Creating a Workshop & Home

[andrewj]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Nat,

It will be poorly done, with lots of imperfections. The look I want is unskilled third world labor.

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The look you want is the one I always end up with!

 

[EddieWalker]

My dozer in down, it's raining out and I've been procrastinating long enough on these stairs. No more excuses, it's time to get some railings up!!!

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

I left the header exposed above the breakfast bar where the vaulted ceiling in the family room meets the normal ceiling in the kitchen. Before I can do the railing on the stairs, I have to do the beam, than I can wrap the post and finally I can put in the railings.

I had this idea that I'd cut out the insides of a 2x8 and slide it over the header. This is one of those ideas that sounded easier than it turned out to be. After doing this, I realize it wasn't the smartest of my ideas. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

This picture gives you an idea of how it slides over the header and ties into the post. The finished result is amazing, but the process was pretty bad.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

I had this idea of using rebar for the spindles on the railing and painting them black. This is one of those ideas that I was unsure about and part of my stalling on finishing this project. It might have looked alright, but it also had a good chance of looking aweful. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Last week at Lowes I saw they have a new brand of spindles for ourtoor decks. They cost $26 for five which is more than I planned on spending, but they were perfect!!! I bought five boxes.

The rest is just standard lumber stained to match the ceiling and beams in the family room.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Upstairs I just finished off a post to match downstairs so everything matches.

Eddie

 

[bmac]

Eddie,

You are quite the craftsman. That railing looks great. And, although they cost more than rebar, I think you made a good choice on the spindles. Rebar may have been a bit too "industrial" looking.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks bmac!

Way back when I was framing the stairs out I new storage was going to be an issue. No home has enough storage, and small ones are just that much tougher to find places to keep things.

The space under the stairs was a good area to create storage, but it was kind of tricky. I had to spend allot of extra time framing in the openings that I had no idea of what I was going to do with.

This weekend I decided it was time to finish these openings off. My plan all along has been to put doors on them and maybe some shelves to split up the space.

Than while in the bathroom, I had a thought. Why not create sliding drawers like I did on the bed??? All of a sudden it all made sense.

I bought some wheels for moving appliances and built some boxes out of half inch plywood that will roll in and out.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

This was the biggest space I had to work with. I decided to create two seperate drawers. Each one is 21 inches wide and two feet tall. The bottom part is accessable from the sides and is 12 inches tall.

The advantage to haveing the whole thing roll out is how easy it is to access whats in there. Shelves and doors would have forced us to crawl into the space to store things. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

To be honest with everyone, this space was what I thought would be used for the air conditioner return. It seemd to me a perfect spot for it at the time, but the HVAC guy I used had different ideas.

The kids adapted it to a storage spot for their shoes. It's worked wll for that, so I made a shoe rack that slides in and out.

Eddie