Author: greatwallstudios

Nothing too special to report. I washed all of the miscellaneous pieces in a pot in the sink with dish soap and warm, almost hit water. Let it stand to air dry for an hour, and then used a rattle can of Rustoleum grey primer on it. Wore my mask this time to avoid a head ache from the fumes. I bought it for airbrushing, but works great for spray paint too. Now I’ll give it a few minutes to dry, and then I’ll set it down in the box the parts are in, and we’ll see where we go from there. So far I see one or two potential rough patches, where I might have missed with the tooth brush I used to scrub down the resin. Or perhaps it was damp still? Spot fixes are par for the course when I work with resin, so no real surprise there. It looks fairly uniform. I can paint this part whenever I like now. Though I think I’d want to do all the armor test fitting first. Scratch the primer is one thing, scratch a multi layered paint scheme is another!

There aren’t that many items that we need for the house right now, furniture wise. The girls will need one desk each, but not for several years at least. I figure it’ll be at least three years before my oldest will need a desk to be able to work privately in their own room, and three more years beyond that for the youngest to require one. So no use starting either of those projects yet. Too many unanswerable questions. Will they be working primarily on a laptop computer by then, on work sheets & paper with pen and pencil. Do they need room for text books and reference materials, or will all of that be digital by then? Will they paint, draw, or craft at their desks? How many drawers do they need? Does the top surface need to tilt upwards for things like drafting/painting? Do they need integrated power, or tool holders for brushes, paints and rulers etc…? Maybe when we’re a year out I can sit down with my oldest to get a sense of what they’d like to get out of their desk functionality wise. We can doodle on paper to get a sense of size, and utility features needed. Our home, and thus the bedrooms too are small. So no chance of making a bold statement piece like the resolute desk, or some such 8x4ft monstrosity. You’d have to knock down a wall to get it in or out of the house. Not to mention the poor kid would have to sleep on it at that size! Ha.

The youngest is still feral at this point. We are just now picking up speed with the reading. Which is fantastic. I love to sit and listen to them read to me. My wife and I love to read, and have a substantial book collection. Not so bad now that my wife rents books through a kindle/app. We used to go to this used bookstore in NewMarket, the starlight or something like that, and come out with ten books each, on a monthly basis, at least before we had kids anyway. My wife’s reading far outpaces my own. Here I am trying to read 12 books in a calendar year, and she’ll do that in two months. Where was I, oh yeah – desks. So, youngest – feral. Mostly. I have no inclination of what that one will want out of a work station by the time the need arises. Maybe they will both want a sit/stand work station, with over head cabinets, and a pegboard/French cleat system to customize storage and utility? Hard to tell what the trend will be by then. Then there are the choices in lighting. Strip lights, stationary lamp, adjustable long necked artists desk lamp, power bars, directly wired sockets, cord management… the list goes on, and can feel endless. Hard woods, plywood, a mixtures of the two, edge banding, joinery, or built to be modified with very little glue? I just don’t know, I guess we will see when the time comes.

I believe today is Saturday. Not certain what today has in store for us. The weather (for now) is dry and unseasonably warm & sunny. I had to wear shorts. Shorts! In early April, can you believe it! I’m no teenager anymore. This wasn’t “Oh it’s eight degrees outside and the snow is receding, so I can wear shorts again!”, this was “God damn it’s 31°C outside, I’m sweating through my pants, best put on shorts or else I’ll get dehydrated”. Crazy. Not going to lie though. While the bugs haven’t yet come out i enjoyed the outdoors a great deal this week, during my off periods, and inbetween reviews of current projects. Enjoyed a bug free sunset on the back porch. Just lovely. The last two weeks were a bit off due to the Easter long weekend creating two short weeks. Things always feel a tad discombobulated when that happens. Plus i sorted out the garage for a while, and set the resin kit down once i finished building the internal structure. That needs a good wash in warm soapy water, and one layer of primer before i consider what else to do with it. If i go whole hog, it’ll be months of work before i finish it. And I’d like to enjoy the wood shop while the weather is good. So i aim for washing & priming, and can pick it back up in November(ish) when stuff slows down again. Now I’m just rambling. Oh! Oh! I’m going to hit 500 days in about two weeks time (roughly). So, stay tuned to watch me roll over that milestone and totally forget about it. That’s always good for a chuckle. Ciao Bella!

Finished as much of the tear down of tables & carts that I can do at this time. Taking those materials and converting them into additional storage space off the floor in amongst the racking that was put in before we bought the house. For years now i have loathed the very presence of those racks. Stealing precious square footage from my garage shop. Always have to work around them, and be annoyed by them. But now, a decade on, I’ve decided to modify them, customize them to suit my needs. So extra shelves have been added to the existing space, with no additional coverage to my floors. Same amount of stuff, and more room to manoeuvre about in. Glorious. Five (5) new shelves have been put in place. I have enough material to add at least two more if/when i need them. Not to shabby. I’m trying to get my wife’s high school to take my Radial Arm saw, as even though i used it three times today, i want to remove it. I can do as much with a circular saw, or a new compound sliding mitre saw.

I used to be all about having tables & carts, and surfaces everywhere I could fit them. But once you actually need to build anything larger than a shoe box all of a sudden the garage feels like the kitchen on a submarine, and I can’t get around or move things, or do a glue up of a panel and anything else at the same time. Not that I’m over here doing projects 24/7, but feeling squashed in like that makes me waffle on deciding to do something, because I know it’ll annoy me, or scratch me, or cut me open some how. Not the worst thing, but enough of a mental block to cause me to sit on my phone and waste a precious few hours that I should have spent building furniture we need for the house.

So now I am on a reclaim the space kick. There is a finite amount of it, and what I do have is not a great big cavernous plot. I have to maximize what I have. So that’s why I’m getting rid of stuff, and moving consumables up onto the racks, and off the floor. Finding a solution to my bloody great ladder would be of major help too. Not keen on hanging it up out side, but also have no room to continue to store it inside the garage. It’s great for the trees and to gain access to the roof, but far too big to do anything interior related. It’s a 24-30ft ladder when extended all the way out. Heavy and unwieldy. Lots of fun on a windy day.

If I didn’t need my second work bench for my metal vice, I’d swap it for a rolling tool cart of a smaller footprint, but taller, and still have a light on it. Again, more wishful thinking. It also doubles as the right half of my mitre saw station, since I just tore down the left side. But, making progress. No need to spend all that hard earned money in one year to make it right. As I have since learned. What I needed 10 years ago, is different to what I need now. And in another 5-10 years who knows what sort of configuration I’ll want the shop space to be in. So small, wobbly, cash only fixes for now. That’s my unsolicited advice. Ciao Bella.

Not much to report thus far today. Unseasonably warm, almost HOT weather is around for a few days. Got some projects off for review. Completed the tear down and reclamation of space in the garage. So back to groceries, laundry, and floor cleaning until I hear back. I tackled the divot/hump left by the city snow plow when he missed his right turn and jumped the curb up onto my front lawn, blades down. So I flattened that all out. Am missing grass, must be further up the street somewhere. Oh well. Looks better, and I will be able to run a lawn mower over that patch now, so, let’s call it a win! Put 95% of the patio furniture out. Need to make a call on the teeny tiny kiddies stuff. Not certain we need it anymore.

Back to sorting laundry! Ciao Bella!

You ever go way out on a limb in an attempt to create something new and it looks like trash, and you feel embarrassed about it, and have to try and justify it to yourself, or your peers? Yeah – me neither. Right!?! So cringe worthy, oh my!

Yeah so, another potentially busy one today. I have this new report on the docket today, and a new neck tag to tackle for an LCBO promo. Waiting to hear back on a job I quoted to see if I have the all clear to begin. As I mentioned yesterday I did get through the partial tear down of an old work bench that was wobbly and in my way most of the time. I built a second shelf on my main bench that took the power tools I wanted closer to hand when working on outdoor projects. I’m still eyeing up the potential for a few new shelves to house my stains & finishes. Might have to wait on that. No big deal. Garage infrastructure projects (while important to me) aren’t that crucial to my day to day life, and my paying day job as a freelance graphic designer / production artist etc etc…

I believe that it is Wednesday all ready. We went to see the new Super Mario Brothers last night. Took in the 4:30pm show. A bit frenetic, a bit frantic, lots of chaos, but otherwise enjoyable. The youngest is a bit feral and not ready to sit through an entire feature film. Sadly Covid hit before she could build up a tolerance for sitting still! Ha.

Almost did the thing I’ve been thinking about in the garage. I did build myself a second shelf under my work bench, and tear down most of the old work bench that I keep behind my table saw. I took 50% of it a part, and then cut it down so it’s now just an 8 inch high shelf with heavy drawers and my textiles tool box on it. So “technically” I have more visual space to manoeuvre around, but I still have spots for things I need to keep up off the floor. I do, however, have more clearance around my table saw, just not 100% of what i was hoping for. I have my eye on building extra shelves at the head of my garage, which should allow me to disassemble at least one permanently parked cart. So making progress, just slowly.

I didn’t have any work emails until after 9:00am, so I was working quickly to get it done. A brand new report has come in. So I’ll be busy for several days atleast. Getting hot out there today! Wind us kicking up something nasty too. Got the kids laundry in, but not sorted. Wee!

One of the few things that bothers me while doing syrup is a face full of heat and wind blown ash while tending to the evaporator. Catch a faceful and then your eyes water, and later on it feels as though you’ve sunburned your eyes. They go scratchy & dry. Day one was better, the air was very still, no wind gusts to catch you by surprise. Day two – not so much. Gusty, breezy, blowey even. Sunny and warm though. I got a whole winter’s worth of vitamin D direct from the sun after a five hour mid day shift. I have to imagine given the quantity of sap buckets left over that we will continue to boil sap throughout the day today aswell. Bring on those double digit spring sun shiny days! I’d crack a beer if I drank it. An icy cold Radler would go down a treat in this weather. Light beer and fruit juices. Very European. Apparently.

I believe today is Monday. I’m going to have tonnes of laundry to do tomorrow. I imagine quite a bit of work to do as well. I’m still going over in my head how to break down various objects in my shop to reclaim space, but not have to buy more stuff to accommodate the items that I need to move around and store. I think that I can build more shelves with the items I break down to maximize what I all ready have in place. I just need to be bold or impulsive and start! Decisions – decisions.

The kids will be up looking for chocolates any moment now. This day will be chaotic, and full of mayhem & mischief. Looking forward to getting the sap boiled down into syrup over the next few days. The sun is up & shining on another wonderful day.

Ringette is here for a brief stint, so the kids are busy skating their hearts out. I was up before 7:00am on a Saturday, the sun is shining, and it’s a long weekend. Hallelujah!