Earlier this year we purchased a Ryobi cordless tool set and a Ryobi table saw. Nothing fancy but impressive upgrades from what we had... which wasn't much!
Cat Condo Project {#catcondoproject}
In the past, we've made the cats insulated homes from plastic totes. But they get nasty and nobody cleans them up so they eventually get tossed.
This year, we thought of building something that can be used year round.
The goal was not to make some beautiful piece of furniture. I'm still learning so the goal was really to build something useful and I think I met that goal.
The condo can accomodate insulation which means that during the summer, we can remove the insulation altogether. The door is removable and just slides into place. The "rooms" are just boxes with one side completely open. These boxes sit within the condo and are removable. That's how we access the insulation.
The condo also has casters so we can move it around as needed.
I used up a lot of material I had sitting in the garage and I wasn't too worried about it being square or nice to look at. I wanted to build it fast and cheap. I'm really happy with how it turned out. It was a good project to cut my teeth on with the new tools.
The next project will require a lot more precision and attention to detail...
Laptop Stand {#laptopstand}
I bought a 2 foot by 2 foot 7-ply piece of birch plywood with the intent to build my own laptop stand.
I used to attribute quality furniture with solid wood. But the more I learn, the more I realize quality is directly related to the attention to detail and the craftsman's skill. Plywood is cheap and stable and I really love when the layers are taken advantage of in the design.
Now that the cat condo is done, I can direct some energy to building my laptop stand out of plywood. I have two constraints that I want to stick to: 1) take advantage of the plyood layers in the design and 2) the stand and the top should be detachable, so basiacally, the top can be used as a lapdesk.
I'm not sure how this will work out yet but there are a lot of ideas floating around. We'll see what ends up as the final design.