Display Case

I have been tinkering with a display case that a friend gave me, on and off, since Day #33 of the fireplace remodel, even though it has nothing to do with that project. At the time I got it, I needed another project like a hole in the head, but the cabinet was free and it had real potential. This is pretty much what it looked like after I got it back to the workshop and tore off the original base:

After some reconstruction, the cabinet was sanded and panited with primer/stain blocker...

And it was last seen in this blog after I painted the accents white, and then the cabinet black:

The intersections of black and white paint didn't come out quite as sharp as I wanted them to, so I had to do a bit of touch-up with the white paint and one of Ruby Sheep's small brushes in order to get the result I was after.

When that was all properly dry, I applied some bright red sign-writing paint to the radiused parts of the accents - I tried using masking tape, but it wasn't very successful, so I actually painted the red on freehand. I stared on the side of the cabinet that will go against the garage wall; the second side and the doors came out better after this practice run.

The red paint took 48 hours to properly cure and after sitting in the 'shop for this time I discovered that the black paint has an electrostatic attraction to fine dust: there was fine dust was on every surface of the cabinet and it was just as thick on the down-facing sections. This doesn't bode well for anything that's going to be sitting in a corner of my garage, and the dust wasn't easy to get off. My solution was to wipe the cabinet down with distilled water and then slap on two (2) coats of some quick-drying varnish. The next photo was the result, and both the cabinet doors got the same treatment.

This is how the upper section of the display case looks with the mirror in situ. The mirror is only held in place by the glass shelves, which go in last.

I didn't like the relative instability of this arrangement, ao I crafted a trim piece from a scrap of old baseboard and installed it over the top edge of the mirror (after painting and varnishing it, naturally).

Time to re-install the glass panels! The lower panels were originally fitted with some diamond-pattern mesh. Honestly, it belongs inside the box that also contains Adam Ant and those two idiots out of Bros.

Much better without it!  I had to modify the fasteners which secure the glass panels to accommodate the reduced thickness.

The larger panels are held in with rubber inserts which are not exactly color coordinated, but whatever...

The original cabinet came with the crappy lighting fixture shown below in the top cabinet...this was last seen in tut 'shop bin along wit sithers.

I had something a bit more modern in mind: LED tape lighting.

I've seen quite a bit of this at work lately, particular under kitchen cabinets, although not in this color, I must admit. I'm a novice to LED lights, but I did my usual research on tut interwebs, and it's pretty easy to install and connect. The wiring can be done with crimp-on connectors, but I soldered mine and used some heat shrink tubing to make it look super professional. I bought a sixteen foot reel of LED single color tape with 36 LED's per foot and some connecters online for about $50. I had an old 12 Volt power supply kicking around so I didn't have to buy one of those. I already had the paint and other materials on hand, and the cabinet was free, so if my time is worth $50 and hour, my total investment is still less than $7,000.

The lighting was installed in two loops around the front of each cabinet.

The upper loop reflects off the mirror which doubles the effect.

Once the lighting was all buttoned up, I re-installed both the cabinet doors and the rest of the hardware and moved the display case into the basement.*

Looks even better with the basement light off:

(*The display case is destined to be installed in the garage/man cave, but right now that area is the subject of another project.....stay tuned to find out more!)

Fireplace Remodel - A Summary

The fireplace remodel is all finished, all that remains is to light a fire! We always knew this project would be the "Big One" and it was actually scheduled to be completed some time towards the end of May. Instead, I'm writing this post on Sunday April 12. We stared back on December 27, so in real time, it's been three and a half months. Not too shabby! Here's a brief recap of the process:

Living room fireplace and TV before:

During...

After...

Dining room side of the fireplace before:

During...

After...

Shoe rack before:

During...

After...

Fireplace before:

After...

Not really fire season right now

TV stand before:

After...

Dining room before:

After....

Other side of dining room before:

After...

Stay tuned for the next project(s)....

Fireplace Remodel Day Thirty Nine

It's been THIRTY-NINE days in blog time, which just so happens to be the same length as a season of the Survivor™ TV show, and....we're done! The final hurdles were the reinstallation of the fireplace doors and the top panel at the shoe rack. One of these was a piece of cake, and the other one wasn't.

This is the fireplace door - it's a lot heavier than it looks, and this is the main issue with reinstallation. Originally, the door sat directly on top of the stone hearth, but that won't be possible going forward...

I must say that this has been the most challenging part of this project - hence it's the last bit - and I've been through a number of design ideas before I got to one that I thought would actually work. I started off by fashioning a couple of supports from a length of 1½ steel angle.

After a quick visit to tut pillar drill, the supports were ready to be installed.

This is the concept: the brackets bolt into the brickwork at the sides of the firebox, and protrude just less than one inch forwards, providing two "shelves" for the doors to sit on.

However, after a quick test I found that the center of the doors sagged under their own weight, puting the glass panels out of alignment. After another lengthy period of head scratching, I came up with a solution that involves running another length of steel angle across the front of the firebox; this turned into an opportunity to fire-up my MIG welder which has been packed away since December 2015. I didn't take any photos of the fabrication, but the following picture shows the finial install:

The top of the firedoor was supported with steel cables which attach to a loop at the top of the firedoor, and a fastener at the top of the firebox.

This is the finished look, all ready for our first real fire!

While all this was going on I also found a few minutes to install the top panel at the revamped shoe rack. I used King's method for the glue up....

I couldn't clamp the panel, so I weighed it down overnight with a few bricks and a gas tank.

Came out real nice....stand by for a summary of the entire project!

Fireplace Remodel Day Thirty Eight

Today is Monday April 6, 2020, and it has been almost a week since my last post. Quire a lot has happened since then, most significantly Real Estate and related activity was reclassified as essential business in my country last weeked, so I am back at work....although the pace of business is similar to that of a lethargic snail with a severe hangover. Meanwhile I've been plodding along at the outstanding parts of the almost-but-not-quite-finished fireplace remodel. This post is a summary of recent progress.

So...after the painting was done, I turned back to the hardwood floor, which needed belt sanding to 120 grit and another application of red oak wood filler. Once the filler was dry and the excess removed the floor was sanded through to 400 grit with the orbital sander and declared smooth as a...

Unlike the living area, where the floor color is basically oak plus the yellowing tone of the varnish, the hardwood in the dining room is a markedly different organe-ee-brown tone. We tried to compensate for this by staining the new hardwood colonial maple with a hint of golden pine mixed in. It came out on the C+/B- boundary:

The hue was improved by the addition of varnish - this photograph is one day into the drying time after the final coat was applied. We noticed in the kitchen that the boards we stained acquired a tone closer to the original flooring after about three months; hopefully we'll be able to say the same about this area...whatever happens, we'll be building a cabinet/bookcase over this area eventually.

We will also be buying or building a TV cabinet of some kind, but for now we just need something to put the TV on that ins't the floor. This is the perfect size:

At least it is after I cut it down by ten inches and relocated the central divider.

Just about ok for now...

I also installed the new cabinet doors in the entrance hallway:

I've also been working on the top panel for the shoe rack/cabinet. By this time amazon had delivered the #20 biscuits, so I toddled down tut workshop, and dry clamped on the trim pieces.

This was successful, so I glued on the long trim pieces using the kung fu technique, and then popped back upstairs to find tut sithers.

The next day it was a case of same-again with the perpendicular trim pieces - after we got back from a family trip to the In N' Out drive through. If you were wondering, I had a double double (with grilled onion/no tomato), animal style fries and a large soda. Followed by a food coma. If you've never been to In N' Out, I can only sympathize*).

Either the following day, or the day after that (it's bit of a haze for some reason....), the glue was cured and it was time for the final fit up. The trim overhangs the plywood at the exposed edges, but has to be flush with the base at those edges which meet the wall. Basically, this requires removal of some small sections of walnut trim. I used the circular saw, set to a shallow cut, to tear up the excess material and knocked it down with a chisel.

The next step is to make similar, shallower cuts with the tenon saw and clean up with a chisel.

The last bit was removed with the block plane and the orbital sander.

After finish sanding I applied some walnut filler, and when that was cured, the work-piece was sanded to 400 grit.

I took it upstairs to be varnished; this was done at the same time as the hardwood floor in the dining room.

Came out nice! Right now the panel is curing; I hope to install it this week.

(*If you think you might know what Samual Sheep ordered at In N' Out, post it in the comments. The first correct (or nearest correct) answer wins a gold-colored Ford Tippex, courtesy of those lovely people at Kelloggs Cornflakes; see this link for full competition rules).