Tuesday, February 21, 2012

All's Quiet in Tahoe

While President's Day weekend was a zoo in South Lake Tahoe, things were pretty quiet around the house. Work has slowed to a virtual crawl. We've pretty much finished with the kitchen, living room and hallway, so we've taken some time to relax and enjoy the place a little bit.

Instead, we've filled the days with skiing, running, hiking, and board games. We've even caught up with a few episodes of House, thanks to iTunes downloads.

We have, however, been slowly picking away at the closet in the master bedroom. I don't plan on posting any pics of it until it is complete, which may be awhile, but at least we have shelving and a place to hang clothes.

The garage is full of left over bits and pieces of previous projects, mostly short boards of varying species, widths and lengths. Not being one to throw out even the shortest pieces, I decided to make a few boxes for storage in our closet. We'd originally thought we'd use baskets purchased at Target or Walmart or Michael's to store our odds and ends in, but costs are adding up and buying a bunch of baskets was not in the budget.

Boxes crafted out of leftover boards are cheap... free really, monetarily, but if one considers the amount of labor put in to making them, they are very costly.


We've made several editions of each of the above boxes and crates to store clothes, ski equipment, backpacks, and the like. Each looks pretty simple, but I've experimented with different types of joinery throughout. Pocket hole screws, rabbits, butt and pass, etc. Some day I'd like to try my hand at dovetailing, but haven't been bold enough yet.

I've done most of the saw and router work, Caren has done most of the finish work. She's experimented as well. Oil, whitewash, whitewashed oil, oiled whitewash, distressing, and antiquing. One of the nice things about going with a rustic motif is that nothing has to be perfect. In fact, the less perfect something is, the more perfect it is. I dig how each of the above has turned out almost as much as I dig not having piles of clothing and equipment stacked in corners and along walls.

I promise that I will post pics of the closet soon, but we do have a weekend or three worth of work to go...

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