Fairy Lights

I saw this project at Darbin Orvar and thought my kids would like them, so I set to work to try to finish in time for christmas.

First things first, I went and bought a hunk of 4"x4" mahogany. I didn't really care what kind of wood (I just knew I wanted hardwood) and so basically I just picked what looked good from the small inventory at the local Woodcraft store.

Then I went to my buddy's house and borrowed his drill press. I bought a forstner bit specifically for this project.

In the end, the only tricky part was figuring out a way to get the recess large enough for the battery pack and not make it all jagged/etc. I used the router table to clean up the edges, but the deepest bit I had was not deep enough, so I hogged out more material with a spade bit. Maybe I should invest in some chisels...

On to some finishing... And then assembly.

The kids liked them, but I think I should have made it a bit easier to turn them off/on. The hole I drilled in the bottom cover is a bit too small.

Dresser Conversion

We go this old dresser from some friends of ours. They were getting rid of it as it had definitely seen some better days.

My plan was to convert it into a cabinet by removing the drawers and rails, then adding interior shelves. For the cabinet doors, I pulled the fronts off the drawers and attached them to some plywood.

I left the top row of drawers alone.

I ended up having to do a lot of fixing to the carcass before I could even get started and I'm having a really difficult time matching the stain. I've definitely found one of those skills I'll need to spend a lot of time on if I want to figure out. Matching stain...

Because this is going to be a home for the record player and records, I made sure the shelves were the right height for albums and then reattached the doors. Aside from the stain issue, it's all ready to go. (well, I have to re-attach the knob on the top right drawer, and the top left drawer will likely always have that chunk missing...)