READIN

Sunday, July 27th, 2003

🦋 Story stick

Finally began work (in at least a nominal sense) on my window seat. I measured and cut two story sticks tonight, one for the front of the frame (about 95", square ends) and one for the back (about 48", mitered ends), and marked the alignment between them. I think in the end, using story sticks is actually aiming for a higher degree of precision than is needed in this project; and certainly higher than I am going to attain. There are all kinds of things to deal with along the lines of, the floor is not level, the walls are not square; so it would probably make more sense to just work direct from the tape measure. OTOH story sticks is a really useful technique, one that I am not yet totally familiar with; and I build few enough projects that it is good to practice techniques that I want to develop, even if they do not fit exactly to the current project

A "story stick" is just a scrap piece of wood cut to a particular dimension of your project; you use this stick to mark the dimension on the relevant pieces rather than measuring it out on each of them. This helps ensure that pieces which are meant to be sized alike really are, and generally guards against error. In addition, you can mark key points on the story stick, such as mortise locations, to be transfered to the work pieces.

The reason the sizes I give above are approximate, is that I marked and cut the sticks from the actual size of the bay window where the seat will be located, rather than with a tape measure.

posted evening of July 27th, 2003: Respond
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Saturday, July 26th, 2003

🦋 Projects

Here is an inventory of home improvement projects I want to work on:

• Window seat: which I have, ridiculously, still not begun working on; but today I bought some lumber for it and cleaned up my shop, so I have no excuses left...
• Paths in the front yard: I have the slate, I have the tools to cut it; I am hoping to do these paths in the third week of August, when I will be on vacation.
• Path next to the house: Really the same project as the above, I just don't think I have enough slate right now to do it. I want to see how the first path goes before I schedule the others.
• Backyard patio: Again, waiting to see how difficult this slate laying stuff really is.
• Stone at base of side porch: This is going to be pretty complex and I have not really planned yet how it should look.
• New steps for side porch
• Breakfast nook
• Bookcases for Ellen's office: Ellen is breathing down my neck on this so they may come before the breakfast nook.
• Bookcases for living room: I've had an idea for this since we moved here...
• Dining room table: Again, I've had a very clear picture of this kicking around my head for about nine months now.

posted evening of July 26th, 2003: Respond
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Saturday, June 21st, 2003

🦋 Window seat

I started taking measurements for the window seat I am planning to build in our sitting room's bay window. I have pretty well in mind what the thing should look like at the end, what I mainly need to do is take the measurements from the space. I have linked to the images as separate files because they are big, and I don't know how to reduce them. Here is a floor plan and front elevation:

The height of the seat (which you can't see because my scanner clipped it off) is 16"; I measured that height from a chair that feels comfortable. That is also good because it is a little over an inch short of the bottoms of the window sill moldings which will be above the seat. (I didn't draw the windows in to this plan but there are three of them, in the places you would expect them to be.) So, good: the length of the seat will be 94", and the width -- oh, now I see my scanner trimmed that off too -- the depth of the bay window is 36", and the depth of the part that is 94" wide is 14"; so I am thinking 32" is a good width for my seat. At 32", the front of the seat will be recessed a bit into the bay.

I want to build the seat as a frame of 2X4's and 4X4's, then cover that with hardwood -- 1/2" thick on the face and 3/4" thick on the seat. I'll use moldings in two key places -- the transition from the seat to the face, and the transition from the seat to the wall. Here is a plan of the frame, with rough dimensions written in:

And here is a plan of what the molding will look like (I have drawn in the window sill molding above the seat here):

I am trying to capture the Victorian style of my house in the profile of the seat. I did not draw the doors which will be in the face, because I have not figured out their dimensions yet; there will be two. I am thinking about cutting gingerbread into the doors to echo the house's eaves but I'm not sure about it -- I don't have a scroll saw and it would be a fair amount of work. The baseboard molding in the room, which will be matched along where the face meets the floor, is about 4" high.

Update: Here are some comments on the design from WoodCentral folks. They have convinced me to go with hinged holes in the seat to access the storage area, rather than doors in the face -- these will be easier to install and to use. I am nixing the idea of scrollwork in the face, too much work.

posted afternoon of June 21st, 2003: Respond
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