Last week, a buddy of mine asked me if I could throw together an arbor by the weekend, in time for a video shoot for Penny Palabras. Having never made one before, I told him I could absolutely get it done.



It turns out that garden arbors aren't terribly complicated. It's just the lattice that makes it seem difficult, but you can get a 2'x8' sheet of cedar lattice for about $13 at Home Depot. Cut it to length and sandwich it between a few 2x4 studs and you're good to go.



Most of the cutting was done with the miter saw and the circular saw. However, I didn't have an easy way to cut out the spots where the 2x6 horizontal pieces would go, so I did it the old fashioned way: hammer and chisel. It turned out much easier than I thought it would, and the pieces went in quite flush.



Here's a close-up shot where the 2x4s and the 2x6s come together. Without much work, it already looks pretty amazing.



To create an extra dimension to the wood, I used a router bit that I picked up for a couple of bucks at a garage sale. It's nothing fancy, but it adds quite a bit to the wood.



This is before adding a cedar-colored oil coat to the arbor. It's pretty slick how quickly this thing went up.



And here is the finished product, with cedar-colored oil, and a few extra slats on top. I sent it off to the location where it'll be used in the videos.


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I've got a small shop at my new place in Washington. Small-ish, anyway. It's big enough for one car, a metalworking space, and a woodworking space. I've been working with wood a lot more lately, including my CNC machine, and I'm constantly trying to keep up with the sawdust and wood particles in the air. It's a mess, really. My poor Datsun 510 is constantly covered in sawdust!

I've decided to partition off a section of my shop for the woodwork by installing walls. Originally, I was going to fully frame out the walls, but my genius wife suggested doing something less permanent.



This is where the CNC machine lives. It's in the back corner of the shop to try to keep the dust it makes as far away from everything as possible. But a small shop can't avoid getting dust all over it unless you wall things off.



In addition to walling off the woodworking area, I thought that having an air filtration system installed would be a very good idea. There's no sense in drowning in sawdust. I've seen many DIY filtration designs, but I figured I'd do it the way a house fan is done: fan on one side of the area with filtered openings on the other side.



After tracing out the fan housing and building a box for support, I installed the fan on the far corner of the enclosure.



Here's another shot of it.





I used some thick clear plastic over some 2x2" studs. Because these walls aren't going to hold anything other than the plastic, I didn't need to bother with proper 2x4" studs or leave 16" (or is it 24"?) spaces between the studs. These 2x2"s are 36" apart and will do serve just fine.



Here's the installation of the filter. Pretty straight forward, but I may end up installing a second one above it. The fan is pretty powerful, and I'm concerned that there's not enough opportunity for the air to escape the room.



And here's the result. The woodworking room is fully sectioned off in the shop with all the wood tools inside. I have a few spots to seal up so the air only escapes through the filter, but I think this should work!

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My wife and I have been taking on some more home decorating projects. Typically, this involves my wife finding something she likes on Pinterest and having me or her dad buy the parts and build it. This time around, the idea was mine.

We have a good-sized pantry in our kitchen. It's actually pretty impressive, and it's always been a shame that there's a door that's in the way.

Problem solved.

This project consisted of the following:

1. Cutting the door in half
2. Relocating the top hinge
3. Cutting some 5/8" MDF board for a shelf on the door
4. Mo