Squirrel Picnic table

I made the first one of these at the start of the Covid shutdown and we had great fun waiting for the squirrels to come. They were surprisingly happy to take a seat on the bench and eat pretty much anything we put out. The picture on the left was Mother's Day and I had only witness crows taking the food so far so I put out some extra peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Within minutes the squirrel was there instead. I should also mention that at the time we thought our squirrel was a male but we soon realized it was female so we had a squirrel mother for Mother's Day tea.

It takes less than an hour to go from a fence board to a table and I actually tend to make them in batches. Two 5' 1x6 cedar fence boards will make three tables. The sizes of the tops are fixed and the widths of everything else can adjust as necessary depending on how wide your 1x6 is. I use 1 inch #6 screws to assemble everything though you can just use brads.

Parts

1. 7 pieces – 1 7/8” x 8” 
2. 2  pieces – 1 ½” 12”
3. 2 pieces – 5/8” x 5/8” x 5”
4. 4 pieces – 1 ½” x 5” cut at 22.5 degrees

Assembly

1. Attach part 3 one inch in from the ends to three part 1’s to create the top. Centre part 3 across the three pieces.
2. Attach two part 4’s to each side leaving a 3/8 in gap in between.
3. Attach 2 part 2’s to the inside of the legs 1 ½ inches up from the bottom.
4. Attach 2 part 1’s to each side to make the seats.

I attached mine to the side of my fence but you could also put it on a post.

A Quick and Easy Desk

Ordinarily when I do a piece of furniture I do it with proper joinery and I try to make it to last forever. Covid has recently forced me to work from home and after borrowing desks from other family members for several months and no end for Covid in sight I felt it was time for me to have my own desk. I had limited space to put it and it was where I have to sit all day so I needed something practical. The width (36 inches) was set by the space I had, the depth (26 inches) was set by my desk at work which allowed me to have a monitor a certain distance away from me and the height (30 inches) was typical for the desks I already had.

I mentioned that I usually do proper joinery but for this desk I wasn't really sure on the design so I decided to to with simple screws with filled holes and a painted finish. This meant a quick build and if I don't like it I'm not out much time. The whole thing took a weekend. The last piece of the puzzle was the keyboard tray I got off of Amazon that took a few days to arrive. I made the width a bit bigger than I was going to because it had to fit the tray. A few decorative angle supports allowed it to fit perfectly and it needed the 26 inch depth. I have a wire chase in the back and it just fit in front of that.

Since this was going to be my all day desk I decided to splurge on a curved monitor which was much bigger than my last one. Even when we go back to work I can still use this on days I work from home so it might as well be easy on the eyes. Since this was a painted finish I went with a permanent monitor mount. This cleared up space on the desktop and made sure I had a nice secure mount for the monitor. I finished things up with a grommet for wires and one with a plugin with USB outlets. I now have virtually no wires on top and the thing is quite comfortable for working all day with the reduced blue light curved monitor and keyboard tray.

Squirrelly Whirligig

I have always liked whirligigs. It started with my grandmother who had several plastic windmill style ones as well as a few birds with spinning wings. At one point in university I made a goose whirligig with spinning wings but my goal has always been to make one with a bit more going on. I like the ones where when the propeller turns it makes a creature on top do something interesting. The classic is the logger chopping down a tree but another common one is some sort of teeter totter action which is what I went with here.

I have always been scared of the creation of the propeller but in hindsight it's really not that complicated. I have a book on whirligig to help me out and the hub just starts as a perfect square with some diagonal slots cut in it and a hole in the middle. It was a bit tricky getting the slots right in the middle of each side and I also had to make sure the width fit the plywood I had which was a bit under 1/4 inch. Once you've cut the slots and drilled the a disc the sander takes care of shaping the circle. The propellers are all just a simple propeller shape and I taped them together so I could sand them all to size at the same time.

The final complex bit was the mechanism that does the turning. I had some 1/8 inch brass rod as well as a tap and die set so creating the rod that I could attach everything to was fairly simple. The element I didn't know was how long it had to be. It took a bit of trial and error to create the rod, install it and then bend it to shape. Since I put the hole through solid wood I had to bend it in the whirligig which was a bit awkward. The rocker arm should have been 1/16 brass but I only had a coat hanger so I'll have to do that a bit better later. That length was hard to guess at as well. As with any project if I had to make it again, many steps would be much easier.

The motion of the propeller transfers to a see saw for a couple of 'squirrels'. Because I had to make everything balance nicely I ended up with the rocker arm a bit forward back than I wanted. This meant there is a bit less teeter to the totter. Ideally next time I would move that back about an inch and then the motion of the spinning would transfer closer to the middle on the teeter resulting in more totter. (If any of that makes sense.) My son designed and painted the squirrels. They are Homer Simpson if he was a squirrel. I think they look great but obviously you could replace them with any character you want. I'm thinking my next one will be something Halloween themed, maybe with spooky lights. 

Dog End Table

This project started about a year ago. We bought a new BBQ and my son made a dog house out of the box it came in. He sized it to fit his dog mattress and we were quite surprised when the dog decided he loved it. This was fun for a while but soon we grew tired of a taped together cardboard box sitting in our family room. The roof was coming apart and we had started trying to store things on top of it. A cardboard dog house is not a good end table so it was time to design something a bit more practical. This was another exercise in Google Image Search and although I found several I liked I was not quite satisfied with any of them.

I had a bunch of poplar and baltic birch plywood so I wanted something painted. I had recently watched the remake of "Mad About You" and their apartment has some great wood furniture. Their kitchen has a nice blue with butcher block top so I decided I would try something similar. The dimensions were based on the dog mat I found which was 20x30 and the height was based a bit on the width but also based on how high our couch was. I split the height between a solid wood panel and the dowel bars. I wanted it open but I also wanted it to feel cozy. We choose not to have a door because I think our dog would just attempt to chew his way out and that wasn't really the goal anyways. The hardest element was that I wanted to use spray paint because of the dowel bars. Most spray paint I could find was more in the primary colour family but I eventually found a 'Chalk' spray paint called 'Coastal Blue'. I originally wanted to go with quarter-sawn white oak for the top but I was on a bit of a deadline and didn't have time to get to the wood yard so I had to settle for quarter sawn fir from my local Windsor Plywood. The top is finished with Minwax Wipe on Poly. The dog loves it.

Night Stand With Open Shelf

First we'll start with the design process. My favourite way to design is to put the basic parameters of what I"m looking to do into Google Image Search and to copy every picture that I like into a single folder on my desktop. I don't necessarily have to like everything about the picture but if there is a specific element I like like a foot rail or a side view I copy it. This can sometimes take weeks and I often have to use the Google feature where you see one picture you like and then select 'See More' to see similar images. In this case the input criteria were;
1) Night stand
2) Open shelf
3) Oak
4) Drawers
5) Grey
This particular night stand was for my son Carter and he was specifically interested in something that was grey and had an open shelf.

The overall dimensions were based on another night stand that I had that at the time seemed well proportioned. In hindsight I really should have decided to go taller. When I made the previous set of night stands we had an older mattress set that was quite low. Since that time, it seems that mattresses and box springs have gotten taller. My key message here is to pick a height that matches your bed and then create proportions that look good. My dimensions ended up being 24 inches tall with a top that was 16 inches deep and 19 inches wide. The posts are 1 3/4 and the the drawer fronts were sized to match the wood I had with the remaining space going to the open shelf. Construction was mortise and tenon with a dovetailed top rail. All of the panels are 1/4 inch plywood. I had originally planned on doing round pulls but we found some nice handles at the hardware store and switched last minute. The one element I wasn't super happy with was putting plywood in the open shelf area. I choose to just place it against the outside plywood. If I did it again I think I would have it cover the rails for a cleaner look.

The finish was a grey Minwax stain with a Minwax wipe on poly. I use the wipe-on poly all the time and I love it. I just have to remember to keep each coat very thin or it can drip. The stain from Minwax is the bane of my existence. I often use it on oak and it never works out well. It soaks into the poor and then bleeds for days. I've had good experiences with aniline dies. It's more forgiving and doesn't bleed so you can move to the finish coat much quicker. I really must remember to stop buying the Minwax wipe on stain and preferably will just avoid staining in general. The client however wanted grey so we went with the stain.

I wasn't too sure about the open shelf when it was first presented but in the end I think it was a great idea. This way you can have your water, clock,  lamp and glasses on top and hide your books in an easy to access nook.

Garden Swing

This past summer we removed an old playhouse which I didn't build that had reached end of life. If I had built it myself I might have considered saving it. This left an area of our backyard that was lower than the rest of the yard and looked quite blank. The decision was made to put in a small retaining wall in the back, a curbed area surrounding a garden and a pergola with a swing. The hardest part was clearing out some excess soil in the garden area and adding in some gravel as a solid base for the curbing. The retaining wall was just a single block and was made with channel block filled with concrete. It works great as its easy to construct with limited equipment.

The swing was from a plan from Lee Valley. I've wanted to do some Adirondack style benches for a while and this hanging swing seemed like a good start. Since it's such an established style I didn't see the need to try to design my own. The plans were pretty easy to use though I found the templates weren't always the right size. I chose cedar for materials because it was a cheap option from the home centre. For my next chair I'm planning on something longer lasting like white oak or cypress. I used a solid stain that has worked well for me and the hardware was all from the home centre. A nice quick project.

The final piece of the puzzle was the pergola. No real plans here. I sized it to fit the space and wanted something that I could grow vines up the side. I found some stainless steal 6x6 mesh that I drilled holes in the posts to fit. It seems quite sturdy and shouldn't rust. The only troubles I had were with attaching the post anchors. I was in a hurry with the concrete and didn't put them in at that time. Instead I drilled and used epoxy to set them later. I waited a month so drilling wasn't easy. The other thing I wasn't thrilled about was the height. I think the full 8 foot posts are a bit tall. We'll see how it looks once the vines fill in.

Bat House

When I was building my shed a few years ago I briefly thought that the gables would be a perfect spot to place a bat box. At the time I assumed bats were not that common where I lived. We're in the city on the coast of Canada and I had never seen any evidence of bats in our area. This changed last year when I was in my living room watching TV. Something fluttered in from outside and at first I thought it was just a fly, then it seemed bigger and I assumed a butterfly. Things got dicy as it got closer as it was now more bird sized but flying in a rather erratic matter. It was a bat! My gable and local wildlife were now coming together for my next project.

I am not a bat expert and I only just built this so I have no idea if it will be successful or not. I got the basic design from www.bcbats.ca. I took two of their plans to come up with my own design. My criteria were
1) I wanted it to have chance for success so bigger than a single chamber.
2) I didn't want it too big.
3) It was going to be installed on my shed so I wanted the back piece to help with the install in a way that would not damage my siding.
4) I am a woodworker so I wanted there to be slightly more craftsmanship than some of the plans I was finding online.

The back piece is about 38 inches long by 18 inches wide. This allowed for a roosting space of about 18 by 24 plus the top triangle bit for attaching at the eaves where I have some trim that I can easily patch if I remove it. It also allowed for a landing strip of a little over 4 inches at the bottom. The back piece is 1/2 inch plywood and I had a scrap piece of 3/4 inch plywood for the front. The interior slats are 3/8 and the sides are made out of 2x6s. I felt I would end up with a much longer lasting product if I did 2x6 with dadoes. I also dadoed the back piece where the roof attaches. This should help make it more waterproof.

I cut grooves in the bottom landing strip as well as the first couple inches of all the partitions and front piece. All areas are 7/8 inch wide. I figure once the bat gets in the tiny space they need less grip. It's all rough saw plywood so they can shimmy. I also included some holes in the top of the partitions so they can move between chambers. I was lucky enough to have some charcoal coloured paint from a previous project so it heats up in the sun. The last item was the most important part. The bat signal. How else will the bats know it's intended for them? The whole project took about 4 hours from start to finish. Looking forward to shining a flashlight inside during the day and seeing beady little eyes.