Poplar Butcherblock Countertops

Butcherblock countertops are a popular alternative to laminate at the low end and marble or granite at the high end. They are made from a variety of hardwoods and you can buy them pre-made in standard and custom sizes. They aren’t cheap. My kitchen needed at least 10′ of countertop in the standard cabinet depth of 25″. I could order 1½” thick counters for about $600.00 – 2″ thick was over 800.00. The only way to afford butcherblock countertops for me was to build them myself.

You might have thought I misspelled “popular” in the title of this article. No, I didn’t. I meant Poplar, the type of wood. It’s

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Review: PortaMate PM5000

Miter Saw BlissIf you have a nice, big shop, you might not need a portable stand for your miter saw. I don’t have a workshop though. I just have my patio with a small area for storage. When I got my miter saw, I had to set it up on some scrap plywood straddling a couple of saw horses. And because it is a small patio, I sometimes had to move the saw one way or the other or take it all apart and move the saw horses and plywood and saw… You get the idea. It was a real hassle.

With precious little usable lung tissue, I had to come up with a solution that didn’t involve me expending a great deal of energy moving the saw around. Back in my

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Oak Side Table

Traditional Round Oak Side Table, by Gilda Furniture

The vision I had for my bedroom remodel was along traditional lines. Although my apartment is a low-slung tri-plex, built in the 1990s here in the real Northern California – Feather River Country – I felt that I could give it a classic and metro-stylish look of elegance. Furnishings play a big role in that end and I have accomplished it even while on a very limited budget. One of the elements of this design was to have a traditional looking round oak side table, instead of the standard bedside end table.

Table as shown on amazonI prefer to shop locally, but there are very few furniture stores in Plumas County that carry quality furniture. I looked, but finally had to spend time searching the Internet for what I wanted. I found what I wanted on Amazon.com for less than $150.00. This Oak side table is an excellent addition to my bedroom. The actual color of it is lighter than the image on Amazon depicted and slightly darker than the thumbnail image of the grain pattern they showed. It’s a beautiful golden oak color and

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Recessed Door Pulls

This is a review of the Baldwin Hardware Flush Mount Door Pull I purchased for my bedroom closet doors and a pocket door. In my bedroom remodel, I used metal accents with a Venetian Bronze finish. I searched Google and discovered a branch of ATG Stores.

Some things you have to see in person to fully appreciate their suitability. The Baldwin Hardware Flush Door Pull in Venetian Bronze

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Building a Platform Bed

Building a Platform Bed for Style and Storage Is Easy

You could say the problem with my bedroom is that it’s too small. Trying to move around in my bedroom is difficult – I keep bumping into things. The bed, the dresser, the other dresser, the end table and them damn posts that stick up on all four corners of the bed. I tried to solve the problem a while back by cutting the 2 posts off the footboard part of the bed. I turned a $1200.00 bed frame into a mistake that’s worth 50 bucks now, if I’m lucky.

But wait… maybe it’s not the room’s fault. True, it is only 11′ x 12’6″ (not counting the 2×8′ closet), but that’s not nearly as small as some bedrooms I installed flooring in over a 35 year span. Maybe the real problem is my continued insistence to stuff all the big furniture from my old house into this much smaller space. And I’ve been living like this for nearly 4 years now. Well, not like the mess you see in the pictures

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Building a Storage Unit #2

I really do enjoy building things and remodeling my apartment. But this storage unit has not been much fun. It’s just not glamorous. Ya know what I mean? But I made progress.

As I mentioned in my last entry about this storage unit, the lumber was giving me fits. It’s nice to have friends though. A contractor friend, Ken Heiman, dropped off a few rows of 16 penny nails for the nail gun he lent me last year. The nails drive so fast, the 2×3 studs don’t have a chance to even think about splitting. The framing went pretty smooth.

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Building a Storage Unit #1

Jim can use tools!I’m starting a new project. Wait just a darn minute here, you say? That’s right, I’m not so bad with tools. Did I forget to tell you I did flooring for 35 years? Have I not mentioned… well, no, I haven’t written about my little projects here yet. Sorry. I’m kinda jumpin’ around here because last year I did a major remodel of my main living space. And just a month or so ago I finished building

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David Bromstad Brought Me Back To Life

David BromstadJust the way I had spent most of my days the last 3 years, in early May, 2009, I was holed up in my cave of an apartment waiting to die. I was told I had end-stage Emphysema and not a lot of time left.

But that day last May was the beginning of something that changed the way I felt about my life and what I wanted to do with at least part of what I had left of it. The credit goes to David Bromstad, interior designer and host of Color Splash

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