I never thought I’d reach a point where my cabinet-making skills would be the sole determining factor in whether or not I get to take a bath in the next month, but hey, living in a garage here, so I’m not sure why I’m surprised.

With the inside of the full bath completely tiled I need to finish the outside edges with these standing stones…

And in order to do that I need to finish the wood on the second wall…

And in order to do that, I need to have a bathroom vanity in place. And since I’m too cheap to spend $1499 on this one…

I guess that means it’s time to break out the table saw. And I know all of that would lead you to believe that I’m going to show you a picture of that exact cabinet completely built and installed in my bathroom, but here’s about as far as I got with that one:

And that’s because I’m a horrible daughter. Yes, it’s true.

Here’s why it’s not fun being related to me:

1. If you don’t like your bathroom I will encourage you to rip everything out because “we can re-tile this in a weekend”
2. And if you re-tile your bathroom and decide you need a new vanity but the 60″ version is too big to fit, I will say ” no problem, get the smaller version and I’ll build you a 12″ filler cabinet for the side
3. And if I’m also building a house when all of this is going on, you will not get your cabinet for, um, eight months

So you can see why before I built myself a bathroom cabinet it was imperative that I finished my mothers bathroom cabinet, which basically has looked like this since some time in August.

And now that I’ve wrapped up the guilt-ridden-confessional portion of this post, here are some highlights from my first attempt at cabinet construction.

I basically used the construction of her existing cabinet as a template for how I’d build this one. I used 1/2″ stain-grade plywood for the sides and 3/4″ aspen stock for the front.

My plan was to use the router to cut a slot in the side panels that the back panel would slide into. And then slot the front frame to fit on the side panels.

I used a 1/2″ straight bit on the router and set the fence up on the table to give me 1/8″ on the outside. (In retrospect I’d make that 3/16″ minimum.)

I tested this theory out with a scrap piece first.

And I was all, hey, this cabinet making stuff isn’t too hard.

Here are the sides, routered. Routered? Routed? Whatever… finished.

The back fit in without too much trouble.

The front was slightly more complicated because I needed to create a mortise and tennon joint for the top and bottom of the frame, and slot the back of the frame pieces to fit on to sides.

Here it is dry-fit again, and that’s basically all the pictures I have of this process because at some point I must have deleted images from The Epic Struggle With Squaring off the camera without putting them on the computer.

I do however have a video of this process which I haven’t been able to edit yet because I haven’t sufficiently healed from the trauma of trying to make everything fit together at 90-degree angles. Even with the large cabinet clamps I stole borrowed from my dad it was still a struggle, and the cabinet still isn’t 100% square. Suffice it to say this is why my attitude changed to, hey, this cabinet making stuff is a pain in the ass.

I decided to use standard shelf brackets for both shelves because I’m a novice.

Mom got in on the staining action…

And this weekend I finally cut the shelves to finish the thing up.

The shelves just need a little stain and coat of poly for the whole thing, and then my mom can have her bathroom back.

I would say it’s not bad for my first attempt although you probably won’t be seeing me do a rendition of this project on This Old House or anything. I mean, you never see those dudes fit a square shelf into a not-entirely-square cabinet by using a prybar, but I can’t be the only person that’s had to do that, right?

This experience taught me that I’m good to build a cabinet every now and again, but I feel supremely confident that buying cabinets for the kitchen was a better idea than building all of them.

For the full bath cabinet I’m totally going with dowel construction because, you know, more quality time with my drill can’t be a bad thing.

There has been a crookedbroom explosion around here lately… and here’s one of the newest additions to the crookedbroom family, for Jen in Monroe.

Because there’s really no limit to what you can do with a broom handle. Even crazier polka-dots coming soon…

I’ve been letting an idea about the lid for my recycling cabinet marinate in my brain for a little while. Do you ever get the feeling that your brain is smarter than you are? Sounds like a contradiction, I know, but a lot of times I just kind of shove a few fragments of thoughts I’ve had into a corner up there and let them rattle around for a little while… three or four days later while I’m clipping my toenails *bang* a full blown idea appears.

I’ve been doing that a lot lately with the wine rack and dovetail joints. And the lid for my recycling cabinet… you won’t see it again until it is finished, but I’ll give you a few snippets of what I’ve got going on before I introduce you to Harold.

Drillmaster: That’s Me.

Exactly 84 holes… why? You’ll have to wait to find out.

Mystery Parts. It looks like something fun is going on here, though, doesn’t it?

While I was doing all of this, mind you, I was under serious scrutiny. It became apparent as I was sitting here with my beloved miter saw.

I heard a noise over to my right…. was that a scoff of disbelief? Derision? Astonishment that I work in my shop barefoot?

Hey. Hey you!

You gotta problem with girls who use powertools?!

Please let me introduce you all to Harold, who has been looking over my shoulder at my work all day. I do not respond well to that kind of pressure Harold!

I called MysteryMan as soon as I saw him. By the time I hung up the phone I was all “Okay, Harold and I have to get back to work now.” And I actually heard MysteryMan think Dear God, she’s given it a name.

Welcome to my life people. Welcome to my life.

P.S. There is going to be all sorts of fun going on around here now as I have been assigned the task of painting a mural in a 50 ft long hallway. Did you know I could paint? More details soon…

First, I have to say it’s my lucky day, since I was just informed that I won a salt lamp from the giveaway over at aimeeroo.com! It seems like something perfect for my office here, as I need all the wellness I can get sometimes.

That was tons of fun, so I’m considering a giveaway of my own, but you’ll have to check back for details later this week. For now I have to say there has been some exciting progress on the recycling cabinet…

I decided to use these knotty pine bead-board/wainscoting pieces (I don’t know exactly what their true purpose is, only that they fulfilled mine) to make the side panels for the cabinet. There were two reasons for that, first, they are more interesting than just a flat piece of wood, and second, I could cut them to fit with my miter saw. (I have access to a table saw, but it’s not in my basement and if I have to go outside of my immediate area to finish a project… well, lets just say it could have been postponed indefinitely)

Mind you, these aren’t exactly meant for the job I’m using them for, so I experimented with simply gluing the pieces together to make a panel.

Which… actually worked out just fine. It’s generally a 50/50 shot with my experimenting.

I made sure to use a screw to attach each board even though I’d glued them all together.

I don’t consider myself an artist, because while I can paint and draw and sculpt just fine, not only do I never use anything resembling proper technique, I also don’t attribute any meaning to what I do. I make stuff because I like the way it looks. Similarly, I am obviouslynot a woodworker. Other than as older men wearing flannel shirts I always picture woodworkers to be very meticulous people. The very personification of “measure twice, cut once” and all that. Do you know what I am? I am the MacGyver of the powertool world. My entire life is like one big rig-job. Which is probably the only reason I can take “plans” such as these:

And actually end up with something that looks like this:

But, it still needs side panels (which are going to be a bit more tricky)  and a lid. Slowly but surely.

Some of you may be wondering what the hell happened to the DIY wine rack. It’s still rumbling around in the back of my brain, but it looks like I won’t get a start on it for another week or two. I’m making sure the cabinet gets done first and doesn’t become another one of those unfinished projects that end up in the workshop purgatory.

Recently a certain adorable boy that I know decided to institute a “lifestyle change” in this house. I’m obviously in the middle of several of those right now (more on that later) but this particular change was manifesting itself in such a way as to clutter my postage-stamp sized kitchen.

And you know what clutter means for me…..

PROJECT!

Three guesses as to what this is going to be?

Despite evidence to the contrary, no,  I am not engineering torture devices in my basement…

However, for this particular project I did choose to miter the corners of the frame, which is rather like a torture device for my patience. I like working with wood, but my joinery skills are in serious need of some practice.

So in this case, I smeared a little Gorilla Glue on the corners, clamped them down…

… and stuck a screw through it. Not as classy as dovetails, but hey, I put a wood plug in and that should count for something.

And the top of the frame (about one-tenth of this project) is complete.

And what the heck is it, you ask?

Why, the beginnings of my new recycling cabinet… thank you very much!

So far it’s only cost $25 for the wood and the cans. I’m hoping to keep it under $35 total.

Hopefully this will help stem the overpopulation of paper bags filled with bottles and cans that appear to be breeding in my breakfast nook!