Expand your consciousness

I recently found a movie on YouTube that literally blew my mind. This is something I've been pondering on for a very long time and have never been able to connect the dots together to see the bigger picture but this movie does a brilliant job of connecting a lot of dots, its called Kymatica and it tries to answer a few questions with regards to humans and our relationship to the universe, very interesting stuff, makes a whole bunch of sense.

The other clip I found via www.salparkes.com is from a TED talk featuring Jill Bolte Taylor who is a brain surgeon that suffered a stroke. It's an amazing insight into our perception of the physical world. What it boils down to is that our minds create our physical reality and not the other way round as we have been brought up to believe.

My favorite kind of physical reality - courtesy of Roger Gaily

I made this in High School.....

This is a display cabinet I made for my final year woodworking class in high school. It's been with me 18 years now and except for needing a little glue in the mortise and tenon joints on the feet it's lasted pretty well. It's made from Imbuia with yellow wood inlays, it's still got that beautiful yellow wood smell when you open it up. When I was making it I wasn't mature enough to appreciate the beauty and durability of the wood we were using and the skill it takes to make something out of nothing with your hands and basic tools, we just did as our teacher told us. Funny enough I've often said that the only skill I learned at school that I've actually used later on in life is woodworking.

When I was at school, woodwork was what you did if you sucked at maths and accounting, it had a bit of a stigma attached to it i.e you're a bit of dumbass if you do woodwork. Looking at the world financial situation these days I think we'd be better off if there were a lot more woodworkers in the world than financial wizards.

Recycled wooden deck

A while back I offered to build a deck for my girlfriends mother, she has a beautiful home right on the Kleinemonde east river just outside of the small coastal town of Port Alfred, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The idea was that I would try and buy as little of the material as possible and see if it was possible to build a nice wooden deck for next to nothing using whatever materials I could get my grubby little paws on. Bearing in mind that this was the first time I had ever attempted building something bigger than a dining room table.

I gave my sister-in-laws brother a call, he's a local builder in town and the last time I was at his place I spied a whole heap of used building timber in his yard. He was more than happy to let me help myself to whatever I needed.

Holy Crap Sticks!!!.... I was like a junkie that had just been given the keys to the Meth Lab. I gotta tell ya I was a little bit woozy, so much wood, so little space on the back of my Corsa bakkie. Needless to say I drove outta there with my poor little bakkie creaking under the weight.

Okay, so the first thing I had to do was measure out where I was going to insert the wooden support columns. I measured out the length and width of the deck and hammered in some bamboo stakes where I wanted the supports to go and marked out the lines with some twine wrapped around the stakes. To be honest I didn't actually check that the corners were 100% square, I knew something about Pythagoras's theorem....the square of the hypotenuse ..blah blah...I was like..stuff it...looks pretty square to me :-)

Maggie pondering Pythagoras' Theorem

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So once I had all the pegs marked out for the support poles it was time to get to work. I dug the holes about 400mm deep, set the poles and then filled them up with concrete. I've read that some people cover the bottom half of the pole that goes into the ground with plastic before filling it up to prevent the pole from rotting. Speaking to the local farmers they reckon that the poles tend to rot at ground level so it should be sufficient to just fill the hole up with concrete a couple of millimeters above ground level. I left the poles to set for a week and then started putting the frame together. I used 10mm threaded rod cut to the correct length with nuts and washers on each end to fasten the beams to the poles.

So now with my frame in place it started looking like an actual deck, I was pretty stoked with myself at this point, no severed limbs and it looked pretty straight and level from most angles. Most of the wooden planks I had scavenged for the deck were different lengths so I sorted them out into piles of similar lengths and cut the odd ones out to size, I really just mixed and matched, I wasn't too worried about the width of each plank so long as they were all the same thickness. I started at the end furthest from the house and worked my way backwards making sure that I used all the crappy planks first, that way they wouldn't be the first thing you noticed if you walked onto the deck from the porch.

That's Bailey getting some good lovin' from Caroline

All the wood I used was treated pine that is mainly used as rafters in the building industry in South Africa, except for the rails, for that I cut down some pine branches from the big pine tree in the back yard, peeled the bark off and let them dry in the sun for about a week or two. I cut them to size and nailed them to railing and the deck evenly spaced apart, it definitely gives it a more rustic feel and once I gave the entire deck a coat of wood stain it came out pretty awesome.

All in all it probably took me about 3 weekends to build this deck and about a R1000 in materials, the main cost being the wood stain which was almost R500 for 5liters. I reckon for someone to build you a deck of this size would cost anything from R8 000 to R10 000 if not more. I was really chuffed with the results especially seen as it was my first time doing this sort of thing. The main tools I used were a Circular Saw, Jig Saw, Drill, T-Square, Level, Tape Measure, Pencil and my favorite multi-tool.......the Hammer ;-)

I think anyone with a bit of creativity and the ability to operate a power tool could do this....so what you waiting for...??

My original idea about this blog

The view from our deck

I haven't really done much with this blog since I started it, originally I thought it would just be a space for me to post links and articles about furniture that I like and plan on building myself and document my experiences along the way but I've realized that besides recycled furniture I have so many more interests and passions, most of it leaning  toward an alternative way of living. In fact I moved back to the small town I grew up in with my girlfriend to simplify our lives and start living a healthier more fulfilling life. It's been a really big adjustment, not that we were living this big city life but in the sense that making the choice and actually doing what you set out to do is a lot different from the way you picture it in your mind. I also run a small computer support business which is my main source of income and takes up most of my time so it's really hard trying to balance your dreams with the reality of day to day living.

What I eventually would like to do is buy a piece of land and build my own home using natural materials that are locally sourced over a period of a few years so that by the time we move in it's paid off and we aren't forever bonded to the bank. Unfortunately Property Prices in South Africa at the moment are seriously over inflated and sellers are asking unrealistic prices so we'll probably have to wait a while before the market becomes affordable again.

Anyway, what I was trying to say before I got sidetracked is that I'm going to be posting a lot more frequently over a variety of different topics, so hopefully you'll find it interesting and visit more.

Rustic Towel Rail

Sorry, not the greatest pic - my camera sucks piles

Here's a really easy project for you to do at home, I think I found this idea in a magazine somewhere, can't remember the name of it now. Anyhoo, it's a really simple way to make your own rustic Towel Rails. What you'll need is two old forks, a branch long enough and thick enough to carry the weight of two towels, sandpaper, wood varnish, some wall screws, needle nose pliers, a power drill and your imagination.

I used the branch from a Spruce Pine Tree that we had cut back a bit in the garden, I used a pocket knife to peel off the bark which is usually pretty easy to do if the wood is still green i.e freshly cut. I then left the branch to dry in the sun for two days just to make sure all the sap had evaporated. I cut off any protruding bits and sanded the branch down to a smooth finish.

Curly Fork Prongs

Once the branch is sanded down you can either paint a clear varnish coat onto it or use a wood varnish that comes with a stain premixed depending on your preference. While the varnish is busy drying you can start getting your forks ready that will act as the brackets. Drill two holes into the fork using a metal drill bit, one on the handle the other just below the prongs of the fork. Once that is done you can now bend the prongs of the fork using needle nose pliers whichever way tickles your fancy, I went with a kind of curling wave effect for mine.

Now all that is left to do is mark out where you would like to hang your fork brackets on the wall. I made a pencil mark on each end using a spirit level just to make sure it was level. Drill your holes into the wall for the wall screws, screw in your fork brackets, fit your branch rail into the palm of the fork and screw it in with a wood screw to keep it secure and your done....step back and admire your handiwork and when your friends ask you what you did this weekend you can tell them you remodeled the bathroom! :-)

Bathroom remodel - check!....Beer time - check!

Furniture Montage

Found this clip on YouTube of the most beautiful one piece benches. Don't know how the hell they manage to transport those things to wherever they need to be.

Refuse Bag Stand

Felled Wild Plum Tree branches

My latest project is a Refuse Bag Stand. A mate of mine needed something to put his refuse bags in at the end of the driveway that would prevent the neighborhood dogs from ripping the bags open before the Refuse Truck came to take them away. I recently felled some Wild Plum Tree branches and was looking for a way to reuse the wood and thought this would be an ideal opportunity to use them. Wild Plum Tree is indigenous to South Africa and is found in the Eastern Cape right through to Kwazulu Natal mainly along the coast.

Got my debarking technique down to fine art

What I like about the Wild Plum Tree is that it is pretty easy to debark while it's still wet, the easiest way to do it I found was to shave off the bark on two opposite sides of the branch using a panga and then lifting the remaining bark with a paint scraper and pulling it off.

It kinda felt like skinning an animal especially the way the bare wood underneath resembles bone, although I've never skinned an animal in my life I imagine this is what it must feel like minus all the gory stuff.

Once I had debarked all the wood I needed, I selected four thick branches that would form the backbone of my stand. I made two leg stands by just crossing two branches over each other and notching them in the middle to form a cross halving joint and nailed them together to keep it sturdy. I used a mitre saw to cut the cross halving joints and a 10mm wood chisel to chisel out the joint. Now that my two leg stands were sorted I fitted a decent size branch between the two and nailed it into place. So with the basic framework for my stand done all that was left to do was screw on the smaller branches that would form the "basket" where the refuse bags would be left safely out of reach from the roaming packs of dogs.

For extra stability I added four braces that attached each leg to the center "beam" of the Refuse Bag Stand.
Here's the what the finished product looks like.

Wooden Pallet Outdoor Chair

Found this great idea for a swinging wooden pallet chair through a link at  DudeCraft
via Recyclart

Shipwreck Furniture: Salvaged Boat Wood Transformed

Found via: Apartment Therapy

South African designer Nic Kruger fashions these beauties from salvaged shipwrecks. Check out the rest of their stuff at Shipwreck Furniture

Bean Rocker

I stumbled across these cool chairs called beanrockers a while back and loved them so much I decided to make one for my daughter. The originals are from a company called Knoend:

Here's there one I made out of pine:

Denis Milovanov - Solid wood furniture

Found this via the Contemporist website. Solid wood furniture made by Russian woodworker Denis Milovanov...very cool.

Tool for making seedling pots from newspaper

How awesome is this little tool for making seedling pots from newspaper!
Found via Unconsumption

Pot Maker, Gardening Supplies and Garden Tools at Burpee.com
This nifty eco-friendly mold transforms strips of ordinary newspaper into biodegradable seed-starting pots you plant right in the garden. No more trays and pots to buy, wash and store. Hardwood form lasts for years. A real money-saver.

Lauren Milroy's Pencil Sandals

How cool are these?
found at DudeCraft

"Lauren Milroy recently graduated with a MS in Design from Stanford University. Before Stanford she attended the University of Southern California, where she received a BS in Mechanical Engineering. She worked for several years as lead engineer in the aerospace industry before leaving the technical to focus on her creative inclinations at Stanford. She is currently interested in the relationship between people and the things they own — how do the objects we own define our identity?"

Dining room table from drift wood

I've been looking around for some stuff to post on my newly minted blog and came across these pics of a dining room table myself and my girlfriend, Caroline built for her mom. We found the wood for the legs one day whilst walking up the beach, not too sure what type of wood it is but it had a strange smell to it once cut, almost like a coconut husk. We did hear stories of a cargo ship that lost some timber in rough seas not far from where we were but couldn't confirm it. Someone had tried to make a fire with the one end, no doubt a fisherman trying to keep warm on a cold night.

Caroline getting stuck in

Me doing my bit

The day we carried it back home we bumped into one of the local residents who said that she had also spotted that same piece of wood and was trying to figure out a way to retrieve it. Luckily we picked it up first, although it wasn't easy carrying a whole friggin tree trunk 2 kilometers down the beach and back to Caroline's moms house. I used some scrap 2 x 4 planks for the frame and Caroline's mom bought 2 boards of pine for 300 bucks that we use for the table top.

Was a bit of a mission trying to cut the legs so that they all stood level considering that the trunk was bent to one side. I used a piece of string to measure the length from top to bottom and tried cutting it as square as possible. Turned out pretty sturdy in the end. I didn't use any Mortise or Tenon joints, bolted the legs to the frame and screwed the table top down. The holes for the screws were countersunk and filled with wood filler.
We sanded it down and varnished it with a clear coat. Only took us a couple of hours from start to finish and I think it turned out really nice.

Our driftwood dining room table in all it's glory