
For a couple of decades our paper towel in the kitchen has been on a vertical dispenser on the counter. I’ve always regretted that dispenser since it was always in the way or behind something. Also, it would move when you tried to pull paper towel off of it. I built a dispenser that could mount to the underside of the cabinet to solve this problem. It is better ( not perfect ) for one handed use, and it solves all the other problems. I used some old book shelf material I had in the scrap pile to build it and I painted it to match the cabinets.
Converted Dana’s bike to grip shift
Even after the complete overhaul and rebuild last year, the shifters on Dana’s bike weren’t working correctly and they were making it hard for her to ride. I got some off the shelf grip shifters and replacement brake levers and replaced the original Shimano stuff. They work great and I was also able to adjust the pull on the brakes to make them a lot more aggressive. The shifters work with any Shimano drivetrain as long as it is a 3x7 setup. I also finally understood derailleur adjustment and was able to dial in the shifting. I got these cool purple grips as well that match the bike frame.
Converted all of the lights in the basement to LED from fluorescent and added a bunch
I have wanted to add more lighting to the basement ( where my workshop is ) and had been dreading trying to lure an electrician out here to do a small job. One day I noticed that there was an old dead fixture up in the joist bay and it was still wired in to the main light switch in the basement. I removed it and got rid of it and converted that wiring to be a switched outlet. I then got these cool four foot LED shop lights that can daisy chain. I was able to add a bunch of them with no issues. Now I can see what I’m doing in the workshop which is wonderful.
I also replaced the old fluorescent bulbs in the existing fixtures with LED conversion bulbs
Next project, shop expansion to do the next next project
After the hall cabinet project I realized that I needed some additional tools to do nicer and more precise projects more easily. I said that I would wait until I came up with a plan for another “upstairs quality” project and then I would expand the shop to do that one. The next next project that came up was to build a custom folding bed/couch for the guest room/library upstairs. It will have a storage chest as the headboard to store bedding and other linens and such. I’ve got the design drawn up and it will allow us to move from a “full” size futon bed to a “queen” size bed in our library. This will be nice for guests and for us since sometimes when one of us has a cold we sleep in there to let the other one get some rest. I’m also going to build some storage into the base as well.
But first I need to expand the shop so I got a nice sliding compound miter saw, a table saw on a folding rolling stand, a drill press, and a belt and disk sanding station. I’m going to build a miter saw bench that will also support the drill press and sanding station. The table saw folds up and gets stored across the room and most likely used in my garage since it won’t be much use in my shop space.
Picture a bench under these tools with a pegboard behind them and eight drawers underneath them ( I really need the storage ) and a nice 30x30 work surface at the end. The front edge of the bench will be kept clear and the miter saw recessed so that it’s deck is flush with the bench top and thus will form the infeed and outfeed for the miter saw. I’m even going to put T-track into the bench top with a removable stop and an embedded ruler on the infeed side for quick measuring and repeated cuts.
Ok, that’s the update, I’ll post about the shop project soon… I’m waiting for materials to be delivered today!