Wednesday, April 27, 2011

A futon? Nah, just some benches.

I recently moved into a bigger house to accommodate the fact that I know have a roommate (buddy from high school). Whilst moving everything into the new house, we quickly realized that my futon frame stood no chance against the corner at the top of the staircase. Ted was instantly struck by a genius idea, dismantle the frame and turn the two halves into benches for the porch. Now, while this was a great idea, it would also leave me without a frame for my mattress. Ultimately the prospect of a new project outweighed a bed frame, and so began the transformation!

We started off by dismantling the frame, which was nothing more than removing a few carriage bolts. The first issue we ran into was that the two pieces were far to wide/deep, as seen below...


A quick visit from the jigsaw and we had the length issue taken care of...


After some wood glue and sitting overnight to let the glue set, we were in business.


The legs were also a fairly straightforward endeavor. Just a few planks of wood cut to size and secured in place with a carriage bolt. I'm starting to realize this isn't the most exciting project ever... :P


Legs attached, we have a bench!

Problem is that the bench wasn't all too comfortable, which we somewhat anticipated, as it is just solid wood. Originally the plan was to buy some foam of some sort and rig up padding, but while enjoying our work, Ted was struck with the 2nd great idea. He noticed my old area rug sitting in the corner and out of sheer curiosity, sized it up against the bench. By some miracle, the rug fit PERFECTLY across the bench. We sprang into action without a moments hesitation.


And just like that, the benches were complete! The rug could use a cleaning, and we are thinking of adding some cardboard underneath to sturdy it up a bit, but other than that, they came out quite well!










Friday, April 8, 2011

Oh oh oh I forgot!

That $0.50 Sports Illustrated camera? The roll was pretty much a total bust, with the exception of 3 pictures found here. Also, I apparently bought slide film, $20 bucks to develop!? I really should just buy a DSLR...

Photo update!

Random side note before we get going here. I've decided making 'promised' updates just isn't working out. So no more 'check back next week for this and that', I'm just not that organized :P

ANYWAY! Finally got around to not only taking pictures, but getting the roll developed. It's pretty clear I still don't fully get ISO and aperture and whatever crap goes into taking photos, but hey, I like to just wing it and see what happens. With that said, these B+Ws came out much darker than I thought they would, but with the effect of the lens, I'd say it worked out pretty well. These were taken with the lens from the last post...





Side rant, WHY IN THE WORLD DO PICTURES I ADD APPEAR ABOVE WHAT I'VE ALREADY TYPED!? Seriously Blogger, amateur.

Anyway, full gallery can be found here.

In the pipeline...
Suitcase guitar amp, which has been on hold for nearly 4 years
Tear down and cleaning of the 750 (finally got my 350, and after sitting for about 3 years, started right up!)
Benches for the porch made from my old futon frame
Curtains for the porch
Maybe some sort of microcontroller project?

We'll see if I can finally get back into the swing of things...