Year in Review

If I said this year was great for woodworking I would be lying.  I actually did not get a lot of woodworking in this year.  A lot of this year was painting our old home, repairs and moving.  I did get better painting as I progressed through the house.  It was pretty noticeable from the first rooms to the last rooms.  I was doing basic repairs to sell the house and make it livable.  I replaced the deck boards in the deck and did some last-minute landscaping.  I don’t know if the landscaping even survived.

Tool purchased this year.  I purchased a DeWalt battery operated brad nailer.  This was a game changer for me.  I no longer had to carry an air compressor and a hose to do repairs and add moulding.  It works as well as my pneumatic one without the hose.  I am very happy with this purchase.  I also purchased a DeWalt battery jigsaw.  This is mainly to cut down large boards and repair work.

My favorite project this year was painting the final room in the house.  I was happy that I don’t have to paint for a little while.  We do plan on painting our new home, but it is not needed at this time. 

No new plans this year.  I have some ideas, mothing concrete.  There are some books that I have that I want to try some of their designs. 

Business is holding steady.  Etsy has been doing well.  I have taken off all my actual toys and made it strictly plans.  I am getting less complaints about people thinking they have ordered a physical toy.  I have not done anything to grow business out here.  There are a lot of craft fairs, but I am not sure if I want to go through and get a Virginia sellers license.  Time will tell on that.  I am enjoying what I am doing now.  I do need to find some charities to donate to.  I have a couple of leads.

Next year should be a good year.  I have a lot planned and it is mostly setup in the garage.  I have been saving up to upgrade my table saw and some of my workshop.  I am looking at the Laguna Fusion 2 table saw.  I am also looking into a dust collection system.  I also want to build a couple of workbenches.  One is going to be mine for projects.  It will be on wheels with stops.  The other is going to be a kid’s bench.  I have been doing a fair amount of research on making movable benches and I think that I am ready to upgrade from sawhorses. 

New Guinea Pig Cage

My middle child got a pair of guinea pigs over the summer. One of the things that I wanted to do was elevate the cage we got so that we (I) didn’t have to bend down as much to pick them up and clean out the cage. I also wanted a place to store all the supplies they have instead of having them all over the floor. The base is made from scrap 2x6’s that were left by the previous owner. I purchased a sheet of particle with melamine on both sides. I also edge banded all the edges. I try not to use the convenience of Amazon for wood projects, but edge band was ½ when compared to the stores and twice as much. I cannot tell you about performance, because it is the first time I used iron on edge band. It worked well and cleaned up nice. The new cage is slightly larger than the old one. It seems to work well. We shall see how it holds up.