Aff Wood

Hi Everyone,

Well, I decided to begin working on a bowl that I am planing on donating to a charity called the Blue House. This charity supports an orphanage in Uganda that takes in girls and young women who have been orphaned because of AIDS. Every year the ladies at my church have an annual craft fair to raise funds to support these young women.  And yours truly donates cutting boards and other stuff for sale every year.

This year, amongst other things, I plan on donating a full-sized salad bowl to the sale and this blog posting will be the first in a series about how the bowl was made. I hope this will give people a window on how a large bowl is made and get them interested in the sale.

So, I have gotten a large 12"x3" white ash bowl blank and this is what I will be using for the bowl. The wood is unseasoned, meaning that it has a considerable amount of water in it and so we will be making a green wood turning and this adds several steps to our turning process, and certainly nothing that Selkie Wood Works cant handle! Heres what were going to do: Im going to mount the block on the lathe and completely turn the outside of it and partially turn the inside of it and leave the bowl about 1" thick. This is much thicker than a standard bowl and the reason Im doing this is this will help the bowl retain its round shape while its drying out. When we come back to the bowl in several weeks time, it should have dried out enough to allow me to finish turning and shaping it, and with any luck, it will be ready for the Blue House sale, which always takes place the first weekend in December.

So were off for another adventure in the wood shop. So make some coffee and stop by for photos and a complete process discussion on the Blue House bowl.

Best
VW

If you missed yesterdays post, make sure to check out the lower level tour here.

Moving upstairs ..


The middle risers are open. Wed love to make them all open and switch them to a thick oak to match the hardwood floors. Plus the pine treads are pretty worn - not unfixable, but we think a thick oak could look awesome!


Looking down at the great room. See those squares, half way up the beams on the right? Those are covering outlets, still confused why there would be outlets up there ..


At the top of the steps, there is a open lofted area adjacent to the bedroom and the bathroom. Well probably use this as a sitting room, maybe built in shelving against the wall on the right.

Turning the corner, the master bedroom is on the back wall. It has a beautiful vaulted ceiling and large windows. Plus its a good size. I finally have room for a bench at the foot of the bed :)


Looking at the closet wall (David snuck in the pic :)


and the closet.


Moving back into the lofted room, you enter the master bath. Its almost identical to the bathroom downstairs, but it doesnt have a double sided closet and it has vaulted ceilings.


See the door on the right? Ill show you where it goes in a second.



The door to the right opens into a second loft area. Probably the strangest, but my favorite part of the house. This will be my office, and the only way to get there is through the bathroom ..




The size is perfect, I love the windows, and the fact that its kinda hidden, but open.


The openness and originality is why we fell in love with this house. I never imagined getting a house with this much wood, but we do plan on painting at least some of it. I think for wood to work well, it needs to be broken up, there needs to be contrast .. so the matching banister, floors and beams running together makes it look heavy. By adding a lighter contrasting color in between, it will help emphasis how open the house really is.

There is a walk out basement, with one open room, a bedroom (really a storage room), full bath and laundry room, but Ill wait to share those pics till a little later. I wasnt able to get pictures before we moved our stuff in, so its full of boxes.

Were itching to get started on projects, but Im not sure how much well be able to get done until April when were finished in Ohio. I may be spending part time here since David will start working long hours soon, but not sure yet. Ill keep you updated! In any event, were in full project mode for things that will go into our house.

Hope you enjoyed our little tour!

p.s. notice that the pics are a little wider? We got a wide angle lens, so that should help capture the entire space :) Link here

A few weeks ago the Tree House suffered a major setback when one of the main support bolts broke. After some immediate triage consisting of temporary supports to hold up the unsupported corner and supplement the two (2) bolts which hadnt broken yet, Ive finally managed to restore the sagging tree house deck to its original position.

Finally, a jack setup that works. The deck is going up.

By using a house jack (or two) and ultimately learning that I needed to brace the jack stand against the tree and screw it together to prevent it from toppling under the weight, I was able to raise the deck back to its proper height today. Its now held there with two (2) temporary supports.