Continental Shelfs

This week some littler projects done and a bigger one started.

I have put up two four foot long shelves with the brackets screwed directly into the wall studs. Upon these two will rest my first R/C modeling effort, a Liberty Ship, and my latest an Ohio class submarine of the type I once rode for fun and profit. Neither will fit exactly but I want to get them on display and out of the garage eventually.

The wonderful looking green orb is a tea light I found at Target a couple weeks ago hanging upon a painted hanging plant hook. Eventually it will be wired up and casting a green glow upon demand. Why? I don't know, nothing like it in the movie but its still neat.

Thirdly I have begun installing the built in desk after staining it the same dark mahogany as the chair. Its a very early picture to show the idea and I think you get the drift. Underneath will be storage to hide the computer case and most of the wiring and on top will be a short bookshelf type structure for even more storage most likely SubCommittee Reports and FineScale Modeler magazines I imagine.

The desk will occupy most of the coming week and hopefully I will have some finished looking images for you next time.

Captains Chair

Progress was slow this week due to a busy birthday schedule which included a trip to Joes Crab Shack for a bucket O' crab and a dessert of frozen crepe bananas foster instead of Mr. Lands' "pudding" of sauté of unborn octopus. Delightful!

What I DID acomplish was to take apart that old chair which was full of hundred year old dust, horsehair for cushions and something that looked like dried lawn clippings. Made quite a mess. Fortunately I kept all the fabric to use as templates for cutting new ones and will be substituting modern day cushy foam cut to size for the packing.

It took a couple tries to strip off all the old varnish and another couple coats of stain to get it looking good again. I will give it a further couple coats of glossy polyurethane shortly. When that dries I'll cut the foam and fabric and tack it all back together into what I hope will be a serviceable computer chair.

(NOTE) Everything I have said previously about the computer desk portion of this project please disregard. While I had measured everything correctly and laid it out just so in my mind, I just didn't like the looks of the modified store bought desk next to my storage units so I decided to go for a built-in type thing based loosely on a table I spied in one of the movie stills I refer to as I go through this project. It will be stained to match the wood of the chair and shelves and should look sweet. The computer case and all the cords will be hidden as well.

I'm also excited to have ordered the round skylight to serve as my "salon" window which should look totally awesome when I'm done with it.

Stay tuned sports fans...

Davey Jones' lockers

Its still Sunday, so I made it. Barely. But look what I got done this week.

The top pieces are now mounted on both these storage units. The thing on the wall is apparently called a "cleat" in the design business. It will serve as an anchor point for the back of the storage unit tops tying them to the wall and shoring up those cool looking shelfs which I made from poplar planks and lengths of galley rail. I REALLY like how they look. The far sides of the surface tops will also sport some of that railing later in the week to kind of tie it all together.

Remember those scrolls from way back? I originally painted them a gold color but Marsha correctly labeled them too "kingly" a color for this room so I went with an aged copper treatment instead which really goes well with the mahogany stain. The posts and scrolly things across the front are removable too so I won't have to work around them when I need a lot of counter space. Just pop 'em out and go.

I'll have to figure it out exactly but I bet I will have twice the counter space in here when I'm done as we have in our kitchen and I think I will actually have an excess of storage for a while too but as I start building models again alot of that will get eaten up.

Next up I have an old school Victorian looking chair I am going to attempt to reupholster. I know...Good Luck! Hopefully it will look good AND be useful and comfortable as the computer chair but I will have an eye to a backup plan should it not work out. Beanbags.

No, not really.

Stowing for sea...Topless style

Quick update as this project is going to take another week to complete fully. I have (with Buddy-Lees's help) constructed two more storage units. Riveted them all around, painted them in a used looking two tone scheme similar to the first and added some cool looking pulls and some uh..decorative thingys. At this point the bottoms are complete but these two units will eventually also be sporting a backboard and a shelf with brackets on the top. Hence they are currently "topless". Hyuk hyuk. --Anyhow, these are mostly in parts form currently but I hope to have the whole package on display for you next post. You'll make sure to come by and take a gander at my magnificent package next Sunday won't you?

Also I have added some more tassels and another pair of curtains to the closet which really look kinda neat doncha think? And note the cool lamp I got on sale. It will be going on my map table later. Neato.