But on to my bizarre title: There is something about the hum of my table saw that brings the cicadas. Not the belt sander, not the miter saw, just the table saw. At first I thought it was a coincidence, but time after time when it spins up the big eyed insects flock to it, landing on the table. It takes IRON SELF CONTROL to not freak out when one of the little buggers lands on my neck while wrestling a sheet of plywood through the spinning blades of terror.
Monkey and I finished our bench! Some stain, a little polyurethane, and more of my favorite blue paint :)
We actually followed the directions very closely, except for leaving off the angled portion of the side apron. Thanks for the plans Ana!
More construction with Monkey.
This is how I hope to spend our summer together (our summer that starts NEXT WEEK).
Good thing he has a nice smile, because it has been an extremely rough week.
Finished product tomorrow, hopefully.
Our ancient wicker couch decomposed to a pile of sticks this winter, so we picked up a few chairs and an umbrella for our patio. I built a table inspired by these plans from Knock off Wood, using only 3 2x4s.
I spaced out the boards on top about a quarter inch since it is an outdoor table, and eliminated the breadboard ends. The 4x4 legs were replaced with a v-shape made from 2x4s and 2x2s (ripped down on my table saw). The apron pieces were eliminated too; the v-shaped legs attached directly to the top of the table and the support square underneath.
The top was stained and sealed with lots of polyurethane. The legs were painted with my favorite blue from my living room walls then polyurethane. The turquoise looks perfect with the blue umbrella.
We now have the perfect place to sit and enjoy the back yard, for the next two weeks until it gets too hot to go outside :)
he even helped paint. Because we bought cheap paint and didn't prime, the orange ended up taking about nine billion coats. You'd think I would have learned after last time. 
I wanted the peak to be tall enough that Buzz could stand on top, so I changed the angle and length of the top boards. This required math, which sound scary but really is just high school geometry (did you know I took calculus, once long ago? Guess how many times I've used it since then). At the peak, the boards needed to be cut at 60 degrees-a problem because my radial arm saw only bends over to 45 degrees. So I cut it at 45 degrees and then used a belt sander to grind it down to the angle it needed to be. I also added a couple inches of height and width to the main shelves, to pack in a few more books.
The construction only took about 3 1/2 hours, even letting Monkey drill holes and put in screws. We used cabinet grade plywood ($23.97), a box of screws ($5.37), orange paint (~$7.00, but I should have spent more), as well as glue and white paint that I already had, bringing our total to around $40. We loved Knock off Wood's great plans and look forward to building more!
I am so picky about furniture, that I have started building stuff just so I get exactly what I want (also, I live no where near an ikea). My first project was organizing the Monkey's bedroom. I am really happy with the way these cubbies turned out, and did learn some important things to remember when I start my next project.
