New Site!

Arpcollective.com is the new home for all things ARP Woodworking! It's a wonderful site that i am very proud of. This blog will unfortunately be no longer the home for my work progress and thoughts. But have no fear! At arpcollective.com there is a section title Blogcollective that will be the new place all of this. 

Please take a minute or two to visit and explore amd see all the different sides of ARP and the ARP Collective. 

Wyatt's New Room

New baby on the way equals a busy time for a new father. But I'm getting things marked off the list! One major task off the "honey-do" list was his nursery. I had very large dreams for things to build for my son. But decided to simplify my life a bit and be a little more realistic about what I should do.

In my previous post I shared the corner bookshelves I made for him. Here are a couple little artistic fun accents I made. Reclaimed wood arrows and a reclaimed wood picture frame. 

The arrows (image on the top) are made out of reclaimed cedar fencing, nice and weathered. I clear coated them to protect the look and wrapped twine around the end. The mounting clips I used let them stand off the wall just a bit. The W we found at an antique shop in Wimberley, TX. It was unfinished and pretty heavily rusted when we got it so I have it a good sanding and nice new paint job. The beautiful dream catcher was hand made by a wonderful friend of mine, the amazingly talented Savannah King. She has an Etsy shop that should definitely be checked out. Visit her online at www.etsy.com/shop/ShopThirdEye

As for the picture frame (below the arrows), I came across a bunch of discarded base molding and chair rail molding. It was all in great condition and solid oak. The glue and nails were an easy clean up. I used some of the chair rail as my frame pieces. Once together I painted it and then sanded to give it that "antique" look. It is simply hung with a picture clip attached to the back. The Bear head I unfortunately had nothing to do with. It was another amazing Etsy find. If you're looking for some great faux taxidermy Wall Charmers are the people to go see. www.etsy.com/shop/WallCharmers

It's a lot of fun working on little things like these. They definitely add a lot to Wyatt's room. Hopefully he loves them as much as I do. 

Floating shelves for a kids room.

Just installed new shelves in my son's room. Each shelf is built as one L with a front and sides.  They are made out of 1/2" birch plywood, 26" long in either direction and 4" deep. The front lip is 2" high to keep all the books from sliding off the shelves and to hide the cleat underneith. 

I created a design that doesn't use any nails or screws. Glue and biscuits are holding them together. I wanted a design that could be built out of any materials. I think they would look great in oak with a natural finish. The ones that I built for My son Wyatt were painted with a water based kid safe paint. 

Things to do with extra time on your hands...

It's been a little slow around the shop after a busy couple months. Slow time gives me time to play around with some ideas and busy times leave lots of wood scraps laying about. So, i made myself new custom case for my ipod. 

 

Music is something i consider essential while working in the shop. I usually work alone so it helps drown out the loud noises and helps keep my mind open and not too focused on o e particular thing. I also like having a soundtrack to my projects. 

For this little guy i took some 3/16" maple used for cabinet backs and some 3/8" maple strips that i couldn't bare to throw away and glued them up with the help of a few pin nails. You can't see it in this picture but before i glued the face down i lined the inside with some fabric from my rag box. I think it was one of my wife's old shirts. 

After it was dry i sanded it up snice and used some left over stain and top coat for protection. Cutting out the holes for the screen and circular bottom was the hardest part. Tried once with a jig saw and basically destroyed it. Wound up using a coping saw for a finer cut. 

And there it is. My own custom case. The top is open so i can just slip the ipod out if it needs charging. 

Mahogany Conference Tables

 I recently finished one of the most difficult projects I've done in a long time. The two images to the left is 1 of 3 mahogany conference table I built for the Stephen Austin Hotel in Austin, Texas.

They were designed to be used as separate tables or to be locked together to form one long conference table. But because of the size restrictions due to the tight corridors in the hotel, the sides had to be able to fold down for easy storage and maneuverability. Adding to that maneuverability are the adjustable and locking

casters mounted underneath. In addition, each table is equipped with two to three power outlets.

The top, as well as the base and post, is mahogany veneer on an MDF substrate, The edges of the table are solid mahogany.

The biggest challenge for me was keeping everything consistent. I found it beneficial to build each section together as I went along. All the bases were built together, all the top sections were built together, etc. But When it came time to put them together I had to focus on one table and use it as the guinea pig (so to speak) then assemble the remaining to, solving any problems that had arisen along the way. To add an extra element of difficulty to the final assembly, all the pieces had to be stained and finished.

I am very happy with how they turned out. The hardest part about building a piece I care so much about is sending it out of the shop to it's new home. Hopefully the Stephen Austin Hotel finds as much joy with them as I did in making them.

The Big Turquoise Reception Desk.

For the past week i've been working on a reception desk for a store in Houston. Today I put the final touches on it. The whole piece is three sided, like a large U. Here are two of the pieces. It's painted high-gloss turquoise with an inlayed glass top (not seen here unfortunately), which is painted white.

To make sure the high gloss was consistent on the whole surface it had to be mostly finished before the units were assembled. This made for an interesting build today. I think it turned out pretty nice.

Dining Room Table

Here is a first for me. This is the very first dining room table I have ever built. I was a little nervous about taking on this project but am so glad I did it. It was a lot of fun and and super challenging. I learned a lot building it.

The whole thing is built out of pine. The top is strips glued together, planed and sealed. I notched the legs together and joined them with the center beam. I used a wood dowel to hold the whole thing together. You can see a detail of that below.

When my wife and I started talking about this project we had several different design ideas. We both really wanted to have the top be the strips of wood but the legs were hard to agree on. I liked the look of older farm house style table legs, more rustic, and she preferred a more modern look. I feel like i found a nice medium of the two aesthetics. I enhanced it by staining the legs different from the top.

One thing we both really wanted with our new table was a bench for seating. I am a big fan of the bench seating at tables. I tried to emulate the table style with the bench but wanted it to be different enough to be an accent not a match. You can push the bench all the way under the table. The legs of the bench go right over the legs of the table.

I'm really pleased with the how this piece turned out. I look forward to building another one soon. Any one in the market for a new dining room table?