It's snowing in my dining room!

Like a wet snow. In this photo, you can see the damp popcorn stuff falling as it passes in front of my face. Here I use a two inch scraper which has had the edges rounded off with a file.

It is slow going removing the popcorn texture from our dining room ceiling. I want a smooth surface to the ceiling prior to adding the beam detail and crown molding. After some major procrastination, I made some significant progress during the week. Here are some photo notes from the project so far...

Wishful thinking. A picture from my daughter's bedroom - what I had hoped would happen.

In the photo above, little by little, the popcorn ceiling is falling. Not sure why; I suspect moisture from a nearby air conditioning vent. My daughter complains about this from time to time. I tell her this is actually a good thing since it is falling without any effort on my part (also it is falling in large pieces). As I start work on the dining room, I have hopes that the popcorn there will come down just as easy.

Stubborn. With the dining room ceiling, the texture is more troublesome. The popcorn tends to stick better to the mudded areas - the areas where it was sprayed directly to the sheetrock come off pretty easily.

I have been researching the correct steps in this process, trying to determine the best technique. Early on, one thing I skimped on was protection for our floor. In my research, I have found recommendations that the floor be completely covered with a drop cloth and one even suggested the walls be covered as well. I have been thinking, no big deal, I'll simply lay down some plastic and if a little popcorn gets around the edges, I'll just vacuum it up. I underestimated the mess scraping would create.

Like sleet really. Note the popcorn stuff on the plastic and ladder. It is really more like a heavy sleet than a fine snow. Words can't describe the mess the scraping and sanding creates.

As you can see in the photo above, I have gone to the effort of covering the floor and door openings with plastic. This was done after I received notice from the wife that my first attempts at containment were rather poor. Even with all of this preventative stuff, there will be some leakage.

But, after inspecting the adjacent living room this morning, very little dust has made it into the rest of the house. And let me tell you there has been plenty of dust. I placed a box fan in our dining room window which creates air flow that moves the sanding dust away from openings to adjacent rooms.

Currently. I have a little more than half of the popcorn removed.

Prep work will continue this week; I have come to the realization that it will be best to paint the ceiling prior to any woodworking, so that will be next. For now, my back is bothering me from all the ladder work yesterday, so I think I'll get a heating pad and go lay on the couch. There will be a race on TV a little later.

To see the next post in this series, click here. To view all the posts, click here. This is post two in this series.

________________________

Have a question or comment? Leave yours by clicking on the "Comments - post yours here" link below. My email is jobranch@yahoo.com or you can contact me through Twitter or Facebook. Subscribe via email or RSS by clicking here.

My top three projects:

1. My coffered ceiling project. 2. The Scott Bookcase. 3. My foyer project.

I receive a woodworking gift

The Delta 13" planer. A very nice gesture from a fellow woodworker.

There was a moment during the construction of my TV Console project where I got so frustrated that I just walked away from it for a while (as it ended up, I was only away from my shop for a day or so). The problem was I didn't have the necessary tools to do what had to be done. Ultimately I found a cabinet shop in here in Pelham that was able to help me out for a tiny cost ($35.00), but I had uncovered a road block on my journey to better woodworking: I need a planer, among other things.

Christopher, who writes the very good Combray Furniture Studio blog quickly provided a solution to my problem. He had a Delta 13" planer that was not being used and he simply offered to give it to me - an extremely kind and generous thought on Chris' part.

It has arrived and I finally got it set up and turned on (he had made a crate to ship it in - it weighs more than 90 pounds). It should come in handy for my crown molding project as I will have to achieve some odd dimensions for the individual crown profiles. Right now it is sitting on the old TV stand from my Dad's house; I plan to build a dedicated stand for it - with wheels and everything.

Christopher, many thanks for your thoughtful help.

Crown molding for my dining room - the design process

Incomplete. My next project will be adding unique crown molding to my dining room. I took the old crown molding down a few years ago and never completed the job.

For years now, I have been thinking on and off about the crown molding for our dining room; contemplating what to do. I didn’t want to just go down to Home Depot and pick up some stock crown. I certainly don’t mind doing this, but for a dining room, probably the most formal of rooms, and for the home of a woodworker, I decided the crown molding should be something special.

My woodworking magazine of choice has always been Fine Woodworking. I recently picked up a copy of Popular Woodworking which is a fine publication, but as a fan of graphic design, I view Taunton’s products as top notch graphically, full of useful articles, and every now and then they feature a furniture project that just blows me away...

Inspiration. For me, a very influential article. A great story - four large breakfronts which have great classic details. I especially like the extra heavy cornice moldings.

Such was the case with their September/October, 1989 issue and an article titled “Handling Large Commissions” by Douglas Schroeder. This article detailed the process of winning and then building a commission that encompassed four large mahogany breakfronts. The project took 18 months to complete at a cost of $74,000 (in 1989 dollars, I wonder what such a project would cost 22 years later). I have repeatedly visited this article for design inspiration and for the dining room crown molding profile, I will be borrowing heavily from the cornice of these breakfronts.

A little much. I don't like the look of this very busy profile.

While transforming the cornice profile into something that I could easily fabricate, I wondered if I would actually like the look of it. My concern was that this profile which is made up from a variety of 3/4 inch boards would have the look I wanted. After extruding the profile in SketchUp, I decided there was simply too much going on visually, so I scrapped my first design.

I then began considering an exact copy of the cornice molding; wondering at the same time if this design, while nice on the breakfront, would even be a good profile for crown molding.

A first. I import into SketchUp a photocopy of the cornice molding from FWW's exploded drawing of the breakfront. I then trace the outline.

The profile. The drawn cornice profile. Note the size: over 82 inches wide. I re-size it to 6 inches in height and ultimately settle on 5 inches for the height of the molding.

This illustration challenged me in two new ways. First, I imported a scanned copy of the cornice detail for the purpose of tracing the outline of it's profile - a first for me. This enables me to have an exact copy of what was applied to the breakfronts. The process was pretty simple, but I had a few work arounds: I don't have a copier or a scanner.

Then, I had never re-sized anything in SketchUp before. Once I drew the profile, I was surprised to find just how large it was - 82 23/64 inches wide! My SketchUp for Dummies book provided all the steps needed to bring this drawing down to the correct size and it worked on my very first attempt.

What it will be. Note the beams and the unique crown profile The beams will simply be 1x stock with quarter round molding applied to the edges.

A corner. You can get a better look at the profile in this corner view.

Wrapping. Note how the molding will wrap around the columns.

I am pleased with the look of the breakfront cornice design used as crown molding. This SketchUp project was all about extruding molding - a task that I am getting pretty good at. It will now be a challenge for me to reproduce this profile with my router. I hope to visit Woodcraft today and look at their router bits and formulate a plan to cut the individual profiles. I really wish I had a supply of Matt Bickford's molding planes for this project. I hope to begin purchasing some of his planes later this year.

I also will begin removing the textured popcorn ceiling in my dining room - a process I have never attempted before and one which I will do some internet research before I start. So, no woodworking is actually scheduled until next weekend.

To see the next post in this series, click here.

________________________

Have a question or comment? Leave yours by clicking on the "Comments - post yours here" link below. My email is jobranch@yahoo.com. Consider subscribing via email or RSS by clicking here.

Some popular projects:

1. A bedside table. 2. My workbench. 3. A built-in cabinet.

Will I ever become a SketchUp pro?

Not so dumb anymore. My SketchUp text book. An appropriate book for me since there is still a lot for me to learn.

I have been working this week on my upcoming free e-book: the down loadable plans for my daughter's bookcase. A critical tool in the preparation of this e-book and my last one is SketchUp. In addition to my e-books, I often use SketchUp illustrations to communicate a variety of things related to woodworking on my blog. It was about a year ago when I posted some of my frustration with SketchUp. I am now glad to say I am very comfortable with this impressive 3D modeling program. But, I wonder if I will ever be as good with SketchUp as those guys that write for FWW or Popular Woodworking? By the time I get too old to use a computer, will I be as deep a SU thinker as they are?

Button envy. A screen shot of my simple version of SketchUp on top and below it is one of the guys from FWW.com. Look at all of his buttons! I mean, come on already. How many toolbars is that?

It seems that with every project I illustrate, I pick up a helpful tip or two and this bookcase drawing is no different. So, I thought I would put up a post about my challenges so far and the fixes I have implemented (and I welcome any tips as well).

Not professional grade. I want this to look as good as what you would find in a woodworking magazine. It just isn't there yet.

I have been looking through a variety of woodworking magazines and books to better capture what is expected in a properly executed project plan. As I did this, I realized what I had drawn just didn't measure up.

In the image above (click it to enlarge), there are a couple of things going on that need to be changed. First, the standard background on SketchUp's woodworking template is blue. This bookcase being a khaki color actually looks good with a blue background, but I prefer white and in the past I have simply selected the plan view template which has white as a standard background. But with this template, some of the settings change which I don't like, so while looking through my SketchUp for Dummies book, I ran across a way to change the background of any template.

On the "Window" drop down menu, select "Styles" and select "edit" in the middle of the styles pop-up box. Click the light blue background box and yet another menu pops up that enables you to adjust the RGB color settings for the background. The frustrating thing is you have to know the RGB color numbers, which I didn't, but it wasn't too hard to figure out. First problem solved.

Still not professional grade. The next thing to tackle is the text.

I am using Microsoft Publisher to create my down loadable plans. The second problem is that as I import the photo above into Publisher, I need to enlarge it significantly so that the various parts are easily seen. This is a result of the bookcase being tall and slender. As I enlarge this image, two things happen: 1) the text becomes mildly distorted and 2) the text becomes rather large. In addition, I am not liking the labels that identify the components of the bookcase - all those lines and arrows bother me.

Getting there. Click to enlarge - at the top of the page: a much better organized drawing. Note the lower illustration. The font size on the two illustrations are now the same.

According to my Dummies book, I can get a possibly higher resolution image by exporting vector images vs. raster images. The only problem is that vector images are possible only with the Pro version of SketchUp which is about a $500.00 software upgrade and not something I am willing to do right now. So I am stuck with raster images which are really only an issue when I need large illustrations.

What I have decided to do at present is use SketchUp to provide the illustrations and use Publisher for text and as many of the lines as possible. I have not yet found a way for Publisher to create the lines and arrows used to provide dimensions - something that Publisher may be able to do with a little more research.

The question I have is how the magazine and book publishers do this? It seems they use software that can provide illustrations and page layout all in one.

Snow, snow, snow. A look out my front door this morning. This is the third snow we have received this year - unusual for Alabama.

On a side note, we woke up today to a pleasant snow; not even enough to cover the ground, but pretty to look at and no road problems at all. A good kind of snow event.

Beth's built-in: another project comes to a close

Completed. The built-in project is finished and my daughter, who was home from school this weekend, has already put it to good use.

I woke up this morning with this odd feeling. I couldn't pin it down right away, and then the wife asks me, “So, what are doing today?” And that’s just it; I don’t have much to do today. I put the finishing touches on the built-in project for my daughter's bathroom yesterday, so it is technically something for the "past projects" page of my blog.

This past week was interesting. It has been sort of cool to think about what my next project will be. I want to keep this woodworking momentum rolling, so I need to dive right into my next project. I could go in a number of different directions, but here is what I have been thinking…

Missing molding. "When are you going to finish the dining room?" - a increasingly common question from my wife.

Some custom crown molding
Years ago I took down the nasty crown molding that came with our house. It was pine, not stained very well and I just hated it. The problem is after taking the crown down, I never replaced it. The lack of crown in my dining room hasn’t bothered me a whole lot not since I seldom visit this room, but my wife’s patience is really wearing thin, so my very next project will be putting up new crown molding, but not just any crown molding will do. I am thinking about furniture grade crown that would be right at home on any nice antique. I have the profile worked out in my head, I just need to put that down on paper.

At the same time, I am going to add a faux beam treatment – not a full blown coffered ceiling; something much more simple. This will involve removing the popcorn ceiling texture that was so popular when our home was built 25 years ago (a ceiling treatment despised these days). I hate the thought of doing this; I put this kind of project in the same category as sheetrock work, which in my mind is never fun. But it should not be that bad.

A mess. Some of this needs to be thrown away, and the rest of it needs to be put away. A new storage cabinet is in order.

A shop cabinet
At the same time, I plan to begin the design phase for a storage cabinet for my shop. I have come to realize that when I take photos of projects in my basement shop, there are sometimes unwanted things in the background that I am not paying attention to; for example the hula hoop that was in one photo. I need to start organizing my shop transforming it more into what you would find in a professional shop - a goal of mine. So, I will soon sit down and design yet another case piece.

But, this won’t be just any other case piece. I will use it as a means to practice some joinery that I don’t usually attempt. I’m talking dovetail joints; hand cut ones if you can believe it. And, real mortise and tenon joints as opposed to biscuits or pocket screws. The design will also be something visually interesting, although I haven’t exactly nailed down what that means just yet. I’ll also come up with a new place to hang my pipe clamps.

An unsightly backdrop. This will be a future shop project: I need to update my storage in this area and hide the unsightly mechanical stuff. This is a poor backdrop for many of my project photos (note the lamp I have begun using for lighting - I cringe just looking at it).

Later this year, I plan to construct a wall panel system and built-in storage for under the basement stairs. This wall system will continue around our furnace to hide some of the ugliness that is often the backdrop for my woodworking photos.

So, as I say; it has been exciting to think about future projects. I’ll have a post up next week with some design ideas.

To see all the posts on the built-in project, click here.

________________________

Have a question or comment? Leave yours by clicking on the "Comments - post yours here" link below. Or jump over to Facebook and leave me a message. My email is jobranch@yahoo.com. And if you like this post or this project, you can subscribe to Wood Fever by clicking here.

My top three projects:

1. My coffered ceiling project. 2. The Scott Bookcase. 3. My foyer project.

Whit McLeod's cool furniture

As some of you may know, I work for Mohawk Industries, and I sell flooring to retailers. I was visiting a flooring dealer today who also sells furniture and while waiting to see the buyer, I started flipping through a furniture industry magazine. I came across an article featuring furniture by Whit McLeod and I was really impressed by his work. See the link to his site here.

I know very little about Whit except he makes furniture that has a visual hook I find to be really cool. Something that helps set Whit apart from many furniture makers is that he uses reclaimed wood for his projects. He also has a nice design eye and commands an impressive price for his work: his contemporary adaptation of the Morris Chair sells for $4,200 a copy. I want to make furniture like that!

Have any of you seen his work?