Los Hermanos Day

Like you, I wondered what a Los Hermanos day was when Rene' first mentioned it. It apparently is a day that you (if you are pregnant) have to go eat at los hermanos. Not only do you have to eat there but you have to have Brent and Sylvia Barlow meet you there otherwise it is just not a true Los Hermanos day. So even though my mother was deathly ill she sacrificed her health and well being for my lovely pregnant wife. So in the end Rene' got her genuine Los Hermanos day.
To make it even funnier after my parents decided that they would meet us for dinner Rene' got so excited that she started to count down until it was time to go and eat.
In this picture we wanted a side picture of Rene' and I was just playing when my father took the picture. That is why I am staring right at her belly. You can also see that I now carry my Los Hermanos shirt. That is because I bought it when I was losing a lot of weight and not only have I stopped losing weight I gained back what I had lost. So my shirt no longer fits. Rene' gets a lot of enjoyment out of this because last time I wore it you could see all the fat rolls.
Disclaimer: My mother was feeling a lot better that day and was happy for the chance to leave the house. Also Rene' and I have been very luck because every craving Rene' has had has been something that we always enjoyed, She just wants more of it, and I am happy to accommodate her.

Bed Room Set part 3 (Bed)

This is the third time that I have tried to post these pictures. For some reason I have been able to upload my pictures, But it finally worked so here they are.
I don't know how well you will be able to see these pictures. I hope you can get the general gest of the bed.
There are of course a couple of things that I need to fix. During this project my dyslexia caught me of guard and I read a 6 as a 9. This messed 2 things up that I know have to fix. One is the mattress will be the same hight as the night stands. the other is the rails are 3" too long. So I have to fix it. I was going to wait to post it until it was fixed but several people told me to go ahead and and post it. Rene' has had to get used to having rails on the bed now. When it first got put in our house she kept hitting her ankles on the rails. She is finally used to it and she highly enjoys the bed.

Bed Room Set part 2 ( Dresser)

Here is the Dresser that I built. I like it for several reasons. One is the fact that it is very light but is exceptionally well built. I accomplished this buy using all solid maple. There are several kinds of maple, the one I used is very light weight but very strong.
Another reason that I like this is that the drawers guides are a wooden dovetail guide that I made and that works great. The reason Rene' loves this dresser is because of the handles if you click on the picture you should be able to see them. They were very expensive.
One cool thing about this dresser starts with the atmosphere of school. When working on a project at school everybody needs to give their opinion. Those of you who really know me know that I will just ignore those opinions because I know better then them (I only ignore you if I know better). Well when I was making the drawers for the dresser I ran into a problem. I made the inside out of maple and the outside out of a different wood. This caused the drawers to be different colors. I still had to stain and tone the outside and I didn't know what to do. I had dovetailed the sides and I thought that the drawer would look stupid with 3 colors (Front, Endgrain of front, and the Side). Everybody at school said that it would look fine and not to worry about it. I came up with an idea to paint the stain on carefully on the endgrain. I did this with all my class mates making fun of me and laughing at me because "It will look so stupid". When I was done and I had stained the drawers everybody was shocked. Why were they shocked? Well it was because it looked so good that it blew all their work out of the water. Not only did everybody like it but I then had everybody who was making a dresser come ask me how to do it and if I would teach them. I said no. I waited until they begged some more, then I showed them. My teachers told me that if I was selling it that what I did would increase the value of the dresser from $150 to $500 easily, and from my work at bassett I think it could raise it even more. All from 1 hour of extra work.
This whole story just goes to show. Don't take advise from idiots.

Bed Room Set part 1 ( Night Stands)

One of the first things I made in my class were these nightstands. I designed them according to a style that Rene' and I both really liked. I was unhappy with all the stains and color choices available so I developed my own color at school and then had somebody else follow the formula to give me this color. They work very nicely.

Entertainment Center

This is our new entertainment center. It does not follow the current thought of an entertainment center but it is. You could otherwise call it a Television Stand.
The last days of class I had nothing to do so I quickly made this. I got all the parts cut out and sanded all I had to do was finish it. So I went to my parents house and my father and I sprayed the finish on. It turned out very nicely.
One of the interesting things of our marriage is that I will want to build something and Rene' doesn't want me to because she doesn't know what it is going to look like. I go ahead and build it and then she really likes it. Because of this I think some people got the wrong idea about the survey on the crib. It was not an argument between Rene' and I. It was the fact the Rene' and I simply didn't know how much it is used. We both agreed that it looks better if it doesn't move up and down but we needed to know if it was a feature that we would need and use. It seems like the general consensus was that those with short arms used it but that everybody else did not. So we are not going to have it move up and down.

Break in Tradition

Rene' and I thought that we would take a break from tradition. Everybody else has girls for their first born not us we are having a BOY.

Hall Table

After many requests and many pesky people I am showing more furniture on my blog (since it is the name of the blog). This first piece is a hall table that I made and am some what happy with. I have decided that the problem with making all of my own furniture is that I see all of the mistakes. It is all I see when I look at it. My parents have told me several time not to point them out and that nobody would know. So that is what I am going to do.
This table is my first attempt at using veneers. I really enjoyed the project and I plan on continuing to use them in my furniture. The table is made out of Pear wood and Maple wood. The pear wood comes from the same tree that many of the wooden panels in the conference center come from. I developed this design to challenge myself more that just what the assignment called for. I also made the bow tie inlays in the apron just because I had never done an inlay and I wanted to try it.
You can't see the legs very well but each leg was made differently. I used a different method of tapering for each of the legs. For one leg I used a table saw, another I used the jointer, and the last one I used hand planes. This last one was the hardest I had to get the leg perfect and I must say it turned out the best. The hand planes really brought out the grain pattern and figure of the wood. This table currently resides next to our couches where is sees a lot of use.

Crib Survey

I need everybody to respond to this blog. As some of you may know I am making the Crib for our baby. In settling the final plans and look, Rene' and I have come to a disagreement. So we want the opinion of other people.
On some cribs the side will slide up and down. We are wondering how often this is used. Is this a feature that you love about cribs or something that you really don't care a lot about. We don't know and so if you would leave a comment and tell us how often you use this feature we would appreciate it.

Part 9 (Last part of the year)

For the last event of the year Rene' and I found out that we are pregnant. We had been trying to have a baby for several months and in December we were successful. We will find out what it is on May 5th.

Part 8 (New Couchs)

We decided to buy new couchs in November because we knew I would be quiting bassett and so we thought we would buy them while we could still get a great price.