Medicine cabinet for two

After a bathroom remodel that included moving two walls, replacing a shower stall with a footed cast-iron tub, and building a rather unusual sink cabinet that included a column of drawers, all that was left was to build the medicine cabinet to go over the counter. But it's never that easy, is it?

I kicked around a number of ideas before finally calling in the expert. My wife told me her needs were simple. She wanted a larger mirror in the middle with two shallow cabinets on either side with mirrored doors that folded in so she could see both sides of her head when she was doing her hair.

I guess I had been over-thinking it. I drew a rough sketch of the walls and sink cabinet in Sketchup, then drew the cabinet to fit the open space pretty much exactly as she described. The only decorative touches I added were a large cove molding that wrapped around the top and ebony pins in the corner of each mirror. The results matched the rest of the bathroom decor quite well, I think, and my wife has been very pleased with the result.

Lap desk for laptops

Jefferson's lap desk has always fascinated me. It is elegantly simple, yet functional, and perhaps best of all there is no room for clutter. It is a self-contained portable work center and its small, portable nature restricts what can accumulate on, in or around it.

Plans for Jefferson's lap desk have appeared in several magazines over the years, and I've seen reproductions in a few catalogs. One day, while studying a reproduction the thought occurred to me that with a few modifications, the lap desk might be updated to become the perfect work center for a laptop. If I could hide a port replicator in the back somewhere, only the power cord would be left hanging out of the back. It's small size meant that it could sit on a TV tray or the legs of a butler table. Or two pair of legs could be tucked away underneath then folded out for use in bed like a breakfast tray.

This is an idea with lot's of potential, so I've been gathering photos of examples. And I've even gone so far as to create an initial Sketchup model.

Texas Legislator's Desk

The Texas History Trip is a rite of passage for the 7th grade class at the small, all-boys, Catholic school my sons attend. The same adult leader has been taking forty-five 13-year-old boys on the trip for nearly 30 years, and the fathers of many of my sons' classmates went on the same trip when they were boys. Over the years the school has accumulated quite a list of rules for the trip--all based on past experience--and the recitation of them at the pre-trip planning meeting with the parents is one of the funniest PTA meetings you could ever hope to attend. "No fireworks, no hair removal products, no snakes..."

Each trip there are only a few slots open for Dads to tag along as chaperons, and I was lucky enough to be chosen for my youngest son's trip in 2008--my last opportunity. One of the highlights of the trip was the stop at the Texas State Capital, and it was during our tour of the legislature that I discovered these desks used by the state legislators. The desks were an interesting design, well-executed, and from fine wood--In short, just the sort of project I'd like to tackle someday.

Mesquite gloat

Google Alerts is a wonderful thing. I've got it configured to search Craiglist postings for keywords and generate a newsfeed item in Google Reader whenever something new turns up that I might be interested in. This led to me finding my Powermatic bandsaw about six months ago, and recently it has turned up a couple of caches of wood. The first was a enough sapele to build a small chest of drawers for the study. Then this week it turned up a sale of 150-200 bf of mesquite. The seller posted it at 9pm and I received the newsfeed alert almost immediately. When I called the next morning, I was the first to respond to the ad and what a haul it turned out to be.