Introducing Jack's Little Brother: The DeWalt 780. Plus: Hardwood!

Well, the sliding compound miter saw of my dreams (literally) has finally arrived.  I think I'm going to call him Walter White (don't worry, this has nothing to do with the meth underworld).  And after sweet talking the guy at Home Depot into a free $200 stand, we couldn't be more pleased with our newest family member.

And what, you may ask, does this positively beautiful machine allow us to do, aside from my abundant furniture aspirations??  Why, install hardwood floors, of course!

In a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Chris and I were able to snag some hand-scraped, Cognac Acacia hardwood flooring.  I won't lie, there may have been some cheek-to-wood nuzzling upon opening the first box.  I've been just so obsessed with how gah-geous wood grain is, this was particularly gratifying.

SO, since my papa and brother were nice enough to come up and help us all day Saturday (and my mum and sis-in-law were nice enough to Jack wrangle), we were able to finish the kitchen (living room achievement yet to be unlocked).

At a few points we had all three saws going: miter saw, table saw, and scroll saw.  And I don't mind telling you that I was the designated Saw Safety Nazi.  Maybe it's because having a baby makes you reevaluate mortality as well as how great it is to have hands, but good heavens, men sometimes need a refresher.  S'alls'I'm'Sayin. 

So here are some before shots of our kitchen and living room.  Oooh that linoleum was niiiiice and all, I know.  I was actually really sad to pull the carpet up, though (so much so that I made a man do it).  I just can't stomach ruining things that are in decent shape.

And the beauty of this hardwood is that it's the kind that's super easy (relatively) to install, i.e., we could just lay it on top of the linoleum and didn't need glue or nails to keep it in place.  So step one was to lay the underlayment.  And boyo, the guy who sells that stuff must wake up laughing.  I would say it's essentially the foamy cellophane that stuff comes wrapped in, you know, the stuff you throw away, except this stuff cost us $150 bones. And to this, I say:

Anywho, here's the first strip of cellophane fancy underlayment:

And then you lay and lay and lay.  And measure, and cut, and lay, and measure, and cut, and lay, until you're certain you won't sleep that night with all the measuring, cutting, and laying swimming around in your head.

And then you get creative about the space under the dishwasher, oven, and fridge, because come on, no one will ever look under there, so why waste delicious hardwood.  And man, I wish I could show you a good picture of this one particular joint at a cabinet--it was my finest scroll sawing moment to date--but it's too small to see...so... maybe you should come see it in person... It's pretty important to me... And Christian had some pretty tender moments with the table saw, too.

And be sure to get baby approval.  This floor is 100% Jack Approved.  Ps, there were other people helping, too, of course.  Christian's camera just always seems to gravitate towards me.  Me and fine meats...

And then BAM.  One Saturday down and kitchen done. But living room is a mess... which I can't stand...  So part two will have to happen quickly.

Sigh, I just love it so much.  Maybe my calling in life is laying hardwood floors.  And buying big, succulent power tools...

Poly Clay Box - No Amputation

So this was from my box experimenting days...  And it turns out it's a good idea to have ruuully nice blades when cutting thicker wood (i.e., 2 inches).  You know how I hate getting startled?  Well, even worse than a balloon popping near your face is your saw blade breaking mid cut.  Cuz your fingers are RIGHT. THERE.  And it takes you a second to make sure they're all still attached.  Good heavens, it's a horrific ordeal for jumpy people like me.  SO...top-o'-the-line blades are on the immediate wish list and box making shall continue!  I'm thinking fish boxes next.  Because, you know, what's wrong with a fish box?  Absolutely nothing.

 This particular box was covered with some experimental polymer clay techniques.  Ahhh, polymer clay.  So much less likely to cause accidental amputation...

Botched Boxes

So I was going to try making and selling boxes on Etsy, but it turns out boxes take foreeeeever to make.  And you can buy factory-made ones for super cheap... And then I had the bright idea to make a polymer clay inlay.  So no, that's not just painted on there (although that would have taken *Dr. Evil voice* ONE MILLION fewer hours); I cut out the wood letters and then stuffed some polymer clay in there and covered it with a clay design that I thought would show up better.  And it was going to be soooo much cooler before I sanded too much and had to redo the whole inlay.  Siiiiigh... this is indeed a learning process.

And in this shot, I was going for the lone, pensive box, pondering life's mysteries as the sun sets... 

Celtic knot: Infinity or something something...

Oh hey, so I made a knot. A Celtic knot.  Out of wood.  Typically, when one is making something as immutable as a wooden wall hanging symbol, the underlying meaning should be at least topically investigated.  However, not wanting to invest the 15 seconds of a Google search, I shall let it remain a mystery to me.  I think it probably has something to do with infinity... or racial tension...or something...

Anywho, this guy took me a while to complete.  I wanted to give it some depth as if the wood were going over and under itself.  So after a good deal of painter's tape, Vaseline, spray paint and time, I give you the Celtic Knot of Ambiguous Meaning.

Mustard Yellow!!!

While in this picture it very much looks like gold,  I nevertheless got some mustard yellow paint--booyah!  (Disclaimer: I would not advise consuming actual mustard at any point--ever.  Very toxic.  Very disgusting.  Very yellow.)  I've been wanting to justify buying more paint, and a customer's request settled it.  I kinda want to go paint everything yellow now.  How utterly pleasing.

PS- This little number is distressed with a medium chestnut under the yellow. 

Finished Finishes

I finally finished my finishes collage...   DARN.  There's no synonym for collage that starts with an F...  Alliteration fffail.

Font Ideas

{We interrupt the usual tone of this blog to post some font options linked from Etsy.}

Etsy folks, some things to keep in mind when selecting a font:

•  The thinner the font style, the weaker (easier to break) the finished product will be.  While I can cut pretty thin fonts, we should both worry about the finished product making it to you in one piece after shipping (despite a plethora of bubble wrap and a mail carrier with the best intentions of caution).
• Words containing certain letters that hang below the "line" (such as lower case "y" "g" "q" "p" and "j") will not stand up evenly on a flat surface on their own (but would still be dandy hanging on a wall).
• Cursive-type fonts typically don't look great in all capital letters (like if you're trying to avoid that lower case 'y' messing things up).
• Letters will be scooted closer to each other so that an entire word can be cut out in one chunk (unless you're wanting individual letters cut separately).
• I can do just about anything from fontsquirrel.com or dafont.com as long as it's a thick enough font and listed as "free" or "public domain" on dafont.  (Everything is free to use on fontsquirrel.)  Just keep the above bullet items in mind when selecting :)
• Below are some ideas of fonts that would work well:

Fer fun!