Recent handy things

Well I have been busy, not with posting but with honey-do and work projects. I've done a lot of regular handyman stuff but I do like the projects the best. In no particular order. There was the back porch (now office) in my house. Starting from sheet linoleum I stripped that off, sanded it with my 3" belt sander and orbital sander ( too small an area for a floor sander) applied tung oil finish (more about that later).I ended up with this.


That wasn't too hard so one of my customers wanted to redo his front porch. Ian ( my 16 yo) and I stripped off the old painted rickety boards.


Then we installed new tongue and groove pine flooring, sanded and finished with dark tung oil.

So far both of us are really happy with the result. I like the idea of the natural finish. Unlike Polyurethane you can go back later and recoat or touch up.





Another old customer was ready for their new fence. The fence had been ready for a new fence for some time.
I got 5 of Ian's buddies and a couple of other helpers. By the end of the day the old fence and old shed were by the street and 30 of the 32 fence panels were up. I also had convinced five 16 yo boys that they would prefer a college education to having a "regular" job. The other panels and gates went up the following two weeks.


For my birthday I got to build myself (at my lovely wife's "request") a new picnic table. It's an 8 footer and I am pretty sure that no one is going to steal this thing without 4 guys to get it out of the back yard. first they have get all of these people off of it though.
I got one more present for Easter ( to celebrate the annual brunch). I got to make myself a new yard swing.

It's a little hard to tell how big it is from the empty picture, so here is what it looks like full of girls. The swing itself is 6' long and is made with thicker wood than most.
You can find it and the table for sale in my web store. Now that I have a design it will be a bit easier to make than the first one.