Retrospective, 1 year ago; current house projects

I was reviewing our old blog postings done about 1 year ago. This time last year we were stressing about the exterior house colors, and the various built-ins had arrived: kitchen cabinets, upstairs cabinets/shelves etc. I sure am glad we're past all that now.

Current house projects are mostly centered around building storage shelves in the basement. That's been a step-at-a-time process, because I wanted to seal the basement floor _before_ putting in the shelving. We got some acrylic sealer from our contractor, thinking that we would do that part ourselves. Well it's taken awhile but we're about halfway through that part of the project. I've been cleaning the concrete before applying the sealer, and that involves sweeping, vacuuming and then wet-mopping. Doing 1900 square feet that way is just going to take some time.

In addition to the concrete sealing, I've been working on making a router template. My shelf design calls for some additional 2x4 supports, and I don't want them sticking out past the edge of the shelf -- so I'm going to route out some pockets in the shelves so the supports will be flush with them. A saw won't work because of the back edge of the pocket. So I found some thin plywood at our building materials recycling place -- 39 cents for a 1' x 3' piece -- and cut a template for my router guide. I used a coping saw to cut out the back edge. I tried out the template yesterday on some scrap plywood (we have LOTS of that around) and after a bit of refining with a file it will be fine for the job. I need a sharper router bit though -- maybe a carbide bit instead of the high speed steel one from my el-cheapo router bit set.

That reminds me. Long back one of my acquaintances was using a router to make some speaker cabinets. He had a wood panel clamped to the top of his very expensive table saw, and unfortunately had the router bit set too deep. He cut a slot across the cast iron surface of his saw and didn't even notice it. It was a carbide router bit. Note to self: don't use a table saw as a work table.....