Sparrow's Renovation Thread with Pictures

[Sparrow]

Nice! Great price on the stainless. It looks really good up on the wall.

Woodworking is a lot of fun. I hope to get my shop built one day, but other stuff keeps getting in the way.

For me, I had no shop. I used the huge living room as my shop and it was the last room I worked on. I also stored the massive amount of pine flooring in there on one side strapped securely so that it wouldn't warp. What a mess my living room, shop was! At some point I was fabricating so many different items I could hardly get in it - which is not a good idea and not safe to be so cluttered!

I'll try to find some pictures of my mess to post later!

[ladyhk13]

Sparrow! So gorgeous!!!! Great job! Too funny though, you started out with an orange kitchen and I had a bathroom with orange counters...soooo ugly!!! 1970 was calling for it's design back in my house! Yuk! I also can relate about being afraid of a power tool. Can you imagine that I am still afraid of a jigsaw. I know it's only because the person who taught me got really pissed the first time I used it but it was his fault since he didn't have it locked when he gave it to me and the thing went off to one side and I got scared and the thing almost jumped out of my hand (almost). After that I decided I would learn to use all my own tools and I'm like Tim the tool man Taylor....ahr ahr ahr!!!! Love that power!

[Sparrow]

Yeah, see I still have an irrational fear of my circular saw! I have used it lots, but ... I get really nervous when using it and I don't know why

[ladyhk13]

Weird, huh? Love my router and miter saw...got a worm drive circular saw (I think that's the right term for it) but didn't realize how heavy the thing was going to be but I think it's better than a regular one. I need to get a good platform made so it's easier to use the table saw though since I'm so short it makes it very hard to use it safely. So until then I'm kind of in a self imposed ban. I also love to be creative so I have a scroll saw and just love it. I haven't been able to get a good workshop set up yet due to all the reno on the house but it's in the works. I did learn however that red oak is the WORSE wood to use on a scroll saw!!! Hard as concrete!!!! ) LOL.. lessons learned but boy is it pretty.

[bacpacker]

Lady red oak is hard and very grainy as well. However it is not as hard as white oak. Neither of them can touch maple and the toughest I've ever worked was cherry. I made a book rack for my wife out of it and couldn't make a single cut without the wood burning. Tried to route a round over on the edge's and burnt it more. It still turned out looking very nice.

Sparrow I bet your living room was a mess. It's amazing how much debris is created when building/making something. It turned out very well.

[ladyhk13]

Lady red oak is hard and very grainy as well. However it is not as hard as white oak. Neither of them can touch maple and the toughest I've ever worked was cherry. I made a book rack for my wife out of it and couldn't make a single cut without the wood burning. Tried to route a round over on the edge's and burnt it more. It still turned out looking very nice.

Well I just wish I had decided to use a softer wood for my very first project!!! I always start out with the hardest thing first...I decided to try my hand at upholstery and did a lounger using STRIPES! My mom, who has been in the sewing business one way or another for almost her whole life said I should have started with a solid...stripes are the worse thing to learn on, of course...that's me! But it came out beauiful - I must be hard headed.

[ravensgrove]

Boy you aren't kidding on the damn dust...I am right this minute about 2/3s of the way through finishing the flooring and there is dust EVERYWHERE. My pack of dogs (all 3 of them) are frantic as to what the beegeezus is going on....their normal OCD mother has ripped out all the carpet, it looks like a war zone and there is dust everywhere.....today they all camped out in the finished living room LOL.

You all are killing me with the saws...I am tentatively using a jigsaw...and praying to God it doesn't bust the blade because I have no idea how to change it once it does. I already told you Sparrow when SHTF you come to my place and I will feed you in exchange for your excellent carpentry skills.

[Sparrow]

Warning! Scary mess!!

[Sparrow]

Boy you aren't kidding on the damn dust...I am right this minute about 2/3s of the way through finishing the flooring and there is dust EVERYWHERE. My pack of dogs (all 3 of them) are frantic as to what the beegeezus is going on....their normal OCD mother has ripped out all the carpet, it looks like a war zone and there is dust everywhere.....today they all camped out in the finished living room LOL.

LMAO, for a year I didn't dust. When the dust got an inch thick I would sweep it. Check the dust on EVERYTHING in that mess of a work room. The worst part isn't shown either - I took out a huge section of the ceiling that had black mold all over it from a plumbing leak that must have gone on for years (before I bought it).

[ravensgrove]

Here's my AWESOME floor in 1/2 the living rm. I have made it through the other 1/2 of the living room, the dining rm and am heading into the library. So far the hardest part is taking off and putting back on the molding...which is similar to loading an unloading a grocery cart...it came off...but will not go back on as it came off....MF'r. LOL. And that is cowhide #1 Liam O'Mooley in the room....I made Seamus into two rugs for the library. It's a crappy cell phone pic, but you get the idea. I had beige carpet in all of my common rooms...who the hell puts beige carpet on a farm...the people before me that's who. I want to say....YOU, Miss Sparrow totally inspired me that I could take on this project.