When I first created this blog I had promised myself that I would make the effort to at least submit one post per day. I’m starting to realize that there just isn’t that much interesting stuff going on these days. Even my regular RSS subscriptions haven’t been keeping me entertained. Hopefully I’ll be able to commit to keeping some sort of long term, persistent, web diary for the sake of personal reflection. If not…. *shrug*.
I had to attend my brother-in-law’s wedding on Saturday, which shouldn’t have been a big deal; but it was. It wasn’t so much that I had to drive an hour and thirty minutes to Pennsylvania and then two hours back, but more that I had a nasty cold that I’d been trying to shake off since Wednesday afternoon. I ended up spending the rest of my weekend trying to sleep off the cold but it didn’t work. Now I’ll have to waste my time going to a doctor that will inevitably tell me that I have been overdue for my yearly upper-respiratory infection and will prescribe me with a month long supply of antibiotics to cure me of it.
I really need to get my ass in gear, get back into the gym, back into Jiu Jitsu, and work on my diet to see if I can get my constitution back to what it was when I weighed 165lbs at 10% body fat and I was training four to five days a week.
Soca BJJ, here I come…
I spent some time doing prep work for my sofa project this weekend. While jointing my board edges and marking boards for cutting, I found myself becoming aggravated after hunting for tools or trying to find a place to put something. I ended up being forced to move some of my work outside the garage because I was seriously lacking usable space. Ultimately, this made me realize that I needed to put some thought into how my garage workshop should be organized for any future projects I’ll be working on.
On Sunday afternoon, Christine and I ended up totally emptying our garage. It was very rewarding seeing that, with some planning, I could easily use our smallish garage for various projects. For now, the sofa project is on hold while I build some shelves and storage for myself.
I have broken my storage needs in to ten categories.
This will greatly simply things and make it easier to track down what I need rather than have me spend half my time looking for a clamp or my drill.
Hopefully, I can get this done before I cave in and buy a sofa. I enjoy having guests over but I don’t feel like we have enough seating to accommodate them.
Even in the hands of a rank amateur, such as myself, Google Sketchup is a pretty bad-ass application. I’ve chosen it to be the modeling application that I’ll be using to design the sofa I’m building. This will help me come up with a cut list and will hopefully help minimize errors. You’ll see some pictures below of how I plan on building the frame.
Frame construction will be 1" thick, solid maple. Most joints will be mortise and tenon, but a few, non-load bearing joints, will be double doweled.
I plan to start sawing some wood this weekend and, if all goes well, will be able to start assembly of some components on Sunday.
I haven’t yet decided if I want to leave room in the back or armrests for open shelving. I may borrow some ideas from Cassina’s M.I.S.S. sofa which would allow easy storage of A/V equipment.
I’ve decided that I "need" to build something. Since Christine and I haven’t, yet, purchased a sofa for the living room, I think I’m going to start with that. I suppose I could, first, finish some other projects that I’ve been meaning to get to, but then again, I suppose I could do a lot of things. The reality is, I just plain want to build a sofa. I feel that doing this as my first serious woodworking project will help me determine whether or not I’ve squandered many thousands of dollars on tools for nothing. If it works out, I’ll be able to take that knowledge and do other things; Stuff, for example.
Anyhow, I’ve looked around and decided on copying, to some extent, a Flexform Groundpiece sofa. This might change, but for now that’s what I’ve been basing my Sketchup design on. I’ll skip the steel frame in lieu of a more traditional wooden one; most likely solid Maple.
This is truly one of my favorite sofas. I’ve sat in one; It’s heavenly. The design is simply stated and proportionally "correct" I can’t think of any other explanation. It’s a modular piece that can be gotten in a few different configurations. I’m not committing to one just yet but may be leaning towards a more basic, three seater sofa. We’ll see this weekend when I start cutting up some boards.
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