Your DIY Home Improvements - Post'em up!

[Chick_Maggot]

<span style="font-weight: bold">Had some time on my hands yesterday, so I decided to make some hanging décor
for the front entryway.</span>

[markinnaples]

That looks pretty cool, nice job. How far are you from the beach?

[Chick_Maggot]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: markinnaples</div><div class="ubbcode-body">That looks pretty cool, nice job. How far are you from the beach? </div></div>

<span style="font-weight: bold">I can leave the house and be checking out the bikinis within 12 minutes.</span> [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/biggthumpup.gif[/img]

[Chick_Maggot]

<span style="font-weight: bold">Blew my back out a couple weeks ago, so the wife has me on light duty. Still managed to arrange some flowers and make a couple down-n-dirty plant stands to help add a little tropical color to either side of the fireplace.

My wife was impressed, so I was able to side-step any reprimand for being in the garage while she's at work and not following orders to sit and watch TV all day.</span>



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[earntaz]

Aaaaah -- got your hand slapped you did ... LOL TAZ

PS -- you do good work ...

[Chick_Maggot]

OK, after many many many months of waiting, and three contractors later, we're again ramping up for our 3rd attempt at a kitchen remodel. We're tired of 1993 and want to vault ourselves into 2017 with a little tropical flair.

Most of the effort to this point has been working with our cabinet guy in formulating the design, picking out finishes, tile, flooring, etc., so there are no real changes as of yet.

I was able to snag this sweet piece of South American Parota from an exotic wood joint up the street. I'm hoping the contrast of brand new dark maple cabinets against the live-edge rustic vibe of the slab will look ok.




Test driving the bar top and planning my cuts. I felt lucky to get this slab as it looks like it was grown specifically for my job.



Backside first. About 3 coats of polyurethane done. Still more to go, as well as sanding.



The poly is still a little wet here. Boy, I love the grain of this wood. The sapwood also has cool character to it. The wood is not stained, that's it's natural color.

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[markinnaples]

Looks great CM, looking forward to seeing the finished product.

[m22mike]

That is a beautiful piece of wood.

Mike

[Chick_Maggot]

Time to do some work on the top side. There was an epoxy repair done to the slab, which didn't look anywhere near how I was told it would. I love the slab, but there's no way I wanted to look at the nasty repair for the rest of my life, so here's how I got rid of it. Like mom always said...when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.


Here's the lemon. There was hairline crack there when I gave him the slab. While it was being worked on, it somehow turned into a cavern. I have my own thoughts on how this happened.


In the process of making lemonade. I free-handed a design which encompassed the area I wanted to get ride of, and also appeared to allow the grain to flow around it (as much as it could anyway). Here, I'm trying to remove as much wood as possible, so my router didn't need to work hard to finish the job.



Lemonade is done, mom. I had a piece of glass cut using the template I made. Now it's a feature, instead of a frickin' eyesore. The wife can decorate inside with anything she wants.

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[markinnaples]

Excellent save, and thinking outside the box.