A Shopbot

Dirty things out of dimensional lumber and exotic hardwood!
Hot Japanese Cherry Blossom action.
Got wood?
Shiny meh-tal. Hard as steel.

A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

I’ve been on a visualization kick lately sparked by reading “Out of Our Minds” and being reminded that there are multiple intelligences. Dancers don’t hear a piece of music and translate it into dance steps, they think in movement. Musicians don’t think in notes and rests, they think in tones and rhythms. Writing music is just an attempt to capture their thoughts with symbols others can decipher.

Adolfo’s on Frenchmen (upstairs from the Apple Barrel Bar) - Redfish with Ocean Sauce

d.n.a on Frenchman - met John Boutte (http://www.johnboutte.com/)

Cafe du Monde - Beignets & Coffee (http://www.cafedumonde.com/beignet.html)

Mother’s - Cup of Jambalaya and Debris Po’ Boy

Audobon Aquarium of the Americas

Arnaud’s Remolade - Stuffed crab and Pecan Pie (http://www.remoulade.com/)

Brennan’s - Turtle soup, Eggs Hussarde, Bananas Foster

Galleria Bella on Rue Royal - Shadow sculpture by Randy Cooper (http://www.randycooperart.com/galleries.asp?id=172)

Mardi Gras World (http://www.mardigrasworld.com/)

Jaques-Imo’s on Oak - Alligator Cheesecake, Stuffed Gulf Shrimp, Fried Green Tomatoes, Shrimp Etouffee (http://www.jacquesimoscafe.com)

Maple Leaf Bar on Oak - Grado with guest appearance by the Mardi Gras Indians

Martinique Bistro on Magazine - French Onion Soup, Poached Eggs & Scallops, Pork Chop with Chantrelle mushrooms and demi-glaze, Duck, Chocolate Souffle, Chocolate ice cream with cayenne, Chocolate Cherry cheesecake

Saturday was Twelfth Night, which kicks off Carnival season, so of course we threw on costumes to hit the Maple Leaf. A new friend in Nawlins, Doug, hooked me up with Chef whites and wig.

Mission accomplished.

I’m going to make some of it myself.

The first project is in the bathroom. I have two vanities 24″x 33″ with a 38″ gap between them. The idea is to find a tall chest of drawers (sometimes called a Gentleman’s Chest) to sit between the vanities to break up the horizontal surfaces where the sinks will be. The bathroom originally had a one-piece counter top/sinks. After Googling around for sinks for a while and looking into materials, I’ve decided to cast my own concrete counter top and sink.

I’ve picked the Kohler Purist line for the hardware to match the shower and intend on tinting the concrete to match the grout in the Travertine flooring, an Alabaster color. To start this project, I sketched some designs in a great software package called “SketchUp”. SketchUp works like I think which is in surfaces and solids. Most cad packages I’ve played with tend to deal more in lines which make mocking up a room design super tedious and I’m just not that patient or absolute. SketchUp lets you define a rectangle, then flip orientation, grab a surface, and extrude it into a 3D shape. Very easy. Very intuitive for me. My sketches came together in a few hours and I got a basic idea of what I want.

Sketching on a laptop screen is cheap and easy but runs its value when you try to visualize proportions and context. To help get a better sense of perspective, I decided to prototype the vanity top. Thinking about how to do that, I needed a material that would be easy to work with and cheap since I’d be throwing it away. At a local hobby shop, I looked at foam core board and sheets of Styrofoam but I needed to span almost three feet and carving Styrofoam is very messy and not very exact. Heading to Home Depot I found a nice solution. In the lumber area, I grabbed a piece of insulation sheeting. For about eight bucks I got a 4′x8′ sheet of 5/8″ thick pink boarding by Owens Corning.

Over the weekend, I gathered up some tools (hobby knife, tape measure, fine point Sharpie, tape, calculator) and set out to build a fake counter and sink. Since I was designing around proportions, I whipped out Phi, the golden ratio, 1.618 which is supposed to define intrinsic beauty by resonating with geometry of nature. My sink is minimal so taking the length and width of the vanity and dividing them by Phi gave me the sink dimensions. By taking these base dimensions, I then divided again until I had all other dimensions.

Using cardboard from a 12-pack of Coke I cut out place holders for the faucets and handles based on the Rough-in diagrams from Kohler. After seeing the sink in its real environment, the sink looked too deep. I took another dimension, divided by Phi, and cut out a new sink wall. Much better. With the depth was set, I cut out the other three walls and the sink prototype was done.

I’m leaving this fake pink sink in place to live with it for a few days and see how the proportions in context work out. To complete the illusion if the pink throws me off, I’ll paint it with some off-white latex paint. Then all I have left to do is figure out how to actually make this sink.

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

Sometimes I feel like I’m going to catch on fire and run off a cliff.

The great thing about buying things online is that you get the instant gratification of the purchase and then the surprise of the delivery since you never know exactly when it will appear on your doorstep. Today the ceiling fan I ordered from New York City showed up. Bailing the tried and true dark stained wood blades and the shiny gold brass hardware, I went with more contemporary styling to tie in with the other brushed metal accents I’m adding to the bedroom. This is the Ball from the Modern Fan Company. When I first found this manufacturer a few years ago, I was set on their UFO. I changed my mind and they’ve dropped their prices almost in half.

The only thing I was a little disappointed about is that the fan blades are painted wood, not brushed metal like the rest of body, arms, and other parts. The wall speed controller is a four step slider switch that I’ll have to experiment with to figure out if I can get it to work with X10. I have a heavy duty switch that may be a suitable replacement for on/off and the dimmer ability could be a bonus. Who wants to have to get out of bed to turn off a fan? Not me. I find very few reasons to get out of bed. For food, cocktails, smoking, or more baby oil come to mind.