Tryin' to Stay Productive

I had a great week home from Nevada. Came back to a house full of guests up to enjoy the NYS Sheep & Wool festival. I know it sounds hokey, but I've really grown to love these weekends. It's even more enjoyable if you're married to a woman who knits. It's Beth's equivalent to Tap NY or a woodworking show for me. Kudos to Kelly, Ginger, and LuLu for making the weekend an enjoyable one. We missed you Lorena, Sharon, Jacquie, and Sophia. Hopefully next year you'll be back for a reunion tour!

So...while I was back in town, I managed to take a few days off from work to focus on some projects I've been neglecting. The first of which is the casework around the new sliding glass door in the living room. Well over a year ago, I installed a new Andersen slider out to the porch. The door turned out great, but I've been putting off the trim work on the inside because as always, it required custom piecework to make it look good. You see, nothing is easy in my house. Studs aren't where they're supposed to be, walls, floors, etc all all out of square, yada yada yada... I finally worked up the courage to give it a go this week.

The photo below is how the door looked just after install. Not the best photo of the door, but it does have our friends Tim, Cambria, and Baby Calder in it, so it will do :-). Ugly drywall spots, sprayfoam, and unsightly gaps do have a way of drawing attention from the nice door, huh?

I was pleasantly surprised with how it all went. The hardest part was making a custom custom jamb extender to fill the gap between the inside and outside wall. Three pieces, all different dimensions! Once that was in, the rest was pretty straightforward, notwithstanding the adjustments for out of plumb walls. The trim replicated from some of the original colonial door casing in the house. It's made of 3-pieces; flat casing with a bead that I made on the router table, an outer square build-up moulding, and a bed moulding on top. Here's the finished product, sans paint.

One other work-in-progress to report on...My many-months-late jewelry box gift is also nearing completion. I made a small upper divider tray for it last week to complete the woodworking. All that's left is sanding and applying the finish. Here's a few shots as a teaser. I'll post the finished photos and more descriptions of its construction before I send it off, which looks to be mid-december at the rate I'm going.

Happy Halloween all!