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6 Power Tools Every Dad Needs- Great Gift Guide!

Best Power Tool Gifts for Dads

Dads need power tools! Power tools make the perfect gift for Father’s Day, a birthday, or anniversary. What man doesn’t want to grunt as he makes a beautiful cut on his mitre saw, or drives in a screw like buttah with his cordless drill?

We’ve compiled this list of the top 6 power tools that every dad should own. These are all tools that will help make projects, repairs, and that honey-do list enjoyable!

#6 Jigsaw

Gifts for dad jigsaw

A jigsaw is great for making all kinds of curved cuts, plywood shapes, and quick cuts. The many different, and easily interchangeable jigsaw blades can cut different materials like metal, fiberglass, and even drywall.

#5 Orbital Sander

If you’re sanding your wood projects by hand, for the love of your sanity and time, get an orbital sander! You’ll never look back. Easy and comfortable to use, and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can get a smooth surface.

#4 Oscillating Multi-Tool

Have you ever wanted a tool that can cut through nails, remove trim, and remove old grout and caulking? The oscillating multi-tool can do all of that and more. So many uses, and let’s be honest- it’s a good time.

#3 Miter Saw

Miter saws just make life easier. Installing new flooring? You’re going to need a miter saw. They can cut complex angles, straight cuts, can cut multiple pieces at once, and will make projects like installing baseboards and trim a breeze. Even a basic miter saw is a gift that will keep on giving for years to come.

#2 Circular Saw

A circular saw is another incredibly useful power tool. Use it to build a deck, frame a basement, cut trim, do lap cuts, rip lumber, and more. Every DIYer, from the weekend warrior to the avid project doer, needs one of these.

#1 Cordless Drill Set

Enough can’t be said about a great cordless drill set. You will never regret this investment. Have you ever assembled furniture with a screwdriver and ended up in the fetal position, wondering if life will always be this terrible? Invest in a good quality cordless drill set, and renew your faith in humanity. They’re amazing. They are life changing. That’s why they’re #1 on the list.

Pro Tip: Spend a little money on these. A cheap drill is going to be frustrating, and will put you right back into the fetal position. This is a quality of life thing.

Bonus: Noise Canceling Headphones

After trying out several sets of those clunky “muffs” designed to keep your ears safe, you’re gonna miss your tunes. Whether you want to rock out to some classic rock or stay up on your latest audiobook, a good pair of Bluetooth Noise Canceling headphones can be a life saver while still performing the essential function of protecting your hearing from whining saws and clanky hammer drills. This isn’t your average, every day power tool but it’s the perfect companion to it.

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How to Build an American Girl Doll Bunk Bed

diy doll bunk bed

Learn to build a simple but cute bunk bed for 18″ dolls like the American Girl Dolls or the Our Generation line of dolls. This bed size is patterned after manufactured 18″ doll beds and fits the dolls comfortably. The plans use simple and available lumber, including 2x4s or 2x2s, 1x4s, 1/2″ plywood and 1/8″ plywood. You can also substitute the 1/8″ plywood for 1/2″ plywood if need be. 

Woodworking Plans

Click the image below to download a PDF of the woodworking plans for this build.

Click above to download the plans

Instructional Video

Click the image below to watch the build video.

Build a DIY 18" Doll Bunk Bed
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DIY Ocean Desk – A Standing Desk with Personality

Because I spend so much time at my desk, I wanted to create a unique and beautiful desktop that I could place atop a motorized base. I started researching and discovered these gorgeous desk by a French designer in the Caribbean. He uses local stone, some serious machinery and a boat-load of epoxy. There’s a catch, however – his tables sell for anywhere from $12,000 – $60,000 each! A bit out of my budget, but I still love his work and wanted to try something that was original using wood. Continue reading “DIY Ocean Desk – A Standing Desk with Personality”

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Building a Woodshop From Scratch – Drywall, Mud, Tape, Paint and Epoxy Flooring

A lot has happened on the shop in the last several weeks. If you haven’t already taken a look at the progress, be sure to check out the framing, the siding, trim and roofing and broken rib and the electrical work as well. Let’s take a look at the latest. Continue reading “Building a Woodshop From Scratch – Drywall, Mud, Tape, Paint and Epoxy Flooring”

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Building a Woodshop from Scratch – Electrical Wiring

If you’ve been following my other posts about this wood shop, you’ve seen the framing and then the siding, trim and roofing and broken rib come along over the last little while. By that point I only had two big projects left to do outside the shop: running electricity to the shop and building the front doors. I’ve started on the front doors and have come a long way but at this point in the year, it’s starting to get colder and darker so I figured I’d better hold off on the doors (I have temporary doors in place – they’re super ghetto but they do the job) and focus on getting power and lighting into the shop so I could hook up the heating/AC unit and stop running 100ft extension cords from the house for power. This will allow me to build the doors inside the shop and put them up as soon as they’re ready; hopefully in the next few weeks or so. I haven’t yet finished wiring the inside of the shop but I have started, and the shop now has its own power. Here’s how that all went down. Continue reading “Building a Woodshop from Scratch – Electrical Wiring”

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Building a Woodshop – Sheathing, Roofing, Trim and a Broken Rib

Holy Schneikes! It’s been months since I blogged about the shop and it’s come a long way since my last post. Since finishing the framing, I’ve worked on the next steps, which are many:

  1. Wrapping the structure in OSB
  2. Roofing: Applying OSB Sheathing to the roof, then tar paper, drip edge and shingles
  3. Wrapping the structure in moisture-resistant house wrap
  4. Installing all of the windows
  5. Putting up the LP SmartSide Panel Siding
  6. Installing trim around windows, doors and panel joints
  7. Installing soffits and fascia
  8. Installing gutters

Continue reading “Building a Woodshop – Sheathing, Roofing, Trim and a Broken Rib”

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Building a Wood Shop from Scratch – Framing Progress

Roof Trusses in Place on Wood Shop

When we were looking for a new house a few years back, we really hoped to find one with a good amount of space and a three car garage, so that we could park both cars in the garage and then have some room for me to do woodworking and my many projects. We ended up buying our current home, which we love for a hundred reasons, but it didn’t have a three car garage. Katrina, knowing that I really wanted a work space, allowed me to pour a concrete pad for a wood shop as a sort of down payment on a future shop. Well, now that we have put the yard in, finished the basement and we’re finally getting a rock wall to replace our massive, weed-infested hill, it’s time to start on the shop. I got started a couple of weeks ago and it’s going well so far.

To begin, I designed the shop in Google Sketchup, which allows me to get a feel for size, color, space in relation to the house, etc. After that, I mocked it up in Photoshop using our existing garage as a starting point and then bringing in some color and texture to make it fairly realistic. The second image below is my Photoshop job of what the shop may look like, though we’re definitely not 100% decided as of yet on colors, textures, etc. The size and shape are pretty accurate, though.

Wood shop design
This is the design for the new shop, rendered in Google Sketchup.

New Wood Shop Photoshop Render
This is my Photoshop job of what the new wood shop might look like.

I decided to do 2×6 framing instead of 2×4 since I’ll be insulating it and adding a heating and A/C unit. The shop is 15′ x 15′, so it’s not a big shop, but I’m excited about it. I decided to do 9′ ceilings, with a loft for wood storage. I’m putting several windows in it, including a row of windows above the door, a 3’x5′ window on two of the walls and a smaller window on the fourth wall. Let there be light. The best part about that is that I bought all of the windows already, including several extra, for a grand total of $100 from a person in our area. Thanks, local online classifieds! They’re all used double pane, insulated windows and most of them are either sliders or crank-openers. I’m looking forward to putting those in. It’s amazing what you can get for cheap when someone is remodeling their home.

I bought a framing nailer (should have done that years ago) and have been building the walls one at a time and then getting some help from neighbors to stand them up and put them on the lag bolts in the concrete then tight them down. I have to say – 15′ x 10′ walls made out of 2x6s are extremely heavy. Definitely not a one-person job. My poor wife had her feet under one of the walls when it fell into place so she’s got quite a pair of bruises on her feet but luckily it looks worse than it is.

16 foot lumber, Toyota Tacoma
Turns out this is way illegal. Apparently you can’t have 10′ of board hanging out of your truck bed. 🙁 Lesson learned!

 

The first wall of the wood shop
I did the first wall framing in the driveway.

 

Raising the first wall
Raising the first wall

 

The first wall of the wood shop
Two walls up!

 

Woodshop Walls framed
The four walls are up!

With the four walls up, I started on the ceiling / loft floor. I used 2x10s and mounting brackets and it’s quite sturdy. Those 15′ long 2x10s are some heavy suckers. I finished putting those up and then, with Katrina’s help, put the 3/4″ OSB up for flooring. That made it way easier to work on the roof trusses (stick framing) without having to use a ladder to do it all.

Wood Shop Loft Framing
Wood Shop Loft Framing

For the roof cuts, I used a great little truss calculator to get the angles, distances and other cuts, which was super helpful. Me no do math good, so that was kinda fantastic. It gives you the angles, the birdsmouth cuts, the distances where to cut them and everything.

One thing that helped a lot on cutting the rafters was to create a template to make the marks faster. I created these small templates to slide onto each end of the 2x6s to make it really easy to mark every board in a hurry. It took me about 11 minutes to mark 24 boards, which is great. The templates took about 20 minutes to make.

Framing Templates for Roof Trusses
Framing Templates for Roof Trusses

As of right now, the rafters are up and nailed to the ridge board, so now I’m ready to finish the framing of the gable faces and then I can put the OSB up on the roof. Yay!

Roof Trusses in Place on Wood Shop
Roof Trusses in Place on Wood Shop

No injuries or accidents (other than my poor wife’s foot bruises) so far, so knock on wood. That’s it for now! More pictures coming soon and, of course, I’m videoing the whole thing for a complete how-to series on it from start to finish. If you want to learn about framing walls, windows, soffits, doors and closets, I already have some videos on those!

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$23 DIY Planter Box

$23 DIY Planter Box

This year for Mother’s Day, I told NilsyNils that I wanted a couple of planter boxes for our front walk area. I think they add a lot of charm and dimension to any area, and had pinned quite a few pictures of ones I liked. Nils and I looked at a lot of different tutorials, and naturally, he decided they were all crap and designed a new one. We spent a Saturday in the garage building these cute boxes and bonding via power tools. This is an inexpensive yet outdoor-ready planter box that can hold about 3 full bags of potting soil and has about 3 square feet of surface area.

Each box consists of 9 cedar fence pickets and one 2 x 4. You’ll also need 1 1/4″ screws, 3″ screws, an optional brad nailer, and 18 gauge brads.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE PLANS

Planter-Box-Plans

 

Check out the full video at https://youtu.be/WUnFAgj_7ps

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An Organized Garage in 4 Steps, plus Overhead Storage Review

Organize Your Garage in 4 Simple Steps

Everybody’s garage gets messy – especially if you do any work out there. We’re going to look at four ways to get and keep your garage organized.

Check Fleximounts overhead storage rack at: https://goo.gl/hQhuwx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 1: Get Shelves or Cabinets

Buy some used cabinets from Craigslist or other local used good sites and mount them to your walls and/or floors. You can use a label maker to keep things organized and take full advantage of the wall space in your garage. There are tons of great shelving solutions available too.

Step 2: Put It On Wheels

I like to add caster wheels to all of my larger machinery so that I can wheel it out when in use and stash it away when I’m done. This has helped me to create somewhat of a mobile workshop that I can tidy up after a project so we can still park in the garage.

Step 3: Garage Hooks FTW!

Garage hooks are seriously great. You can hang just about anything you’d store in a garage: bikes, tools, yard equipment, saws, toys, sleds, heaters, ropes, cables… you get the gist. Just be sure to drive them into a stud, not just bare drywall.

Step 4: Leverage the Overhead Space!

This is the big one. Almost everyone has storage space up on or near the ceiling. I used Fleximounts Overhead Storage racks to add tons of usable space to my garage. It’s a great way to keep things out of the way and free up valuable floor and wall space. I also built a set of simple wall mounted shelves out of 2x4s and plywood for putting up against the upper walls.

 

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DIY Kitchen / Dining Table – Pottery Barn Inspired

DIY Pottery Barn Inspired Dining Farmhouse Table

Ready to learn to make a gorgeous and sturdy farmhouse table from scratch? Use the plans below to build your own.

The Triangles: I’d recommend doing the triangles however you think looks best. If you want to know what size the triangles on my table feet are, they measure 9 3/4″ on the diagonal side (the longest side) x 3 1/2″ at the bottom x 9″ tall. I used 4×6 lumber to make these.

A quick note on the end caps. I’m not sure I’d honestly recommend them. The problem is that the wood will shrink and expand more in one direction than the other, which means that while the table top may move a bit in one direction, the end cap, by virtue of being perpendicular to the rest of the top, will move in the other direction. On my table this has resulted in a bit of a lip. Nothing huge, but not what I hoped for. I’d recommend leaving the wood out for several weeks first, or possibly omitting the end cap altogether. Another option is to create an end cap (for the lip) by cutting off 1.5″ from the table top and then attaching that to the bottom of the ends – to help match up the skirts. I attached the end caps with glue and brads at first, followed up with some pocket hole screws from the bottom side. If you’re just doing the skirt method, then I’d recommend screwing them in from the bottom using 2.5″ countersunk screws. The end cap dimensions (as shown in the plans) are 3’6″ W x 3″ H x 1.5″ D.

As for the side skirts, it’s just a 2×4 ripped in half and then glued, tacked and screwed onto the table top. I countersunk all of the screws and that one worked out pretty well. The side skirts are 7’9″ W x 1.5″ H x 1.5″ D.

Several people have asked about how I attached the base of the table to the tabletop, so I wanted to address that. I used 4 1/2″ lag bolts with washers and put them in six locations under the table – one on each corner of the two main legs, plus one in the center of the 2x4s that run the length of the base. To predrill, I started with a 7/8″ forstner bit, drilling just as deep as was necessary to hide the head of the bolt. From there, I used a 7/16″ bit to drill through about two inches in, then a 9/32″ bit to drill the rest of the 4 inches or so. Be careful not to drill too deep – you don’t want to drill right through the table top.

Drive the lag bolt in and let the washer stop you when it bottoms out. I think the six heavy duty bolts are enough but if you want to put more in, it couldn’t hurt.

Farmhouse Kitchen Table Woodworking Plans
Download your free woodworking plans for this rustic farmhouse dining table

DIY Pottery Barn Inspired Dining Table Video

Watch the video to see how it’s made! ^^