As general contractor I personally did all of the work on this project, with the exception of plumbing, hvac and masonry, converting this one car garage to a kitchen. To see before and after pictures  click here.

This 270 square foot deck was built on helical piles rather than traditional concrete footers (with one post going over 13' deep). Built on pressure treated framing, the decking is pvc, the railing is powder coated aluminum and the pergola structure is eastern white cedar. To see this side of the house before the deck was built click here.

This asian inspired entertainment cabinet was one of two projects built to a designer’s specifications. There are wire chases and vent louvers in the back, adjustable interior shelving and the doors swing on brass knife hinges. Constructed of poplar solids and birch plywood, the distressed finish consists of two colors of white paint and a brown glaze under lacquer

The lower pics are of built-in cabinets at the same residence and for the same designer. Built in 6 pieces and installed primed +1 (primed with one coat of paint, the final coats to be done after installation, in this case by the client’s painter) , they span over 9′ wide and hold electronics as well as clothing and jewelry. The angled doors on the sides pull out for easy access to stainless steel shelves.

This cabinet holds audio / video equipment as well as two wine refrigerators. Built in three pieces, the insides are 3/4″ pre-finished maple ply, the door panels are bookmatched curly walnut veneer and the rest is solid walnut. The top row of drawers are dovetailed maple boxes, the lower 3 drawer faces on the left and right are actually doors hiding AV equipment.

This vanity and accompanying shelves have a sleek, straight forward, modern design. The cabinet is built of 3/4″ pre-finished maple ply and the rest is 3/4″ teak marine ply and teak solids. The drawers boxes are dovetailed solid maple and there is trash pull-out in the center. The main challenge was laying out the cuts for the teak plywood while taking into account the width of the door gaps and solid edging in order to get a consistent continuous grain.

This kitchen I built in Colorado is a bit different than other kitchens I've done. I usually build faceframe cabinets with inset doors but on this job, to keep costs down, I used full overlay doors and euro-style cabinets. The cabinets are made of 3/4" pre-finished maple ply with soft maple doors and beetle-kill pine drawer boxes.

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This project not only created a lot useful storage space, but also made room for a full-size bed in what was an almost unusable guest-room. The ceiling of a tall staircase on the floor below protruded up through the floor of the guest room and created an angled “ramp” going from 12″ up the wall to about 16″ out onto the floor; so no furniture could be placed against one wall.

The bed covers the “ramp” and opens up the other side of the room for a desk.

Behind the door is a 48″ deep cabinet (to store rolled historic maps) and there are four drawers roughly 36″ deep X 25″ wide X 8″ high.

Constructed of- baltic birch ply and wormy elm (drawer fronts), quarter-sawn elm (door panels), birch, walnut and poplar solids.

UPDATE- After installing the bed I got a call from the client to tell me that the powder-post beetle larvae were still alive in the wormy elm drawer faces. The tell-tale sign of sawdust being ejected from the holes was proof that I hadn’t killed all of the little buggers. After failed attempts using a syringe to inject mineral spirits into the worm holes (I didn’t want to use any of the nasty insecticides I read about online and the drawer faces were too big to fit in my freezer) it occurred to me use the negative pressure of my veneer bag and vacuum pump to do the job. There has been no sign of the larvae or beetles since.

For more info on the construction of these morris chairs go here.

These matching tables are made of curly quarter-sawn white oak, red oak and ash and have one adjustable shelf. One table has book-matched solid oak panels, while the other has panels made of book-matched ash that was left-over from a recurve bow project. The pulls and hinges are made of solid antique brass in the style of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. At 29″ high they make great nightstands or side-tables for a living room.

This small side table is crotch and plain sawn mahogany, assembled with pocket screws, slip tenons and dowels.

This approximately 7 x 7 x 7 mudroom used to have a small closet taking up an entire wall- it made the room far too crowded and the interior of the closet was so narrow it was almost useless. After the closet was removed and the walls were patched, new in-floor heating was installed. Once the slate tiles and new entry door was in I installed all of the trim, beadboard, bench with drawers beneath, shelf with corbels and finally a lot of hooks. The painted stock is either mdf or poplar, the bench top is quarter-sawn white oak and the drawers are dovetailed maple boxes with Blum undermount slides. The mirror was a gift and is made of curly quarter-sawn white oak.

I made this blanket chest for our newborn niece Saffron Tallulah. It’s made of baltic birch ply with poplar, birch and curly maple solids. The finish is black and red milk paint and varnish. Just about everything used to build this was a scrap, off-cut or leftover.

These are a pair of similar blanket chests. They’re both made of poplar, oak and birch plywood. The drawers are dovetailed and use Blum slides. The green chest was a gift to newborn Griffin Szalay.

My first shop was located in my friend Brad’s garage and we agreed that as payment for rent I’d build him a kitchen a little at a time, when I had time. He wanted a kitchen that was unique and showcased different types of wood- we both dislike how a lot of kitchens are made up of what I call “walls of wood”; monotone swaths of a single species of wood of little character. We spent a lot of time over a lot of beers coming up with ideas for the pulls (these were drawn on a bar napkin at Bukowski’s), designs and storage options.

The cabinet boxes are 3/4″ pre-finished maple and the face frames, drawer fronts and door frames are solid cherry. The door panels are a mix of veneers- I emailed the guys at Certainly Wood, gave them my rough panel sizes and explained what we wanted- any remnants of veneer they had that would go well with cherry. The first order they put together looked great and we bought it- spalted maple, curly cherry, bubinga and kewazinga. I also used some flat-sawn mahogany and sapele that I had laying around to fill in where we needed misc panels. While the veneer was on it’s way Brad built a vacuum pump set-up and I made the bag and plattens for my new veneer press. (For more details on the veneer press go here).

For most of the pulls I used a 1 3/8″ forstner bit to drill 1/2″ deep holes, into which I glued discs of copper that Brad had cut out and treated to give a nice patina. Over that I glued on thin strips of curly maple, purpleheart, ebony and bubinga to create the pulls.

Other notes-

– the door tenons are pinned with brass brads

– where doors meet in pairs the side-by-side stiles are cut from the same board to match grain, the same goes for the top and bottom rails on all doors

– the drawer boxes are solid dovetailed maple

– there are trash and recycling pull-outs (not shown)

– there is a very shallow functioning drawer beneath the cooktop to hold thin utensils

– there are matching glass-panel upper cabinets in the dining room

– Brad finished the entire kitchen by hand with Danish oil and varnish

I can’t say enough about Certainly Wood- the are very helpful, knowledgable and have an enormous selection of veneer. Years before I built this kitchen, while riding my motorcyle, I barely made it off the road and into their office before the skies opened up in a torrential downpour. While I waited (for over an hour) for the rain to subside one of their employees poured me some coffee and told me to look around as long I wanted.

Here a few pics of Brad’s cabinets under construction….

This is a large dining table I made for some friends. The base is maple and poplar in milk paint and maple stain. The top is curly ambrosia maple with TransFast dye and boiled linseed oil. Both the base and top are sealed with shellac and top-coated with Target coatings water-bourne lacquer.

The top is expandable with two slide-in company boards (not shown).

I did this mudroom a couple of years ago- it’s very similar the the Fridy mudroom. Sorry, the pics are kind of tight, the room is pretty small and I had a hard time getting a good angle. In a space that used to be for a washer and dryer, the bench floats on the same corbel design as the Fridy’s but this one has a shoe shelf instead of drawers. Other changes are a slightly more modern design, bench top material and a door for access to the old washer hook-up. Materials are mdf, 3/4″ birch ply, poplar and sapele.

These modern bamboo shelves are bare-edged 3/4″ bamboo ply, held together with slip tenons and finished with Sherwin Williams Kem Aqua water-bourne lacquer. They are anchored to the wall with  3″ sleeve anchors, the lights are dimmable LEDs.

A simple built-in desk, with adjustable shelves, pencil and file drawers and a removable panel in the knee-space to hide computer wires (see 2nd pic). The drawer boxes are solid dovetailed maple with Blum undermount sides. To be able to fit everything into the tiny elevator I constructed it in 7 major components that had been pre-assembled in the shop. I also pre-cut all of the copes and miters on the trim pieces, to make for less cutting indoors. It is made of cherry ply and cherry solids with 4 coats of Arm-R-Seal.

After the installation I felt that the cherry looked very pale next to the Stickley and Moser furniture in the room. The clients were away for a few more days so I thought I’d try an experiment- I bought a few heavy duty UV reptile bulbs and left them on to see if they would speed the darkening process. After 24 hours I returned and removed a strategically placed piece of painters tape and there was a slight but noticable difference. I left the lights on for a few more days and it actually helped, thankfully the guy at the pet store told me he would accept the bulbs back for a full refund- because he wanted to know if would work too.

Sorry for the crappy pics, I took these with my old phone. This is a quickie built-in I did for a master bedroom addition. It’s pretty straight forward- maple, poplar, birch ply and mdf finished with tinted Sherwin Williams Kem Aqua lacquer. The shelves are 1 1/2" thick birch plywood with a maple front lip with a reversible bead detail, so they can be flipped upside-down if they ever begin to sag.

From an undersized single car garage to a 23' x 12' kitchen and 23' x 12' deck.

Problem-

Makita BMR radio stops working due to low quality wiring/bad design of the AC/DC adapter

Solution-

Move adapter and flimsy wiring to the interior of the radio, connect to an iec outlet and use a more durable power cord on the exterior of the radio.

Parts cost- (not including misc scrap wire, heat-shrink, solder, etc)-
IEC plug, $1.97

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=090-442

10′ IEC cord $4.98

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=110-180

My Makita BMR radio stopped working after a couple of years due to frayed wires on the original “power block”, or AC/DC adapter. The radio worked with the 18V LXT battery but not with the adapter (with the adapter plugged in the screen read the letter “E”). Upon looking more closely I realized that the adapter wires had frayed slightly and crossed. I cut and spliced the wires back together but still the adapter still didn’t work.

I did a little research and found that 1) adapter wire failure is a common problem and 2) a few people had come up with various mods for this radio, one of which addresses the crappy adapter wiring issue. (See this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoTyfYJdUz8 )

The following is an explanation with photos of how I repaired my radio and gave it a more durable cord.

Let me first say that I’m not an electrical expert- I’m a cabinetmaker. I’m offering this info because I know that the power cord/adapter failure is common and I thought it could be helpful to pass on what I’ve learned. If you have questions or constructive comments feel free to let me know. If you don’t like the radio or my modifications I honestly don’t give a crap- I don’t want to hear your opinions on how much time this took me vs my hourly rate or that my soldering skills suck. I obviously can’t guarantee this will work for you and as I said I’m not an expert… so proceed at your own risk.

In my case, the AC/DC adapter died so I had to replace it (it wasn’t just the wires either, my multimeter confirmed that was completely fried). Luckily, I had one leftover from an old netgear router that met the same specs. The basic order of the modification is this…

1) Confirm that you have a working adapter and order parts

2) Unplug, remove battery from and open radio (4 allen bolts on the front and 2 phillips screws in the back, accessed through the large battery compartment)

3) Plug working adapter into the radio and power on. Use a multimeter to confirm the polarity of the connections where we want to connect our adapter (see attached pics). Note polarity.

4) Make a note of what wires go where in the radio (in case you need to disconnect them)

5) Cut hole for and attach iec plug with screws

6) Paying attention to polarity, solder approx 6″ of scrap wires from iec plug to prongs on the AC/DC adapter (I soldered all connections with heat-shrink tubing loosely on the wires. After I confirmed that everything worked I then pushed the heat-shrink over the connections and heated it to protect the connections. Electrical tape would also work fine.).

7) Paying attention to polarity, solder wires exiting the adapter (now 12V DC power) to the bottom of the board located on the bottom back of the face of the radio (see pics).

8) Plug new cord into iec adapter and power radio on to confirm that it works. DISCONNECT POWER CORD NOW.

9) Push heat shrink into place and heat or apply electrical tape to protect connections.

10) With radio on it’s back, put adapter over black plastic “plate” located on the upper-middle back of the radio so that you still have access to the screws that hold the plate on (Sorry I didn’t get a pic of this plate before I glued the adapter in place, look at my pics and you should be able to figure out where it is). Note rough location of adapter to the plate, set adapter aside.

11) Remove the two screws holding the “plate” on and then super-glue the adapter to the plate, making sure you have access to the screws. Let the glue dry completely and then screw the plate and adapter into the radio using the existing screws and holes. (I also made a small cable strap to help make sure the adapter doesn’t come loose. I used a scrap piece of cable and ring terminals, driving the screws through the terminal rings. I don’t think this was necessary but it’s the power connection- I didn’t want to chance the adapter coming loose).

12) Reconnect any wires you may have disconnected and confirm again that the radio works. Now reattach the face of the radio and you’re done.

Separate from the power problems I decided to improve the sound of the radio. While doing the power cord/adapter mod I also added a new pair of tweeters ($2.50 each from Parts Express) with crossovers from some old surround speakers I had. At low to medium volumes in the house the tweeters produce a noticeable hiss but in the shop and at higher volumes the radio sounds much better- it’s especially noticeable in the shop where the higher frequencies make for clearer sound in the mid-range-heavy din produced by my tools, dust collector and air cleaner.

Thanks to Greg Di / vadgegd for posting the original mod video that allowed me to fix my own radio and consequently post this for you.