New Post Box

Approaching our front door these last few days, I have been tickled to see our finished entryway ensemble.
I designed this post box a month back and took it to my favorite sheet metal shop down the street. They do amazing work and I got the call this week that it was ready for pickup. Now we have the full setup: galvanized barn light, handcrafted aluminum numbers on cherry, and the post box with vinyl letters.

We have an old mail slot (now covered) but this looks much better from the street and will definitely help keep the heat inside our house.

Soon to come: my magnetic shelf to cover the inside of the old mail slot.

good day in the shop

This afternoon I worked in shop getting some more wood things ready for the studio shop. Here are three hand and dish soap holders just before being oiled. I love the different shades of the woods. Most of the woods are ready to go onto etsy so I will post when they're up. Hope everyone is great!

Harriman Ranch Weekend

We headed down to the Harriman Ranch in Idaho for a weekend of cross country skiing, cooking great meals, and hanging out with a great group of people. The Harriman is really an oasis. The compound of a few cabins, a large community house, and a really large bunk house are about a mile's ski in. We reserved the community house for cooking, and general hanging out and the bunk house for bunking. There were about 30 of us and it was a great time.

Fence posts covered in deep snow on our first ski
There are miles and miles of trails. Ben, Becca, Sara and I took a ten and a half mile ski on Saturday afternoon.


Here is Becca skiing away from Ben as he is taking pictures of the swans.


the swans


Sara and I pulling a sweet ski move


An outhouse with a snow hat


And a barn, just like they say; a post with a barn sure beats a post without one.

Finally

I had this idea that I wanted to build Sara a bed for Christmas. Unlike most of my ideas, I started with ample time to actually do it. I met with my friend Anna who is a great woodworker to talk about my design and to get advice on wood stuff. And so I designed it and got the steel, cut it, and took it to a few welders, one of which said, "sure, that'll be simple enough." So I was off. By this point, it was the beginning of November and I was waiting on the frame, trying to figure out how to pay for expensive stuff like the wood without Sara noticing the bank account and going to the pub quite frequently. One day I went into the basement of a building Mike owns and was just taking the tour of the work they were planning. In the next week, they were going to take down the walls of the basement, huge fir boards, and replace them with steel supports. The building was built in 1892 so that makes the wood pretty dang old and pretty much the kind of wood we will never see again as those forests are gone. So I asked if I could have some and Mike told me it was mine if I hauled it out. So I did and used a bit of it to make our new bed.
I left raw edges so you can still see where it was nailed into and they headboard is an amazingly thick heavy piece filled with colors and sap. I surprised Sara the day before we left for Colorado for the holidays by presenting all the pieces to her and finally finishd painting the base, oiling the wood, and assembling it yesterday. The most difficult thing about actually being prepared was the inability to post about or talk about the bed with Sara for a long long time. Here it is.


cut steel on the way to the welders


the headboard in the shop


the basic frame laid out in shop


a view of the slats with marks of the old wall strips


the bed in its final position in our house

The bed project is done and I am excited to get working on a few projects in the bird and feather studio. I hope everyone is well, Happy New Year.