It’s a feeling I know well — not because of my athletic exploits, but because I experience that same sense of being unmoored whenever I finish a project, achieve some goal, or am simply on the back side of some positive experience. Crossing items off my list is a great feeling; crossing all of the items off my list is a prescription for a crash.

Recently I’ve been inching toward that tipping point. After finishing installing my heating system, I spent a few weeks adding trim, doors, touching up paint, and other punch-list items. The money really is in the details, as Tommy Silva says, and these “final” fixes have further elevated the basement, which is now where I spend a considerable part of every day.

And while there is plenty more to do (flooring, bathroom, redoing the stairs, electric fireplace, furniture, more artwork, etc.), and plenty more projects I have in my list (refinishing patio furniture and swinging bench, replacing firewood box tops, building storage cabinets for the laundry room and storage room, making a new foyer table, etc.) the reality is that more further progress or new projects will need to wait for my savings to catch up to my vision.

But there is one thing I think I can proceed on to stave off my crash and that’s addressing a funky spot in one corner of my office. It’s funky because at the top of the corner is a small bulkhead that is crying out to be incorporated into some kind of built-in unit. It’s also the part of my office that anyone videoconferencing with me sees during our call.

The question is, what do I do? Currently I have my mom’s old travel easel with a painting she did of my wife drinking her morning coffee. I like it, but it takes up a lot of space and still leaves the spot feeling kind of empty.

I could simply hang art on the wall — the aforementioned painting, another piece, or a group of pieces. But, I feel like it calls out for a built-in bookshelf that would incorporate the bulkhead and provide a handsome background to my calls.

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“What do I do?” isn’t just a rhetorical question. I really am looking for ideas. Initially I was thinking a built-in bookcase or even floating shelves would look nice. I turned to AI and asked it to show me what that’d look like:

I can’t say any of these really make my heart sing. So then I turned to Google image search. Most the images I found there didn’t really work for this space either, but one image sparked my mind:

Maybe the answer is to incorporate some kind of seat or bench? Again, I turned to AI to explore possibilities. It came up with some goofy ideas, but also kind of interesting? There are obvious problems with these, but it also seems like there’s something to them, no?

Anyway, I’d love to get more ideas. What do you think I should do? I’d appreciate any thoughts or ideas you have. Please leave them in the comments.

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Previous posts have detailed the arduous work involved in putting those tubes in place. But I’ve not been able to actually finish the system because I needed the drywall to go up before I could hang and connect the radiators.

Now that the drywall is up, though, I can finally complete the installation and get the hot water flowing.

Before I started any of this, I had reached out to a company that does this work and got a quote to do the work. It was somewhere north of $15,000, which struck me as way too high. I ended up finding a company called Radiantec that supports do-it-yourselfers and bought most of the materials from them, including pre-built manifolds. What I didn’t get from Radiantec (like the electric boiler and panel radiators), I bought from pexuniverse.com. In all, I think I spent about $3,500.

Of course, a lot of the work was labor — especially routing all the tubes back and forth through the ceiling joists. And it was laborious. But now I was at the finish line. All that was left was to connect the mechanicals.

Who Needs a Plumber?

The mechanicals basically consist of some manifolds to distribute the water, a couple of pumps, an expansion tank, and an electric hot water boiler.

Despite feeling confident in my growing skills, I didn’t have a clear picture of how to assemble and arrange this stuff. It didn’t help that I hadn’t fully read Radiantec’s instructions, which I later discovered to be tremendously detailed. But I did know enough to understand it wasn’t a big job. I figured a plumber could take care of it in a day. The two biggest challenges would be laying things out properly and soldering copper pipes — the latter being a skill I had lacked proficiency in, but plumbers could do blindfolded.

So, I called my plumber to see what he’d charge to put it all together. I expected a quote of somewhere between $600 and $1,200.

He said he didn’t want to do it. “We don’t work on those kinds of systems,” he told me. I was a bit annoyed because, to me, all he needed to do was connect pipes. But, fair enough. He didn’t want to do it and that’s fine.

After searching around a bit, I found another plumber who said he’d take care of it. He was impressed with what I had done already, and though he was concerned the electric water boiler I had wouldn’t be powerful enough, he agreed to do the work. His quote? $6,400.

I was gobsmacked.

And frankly, offended. I’m not even sure how he came up with that figure. Was it based on hours? Ten hours at $640 an hour? Was it just the highest number he could think of that didn’t make him blush? Did his truck need a new transmission?

In retrospect, though, I’m kind of glad he gave me such an obscene quote. If it had been $1,200, for example, I might have reluctantly agreed. But $6,400? Fuck that.

That’s when I printed out Radiantec’s instruction sheets and realized the installation was actually even easier than I thought. They provided detailed layout guidance and while yes, there would be soldering, and no, I’m not good at soldering, I could practice. And really, how hard could it be?

Read the Instructions, Dummy

The instructions start by mounting the pre-built components. Having already brought the PEX tubing to a central location and installing a 4x4 sheet of ¾-inch plywood, it didn’t take long for me to line up and mount the pieces. A few screws, a few clamps, attach this pump to that pipe and that pipe to this pump and within about two hours I had the basic layout in place.

Next, I took the pieces off the wall and into my shop where I soldered them together. The first couple didn’t look so great, but then I felt like I was getting the hang of it. By the time I soldered my sixteenth and final joint, I thought I had done a pretty good job.

I took the pieces back to my basement, assembled it all together — including adding PEX fittings and tubes — and then fired up my air compressor so I could pressure-test the system.

The hissing sounds made it immediately clear my soldering skills were still very much a work in progress. I counted no fewer than five fittings that were leaking air. I got out my torch, flux, and solder, and went about redoing the joints in question.

In some cases, I was able to fix the leaky joints quite easily. In other cases, the flame heated the copper so much that the plastic PEX tubes melted and broke away. That meant I had to redo those fittings as well. Eventually, once I thought I had the leaks fixed, I re-tested with compressed air. More leaks.

This went on for several rounds until, eventually, in the wee hours of the early morning, I performed a test that maintained pressure. Finally I had an air- and (more importantly) water-tight system.

Under Pressure

Now it was time to fill it with water. My heart was racing. Sure, my tests said the system was tight, but once I added water, who was to say water wouldn’t start dripping from the ceiling or out from behind the walls?

I connected the hoses and opened the valves. Gushing, rushing, gurgling, burbling water sounds echoed through the tubes and the house. It sounded bad. Really bad. In my mind’s eye I could see water dripping through the freshly painted drywall ceiling and spilling out onto the floor. Thousands of dollars wasted. A setback that would take me months and thousands more dollars to repair. Maybe $6,400 would have been worth it. I expected my Apple Watch to tell me my heart was going into failure and to seek emergency help.

But, everything stayed dry. No leaks. No drips. No runs. No errors.1

The next step was to install the electronics — the thermostats, the logic controller, the boiler, and the pumps. Radiantec had also provided detailed and clear instructions for most of this and within an hour, I had everything wired up.

I turned on the pumps and they started churning. Everything was great. The thermostats reported the floor temperature, the air temperature, and the water temperature on both sides of the boiler.

I watched and waited. The temperatures very slowly increased from about 65 degrees to 65.1 degrees. It seemed surprisingly incremental, but maybe that’s just how it works? Eventually, though, I realized the boiler wasn’t turning on. The temperature was increasing (ever so slightly) only because of the heat from the pumps themselves.

So now I needed to troubleshoot the boiler. Had I wired it wrong? I reviewed the instructions, turned to web searches, fired up AI chatbots, and called support lines. The boiler’s instructions were scant; the web searches were lacking; the AI advice was a mixed bag, and one of the support people I reached on the phone was a jackass who seemed to revel in confusing me with jargon.

Luckily, though, I also reached a super-helpful support tech at the company that makes the boiler. “It’s probably a bad flow sensor,” he told me, referring to a small plastic piece that monitors the flow of water through the boiler. “I’ll send you a replacement.”

I came to learn that the flow sensor is basically a little plastic pinwheel that sits in the boiler. When the pumps push water through the system, the pinwheel spins, which tells the boiler to fire up. Since the boiler wasn’t turning on, that indicated the sensor was failing.2

Meanwhile, I was impatient to get the boiler — and the whole system — working because the weather forecast called for single-digit temperatures and multiple feet of snow. So, I had the replacement sensor sent via next-day air (my god that’s expensive, though still less than $6,400). Then I watched YouTube videos on how to perform the necessary repair.

When the sensor arrived, I drained the water from the system, turned off power to the boiler, and began my flow sensor transplant operation.

It went surprisingly smoothly and within 10 minutes, I was refilling the system and preparing to flip on the breakers.

Like when I first filled the system with water, I once again found my heart racing. What if this didn’t solve the problem? What if I had really screwed something up? Maybe I bought the wrong boiler. Maybe I had plumbed the whole thing wrong. Should I have spent the $6,400 after all? Are the Browns doomed to suck for the rest of my life?3

But as soon as I restored power, I knew I had fixed it. I heard water flow through the boiler, which I now realized I hadn’t heard before. Then the boiler’s light flicked on. My mood lightened. The temperature sensors showed the water immediately heating…. 60, 65, 70, 80, 100. Within seconds, 135-degree water was flowing through the tubes. Within minutes, the radiators were warm to the touch. And in a few hours, the floors upstairs went from icy cold to toasty warm.

I was giddy. It worked. It really worked!

Maybe I should write myself a check for $6,400.

Well, not me. I hired someone to do it because hanging drywall sucks and taping and mudding is an art unto itself. It’s also a nasty, dusty, dirty, painful job that I don’t want to do. And it’s incredibly easy to make a terrible mess of it. No thanks.

I ordered the materials — buckets of joint compound, dozens of sheets of drywall, screws, tape, and more — and got lucky that the delivery arrived between, rather than during, rain storms. The driver left everything in the driveway. It took me two hours to schlepp it all inside.

The guy I hired brought a helper, which was great because hanging drywall is not a one-person job. But it’s also not really a two-person job. The sheets are eight feet by four feet and weigh about 50 pounds apiece. Holding a sheet up to the ceiling really takes three or even four guys. So, I pitched in and helped hold up the sheets while the other two screwed them into the floor joists. I’m not going to lie — being tall is nice.

It took about two weeks for the guys to get all of the drywall screwed into place, taped, mudded, and sanded. The transformation was thrilling. Instead of see-through framing, I now had actual rooms.

Once I vacuumed up a thick blanket of dust from the sanding, I covered the drywall with primer and followed that up with a first coat of paint. Before applying a second coat, though, my drywall guy wanted to return to touch up any flaws and deal with any repairs that might be needed after I installed the lights. That gave me time to focus on adding trim to my built-in units.

The Built-In Look

One of the keys to giving the desk and entertainment center the true “built-in” look is adding trim and moulding, which visually ties them to the walls and ceiling. Now that the drywall was in place, I could finally take that step.

Each unit needed a piece of trim from the top of the unit to the ceiling, as well as crown moulding to refine that transition. The trim is simple enough, but crown moulding is (nearly) always an adventure due to its angled orientation.

I bought two 16-foot pieces of moulding. I cut the first piece for the desk and it fit perfectly. For the entertainment unit, which required three pieces to wrap around the unit, we’d need to cut several angled ends. For this, I was super careful. I made test cuts. I worked out all the angles and measurements. All I needed to do was cut a 16-foot piece of moulding down to “slightly longer than needed.” I measured, marked, and double-checked. I wasn’t going to screw this up.

I screwed it up. In a last-second attempt to minimize my waste, I accidentally cut it “slightly shorter than needed,” rendering an entire 16-foot piece of moulding useless. I just about lost it. Two-year-olds demonstrate more composure than I did at that moment. My dad, who was visiting and lending me a hand, shook his head solemnly and said, “it’s crown moulding.” What he meant, of course, is that I was always going to screw it up because crown moulding is carpentry voodoo. There’s Murphy’s Law and there’s the Crown Moulding Guarantee, as in “I guarantee you’re going to screw it up.”

As annoyed as I was, it was hardly the end of the world. The next day I bought another 16-foot piece and cut it correctly. Still salty about it, though the end result has debrined me a bit.

The List Keeps Getting Longer

The closer I get to finishing, the more it seems I have to do. I need to extend the window casings, install door jambs, in-wall speakers, lights, baseboards, base cap, trim, flooring, radiators, and more. Some of it I could start on right away, other bits would need to wait.

One thing I could get going on was the window casing. There was some casing already, but it didn’t cover the entire depth of the wall — only about half of it. To bring the casing out to be flush with the walls, I ripped 1x6 boards and shimmed them even with the existing casings, nailing them in place. I also added quarter-round trim between the glass and the casings. Then I filled all holes and seams with filler, sanded, and painted.

Another item on my list I could cross off was installing the in-wall speakers. All I needed to do was use a template to place and cut holes in the drywall in just the right place. I had previously laid speaker wire in the wall and marked locations on the floor. I just needed to make sure the holes I cut were between the studs and aligned with each other. The first speaker went in perfectly. So did the second — I thought. Then I stepped back to admire the results only to realize I mis-measured; the second speaker was about an inch too low.

It’s times like this that I wonder if I have lesions on my brain.

While I mentally flogged myself, my dad pointed out that the speaker trim gave me enough margin that I could shift the speaker up without needing to patch the hole and it would be properly aligned. For that, I was tremendously grateful.

To paint the speaker grills, which I had removed from the speakers, I opted against using a brush or roller, for fear of clogging the grill holes. Instead, I turned to a compressed-air gun a friend had given me some years ago but that I had never tried. I asked ChatGPT how to use it and then followed my AI overlord’s precise directions, which, I must admit, gave me perfect results.1

Let There Be Light

Several days later, my electrician returned to install new breakers and wire the various switches. I had already taken care of wiring all of the outlets (that’s pretty straightforward), but handling three- and four-way switches is something I still find confusing. Thanks to his fancy laser level and right-sized hole saws, he also cut out all the holes for my recessed lights, which I had been nervous about.

My nervousness stemmed from worrying that the holes wouldn’t be aligned properly, or that I’d cut into the wrong spot, or that the wires we had left in the ceilings wouldn’t be where we thought they were.

And to a certain degree, that last concern turned out to be true — several of the holes ended up on the other side of a joist from where the wire was. Had I done that, I’d be apoplectic. But, both the electrician and the drywall guy explained that this was actually normal. We’d just cut an access hole on the other side of the joist, cut a hole in the joist, thread the wire through, and then patch the access hole. And that’s exactly what we did. No big deal.

We had to do that several times and I came to see that cutting and patching drywall really is just part of the game. Sometimes you see end results and think it was all done so perfectly and so carefully. But in reality, what you’re often seeing — and this is true across life — are well-fixed patches to everyday fuckups.

I think that’s the secret not just to construction, but to daily living. Sure, you want to avoid making mistakes, but they are also inevitable. What really matters is how good you are at recovering from them.2

As the electrician wrapped up, the drywall guy was smoothing out his patches and I was wiring the last of the lights. Several days later, after the final coat of paint dried, I was starting to hang art.

It’s been a year of progress, but plenty still remains. I still have to hook up the heating, add baseboards and flooring, take care of the doors, and install trim. There’s furniture, too. And of course, there’s still the bathroom to do. But, it is progress and I am pleased.

I’m also working on a revamped bathroom, a storage room, and a family room, where I’m planning a built-in entertainment center.

This built-in is similar to the desk, but there are some key differences. Among them: it will be open on the ends rather than butting up against side walls; it won’t have drawers or doors; and it must be built with various audio/visual components — television, speakers, electric fireplace — in mind.

As I described earlier, I had already threaded various cables and hollow tubes in the wall framing. Now it is time to build the boxes that will compose the cabinet itself. The box-building process is basically the same as with the desk, so I won’t repeat it all here. I did, however, learn some lessons from my desk experience. Chief among them: I doubled the thickness of the outside walls so that they would match the thickness of the interior walls, where two boxes come together.

The bottom portion of the unit comprises three boxes: a 24-inch cube, a 60-inch center box, and a second 24-inch cube. The left-most cube will eventually hold the home theater receiver. The right-most cube will eventually hold a subwoofer. The middle box will eventually hold an electric fireplace.

In order to secure the base units in place, I first had to cut out holes for electric and AV receptacles. Whereas with the desk, I made measurements that I transferred to the boxes — resulting in some close-but-not-quite-right cuts — this time I made templates to get the positions exactly right. (Except for one stupid mistake where I accidentally flipped my template upside down. Sigh.) Then I screwed the boxes to the wall studs, to each other, and to the risers before painting them.

For the countertop, I used four red oak planks that had been stored under a tarp in the woods by my house’s previous owner. As I did with the walnut boards for the desk, I took the planks to a nearby commercial mill where they jointed the edges perfectly.

Back in the shop, I filled a few holes and knots with clear epoxy, sanded the boards smooth, and used a biscuit joiner to glue them together into a single, flat, nine-foot plank, just like I did with the walnut desktop. Once the glue dried, I screwed the resulting plank to the base cabinets and then applied a coat of General Finishes’ hard wax oil as a final finish.

For the upper cabinets, I was very concerned about ensuring the shelves and the center area would be sized correctly to hold whatever speakers and TV I’d eventually buy.

Ideally, I’d have those AV components on hand, but I’m not in a position to buy them yet. So, I pulled the specs on what I planned to buy and measured everything out multiple times. I also decided to tweak my design so that instead of building a shallow shelf above the TV to house a center speaker, it would instead sit on the countertop in front of the TV. That seemed simpler and safer.

But that change required me to adjust some of the in-wall wiring and receptacles. Annoying, yes, but also exactly why I was trying to think it all through now. Changing it later would have been a nightmare.

As a result, the three upper boxes are slightly different dimensions than the bottom boxes: They are shallower (16 inches instead of 24 inches); taller, of course; and the left and right boxes are thinner, at 16 inches, allowing the center box to be wider to make room for an absurd 75-inch TV.

As with the bottom boxes, I used a template to mark the locations of wiring receptacles and then painted the boxes before screwing them to the wall studs. The left and right boxes are the same off white as the base cabinets, but because the center box is where the TV will go, I decided I didn’t want a white background behind the TV. Instead, I painted that one surface a flat, non-reflective, dark blue.

With all of the cabinets in place, I built double-thick shelves, just like I did with the desk. Then I temporarily placed a relatively small TV in the middle section and added a temporary AV receiver, speakers, and subwoofer to their respective locations. That allowed me to verify my wiring. It’s also nice that for the rest of my basement renovation project, I’ll have music to accompany my work.

As with the desk, I’d love to do more of the finish and trim work now, but I really can’t until drywall and flooring is installed. So, for the time-being, the entertainment unit is as far as I can take it.

I feel really good about my progress, but somehow my to-do list keeps getting longer: drywall, finish electric, paint, flooring, trim, maybe a window replacement, maybe a staircase replacement, the heating system and fixtures, doors, the bathroom, the AV system, the electric fireplace, furniture. Oy vey. Maybe I’ll finish by 2027?

Next up: drywall. Even though I’m undertaking a lot of this work myself, drywall is not something I have any interest in. I’ll be happily contracting out that job. Soon, I hope.

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List in hand, I got to work. For the shelves, I decided to use ¾-inch plywood with a solid wood front edge. However, I thought a shelf just ¾-inch thick would look (and feel) too flimsy. So, I laminated two ¾-inch pieces together to form a robust 1-½-inch slab. I cut them to size, glued them together, attached a piece of solid wood to the front edge, and coated them with paint. Once dried, I installed them with small shelf pins and immediately appreciated the transformative effect they had on the entire unit.

Next were the drawers. I found some nice old, long and very wide pine boards that the previous owner of the house had left behind. At about ¾-inch thick and straight as an arrow, they’d make perfect box sides for my drawers.

I used a router and dovetail jig to create the corner joinery. For the bottom, I cut a ¼-inch groove around all four pieces into which I slid ¼-inch pre-finished plywood. Then I used the router to round over all of the sharp edges.

Whether because I’m really good or I’m really lucky (rarely either), the two bottom cabinets were perfectly sized to hold legal hanging file folders. In order to give the hanging folders something to, well, hang from, I drilled partial holes into the inside front and back of two drawers and sandwiched a steel rod between them.

Installing the drawers required careful alignment of the drawer slides, which was especially tricky here because the left side of the left-most drawers were up against a wall. That meant I had to pull the drawer out in order to attach the rail, making precise measurements and markings critical.

For the drawer faces — and the doors — I constructed Shaker-style panels out of 2x1 lumber and ¼-inch plywood, being sure to keep everything square. Because my drawer fronts and doors would sit flush with the face frames — that is, they’d be inset rather than overlaid on the frames — I also made sure to size them so that once installed, there would be a ⅛-inch gap around each piece. It would have been far easier if the drawers and doors sat on top of the face frame, but it looks so much nicer to have them inset.

After priming the drawer fronts and doors, it was time to install them. Despite my careful measurements, the pieces were all just a little too big for the openings. I took them back to the shop and shaved off a few sixteenths of an inch here and there. Eventually, I got everything to be right-sized.

The key to installing the fronts and doors is to add small spacers around all of the sides; this keeps everything perfectly centered in the openings. The drawer faces screw directly to the drawers themselves, which is simple enough. The doors, however, use European-style concealed hinges. To make them work, I needed to mount the hinges to blocks inside the cabinet and I also needed to add “stop blocks” so the doors would close at the right spot. Once done, I gave all the new pieces two coats of paint.

For knobs and pulls, I wanted something that would match the walnut top. Shocked by some of the exorbitant prices I found online ($30 or more for a single pull), I ended up going with a much more economical option at Home Depot that I’m quite pleased with.

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I would love to finish trimming out the unit with crown molding along the top and baseboards at the bottom, but that has to wait for drywall and flooring to be installed, which may be a while yet, alas.

I asked my friend what she preferred, and she picked the more elegant “English” style with vertical slats.

The only problem was that I couldn’t find any plans for such a bench. Could I figure it out from the photo? It was worth a shot.

I started with two “requirements.” First, since it was replacing an existing bench, I knew it needed to be four feet wide. Second, she wanted to keep the cost down, so I’d make it out of pine, which she could later stain or paint as she wished.

To figure out how much wood I’d need, I estimated the height and depth of the bench and calculated that I’d need a single 8-foot 2x6 for the side pieces and eight 8-foot 1x4s for the seat, back, and arms. I also needed some waterproof glue, a box of screws, and some eye bolts.

The first challenge came in cutting the seat supports — the two side (and one middle) pieces on which the long horizontal slats would sit. These pieces needed to have just the right curve to make it a comfortable seat. Lucky for me, I had a seat template from some Adirondack chairs that I could use to draw out a comfortable curve.

I also needed to consider the angle of the seat to the backrest. I searched online for guidance and learned that 105 degrees is considered comfortable. Since I planned to have the seat support butt up to the backrest support, I figured I’d halve that angle for both pieces so that together they’d make 105 degrees.

With that, I cut the seat supports on the bandsaw and sanded them to be identical. Then I set them on the ground and sat on them to see if they were indeed comfortable. They were!

Next, I added the two vertical pieces that would hold the backrest. I cut them to match the angle of the seat supports (giving me that 105-degree angle). I also added a block on the inside of the angle to provide much-needed additional structural support.

Then I cut the slats that would screw into the seat supports and form the bottom of the bench. When it came time to screw them into the supports, I drilled pilot holes with countersinks so the screws would sit nice and flush.

Time to make the backrest. For this, I wanted the vertical slats to fit in the horizontal upper and lower pieces via mortise and tenon. However, I didn’t want to cut 18 mortises in the side of the two thin upper and lower boards. So instead, I decided to cut a long groove into each rail for the vertical slats to sit in.

However, doing this could leave a gap in the groove between each slat. To address that, I cut small, thin pieces to push into those open recesses. I also wanted the vertical slats to be slightly thinner than the upper and lower rails, so I planed them down from ¾-inch thick to ½-inch thick.

I dry-fit all the pieces, making sure to keep the slats evenly spaced. I marked everything in pencil and then got out the glue bottle to put it all together. I was pleasantly surprised that it worked out just as I planned. Was it perfect? No, of course not. But did it do what I was aiming for? Absolutely.

With the backrest built, I set it between the vertical supports and realized I had a problem: the backrest was taller than the vertical supports, which looked really silly. After swearing at myself for a few minutes, I came up with a rather ingenious solution: I’d cut curves into the top of the backrest. For this, I grabbed a set of French curve templates and drew cut lines. I made the cuts on the band saw, sanded and rounded over the edges, and then set the backrest back into position. It absolutely solved my problem.

I glued and screwed the backrest into position, adding some braces behind it to help give it additional structural support. Now the only thing left was to build the arm rests.

For these, I again turned to my Adirondack templates. Using them, I drew out the shape of each arm rest from a 2x6. I also cut support pieces. After sanding and rounding over the sharp edges, I test fit everything. I also decided to copy a design feature I’d seen on various swings, which was to drill a 1-½-inch hole through the arm rest for the support rope/chain to thread through. I rounded over the edges of that hole and then glued and screwed everything into place. Then I added the final elements: eye bolts that the support rope/chain would attach to.

And that was it. No plans. Just reference photos. I sat in the bench and verified its comfort. I was pleased. Two days of work and just $170 in materials. Not bad.

All that’s left is to deliver and install it. My friend will stain or paint it herself.

My design called for it to be 30 inches from front to back, just shy of 11 feet long, and made from black walnut. I bought five 1-¼-inch-thick black walnut boards from my favorite local lumber supplier. For an extra $20, they surfaced three sides and planed them to a uniform thickness. However, the edges were not flat or straight enough for me to glue them together without any gaps. To create the single, uniform top I was planning, I’d need to joint the boards’ edges so they’d match up to each other perfectly. How I’d do that, I didn’t yet know.

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As a reminder, jointing is the process of making the edge of a board perfectly flat and smooth so that when it is pushed up next to another jointed edge, there is no gap. If you look at the back of your end with your fingers together so they are just touching, you’ll notice your fingers are not perfectly flat and straight and smooth. There are gaps where your fingers undulate. That’s what I’m trying to avoid with the boards.

Jointing can be done several different ways. One is by running the board across a jointer — a machine that makes a thin cut along the edge perpendicular to the board’s face. Another is by using a straight-edge as a reference and running the board through a table saw or running a router along the straight edge. Or by running a track saw down the board, or by using a long hand plane.

Okay, so I do know how to joint a board. The problem was, I didn’t know how to joint these boards, because they are so long. All of the methods I just mentioned are completely legitimate, but they all get increasingly difficult the longer the board.

And my boards were almost 11 feet long — much longer than anything I’ve ever worked with. My jointer is far too small. I’m not skilled enough with a hand plane. I don’t have a straight edge long enough to use with the table saw. Eventually, though, I hit upon the idea of making a very long straight edge out of plywood that I could clamp to the boards. Then I’d run my router down the board, which should create a perfectly flat, square edge.

However, after running a few boards through this process, I wasn’t convinced that the edge was flat enough. Moreover, I had no way to make sure the two edges were parallel to each other, meaning my boards risked drifting from rectangles into trapezoids.

Then I found a guy with a special tool about 30 minutes away who could ensure perfectly square, parallel, jointed edges for just $100. As much as I wanted to handle all of the milling myself, I decided to give my ego the day off and take the safe route.

I drove out to the guy’s shop and marveled at the stacks of dried walnut, cherry, oak, and other species he had in his warehouse. If it was $100,000 worth of wood, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

We unloaded my paltry five boards and took them to his special machine. It was a large metal table with a giant router suspended over it. Essentially, the boards would be locked down to the table and the router would ride two rails to make a perfectly straight cut.

They say “a poor craftsman blames his tools,” but it’s also true that you should “use the right tool for the job.” This was the right tool.

Indeed, the results were spectacular. Better than that — they were perfect.

Once I got the boards back to the shop, I used a borrowed biscuit joiner to cut slots in the sides of the boards into which I would shove small oval “biscuits” before pushing the boards together. This helps keep the board faces flush with each other when gluing and clamping them together, eliminating uneven seams.

Over a few days, I glued the boards together, first making sure to have their best sides facing up. Once the glue dried and I removed the clamps, I then filled any knots or other holes or divots with a two-part epoxy. Once the epoxy dried, I sanded the entire surface through several grits until it was smooth and I could no longer see scratches or saw marks.

Finally, I cut the surface to a final size — trimming the ends and slicing about five inches off the back. Then I applied a coat of General Finishes Hard Wax Oil to bring out the natural beauty of the walnut.

Once the finish dried, I and a friend carefully carried the top into the office and set it on a rolling table. This proved challenging because the desktop is the exact width of the office itself. But once the desktop was on the rolling table, I could simply push it into position, sliding it gently onto the base cabinets between the two walls.

To my surprise and delight, it fit perfectly. From the underside of the base cabinets, I used two screws to lock the top in place.

With the desktop secure, I was now able to slide on the upper cabinets and screw them to the studs. (I also had to cut out outlet access in one upper cabinet, which I now think I set too high. Sigh.)

I was happy to get the upper cabinets in place, but as I looked at them, I realized I had made a mistake. Two mistakes, actually. Where the two end cabinets meet the middle cabinet, the two ¾-inch plywood sides make a 1.5-inch vertical “divide.” However, on the outside walls of the two end units, there is just one ¾-inch plywood side. In other words, the vertical divides on the end were thinner than the ones in the middle, which looked odd. What I needed to do was to add a second ¾-inch piece of plywood to each side piece.

To do this, I need to cut new side pieces, drill new shelf-pin holes, and then glue these faux sides into position inside the ends of the two upper cabinets.

It was an easy thing to do, but of course I screwed it up by mis-indexing the shelf-pin holes, which would have meant that my shelves wouldn’t be level. Argh! I went back and made new side pieces — with the holes in the right places — and then after triple-checking, glued them in place.

Next came a step I had been dreading. As I mentioned earlier, the two base cabinets both covered power outlets — or would have, had I not cut openings for them. Still, they would be virtually inaccessible under the desktop. So, I bought two pop-up power outlets that would bring power (and ethernet) to the desktop itself. Doing this, though, required drilling two four-inch holes in my beautiful walnut desktop. Yikes!

I measured and checked and double-checked my measurements. I even drilled into scrap cardboard just to be sure everything would fit correctly. Once I was confident all would be well, I pulled the trigger — literally and figuratively. To my relief, the drill cut clean holes and the pop-up units fit perfectly.

Before painting the upper units, I covered the desktop with thick construction paper and masking tape. Once the paint was on and dry, I screwed outlet plates in place and started using my desk as God intended.

It’s not done yet, though. Far from it. I still need to make and install shelves, drawers, doors, and finish trim. The shelves, drawers, and doors I will get to soon. The trim, however, will have to wait until the room is drywalled. I hope to do that before the end of the year. We’ll see.

Now I think it’s time to start work on the entertainment center.

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But, in the five minutes the inspector reviewed my handiwork, he made it clear everything met with his approval. “Looks good; you can insulate now,” he said as he walked back to his county-issued Ford SUV, which was still warm from when he arrived just moments earlier.

Rather than being relieved, however, I was actually slightly alarmed.

Had he looked closely at what I, a complete novice and bumbling fool, had done? Was he sure I had done it correctly? Wasn’t he going to save me from myself?

He didn’t even run the pressure test on the PEX tubing I installed. He just asked me if I had done the test. I had, of course. Several times. But, you know, it’d be nice if he’d seen it too. Just to make sure I wasn’t missing something or hallucinating.

But, I guess if he was happy, I should be happy.

So I insulated. R-13 in the ceiling. R-19 along the outside walls. Fiberglass in my forearms. Foam around the PEX. Rock wool everywhere else. The effect was immediate. Not only did the basement more easily hold a steady temperature, but it significantly dampened noise from the rooms above.

I called for another inspection. This one was even shorter. “OK,” he said as he walked the basement like a model struts across the catwalk — quickly down and back and out. “Call when you’re all finished.”

All finished! Was the end really in sight?

No, not really. But the next step was definitely at hand.

The Desk

My plans for the basement include two built-in units: a desk and an entertainment center. The former will stretch along one wall in my office with drawers, cabinet doors, bookshelves, and of course, a desktop. I measured and drew and sketched and had a pretty good idea of what I wanted.

Even with the measurements and sketches in hand, I was nervous about what I had in mind. I wished I could build a prototype, maybe out of cardboard. But that wasn’t feasible. Maybe I could build a 3D model in SketchUp or something? I tried that and I have to say, building 3D models in SketchUp is not in my wheelhouse.

Then I had a realization: could ChatGPT make a render for me?

OMG. Yes. It. Could.

Even though these weren’t perfect renders, they had me feeling pretty good about what I had in mind. Now it was time to start building.

Making Boxes

My first step was to build platforms upon which the two end cabinets would sit. I built them out of pressure-treated 2x6s, since they’d be sitting on concrete and could, conceivably, wick up moisture.

The cabinets themselves I built out of ¾” plywood. For the left cabinet, which would have drawers, I added vertical and horizontal pieces to separate the drawers. For the right cabinet, which would have shelves and doors, I added peg holes to support the shelves, and a vertical piece to separate the two doors.

Both cabinets (and the middle section, which I covered with its own piece of plywood) threatened to cover up power outlets. To deal with that, I cut openings in the box backs and center board to be perfectly aligned with the outlets. Then, across the tops, I added two braces, making sure to bring one forward from the back to leave room for pop-up power outlets. More on that in a future post.

Once done, I screwed them in place against the studs and into the bottom platforms.

For the upper cabinets, I built three more boxes, only without bottoms, as these boxes would sit directly on the desktop. I also added peg holes to support future shelves. However, I couldn’t install these upper boxes until I had the desktop in place.

And I couldn’t install the desktop until I took care of a few more details with the base cabinets while I still had access to them from the top. I needed to make and install face frames to cover the plywood edges. I needed to install drawer slides. And I needed to paint them.

For the face frames, I was trying to decide between 1.5-inch wide frames or 2.5-inch wide frames. I decided to build one of each and see how they’d look.

Once I did so, it became clear that the 2.5-inch frames were too wide. So, 1.5 inches it would be. I built and installed them, which then allowed me to install the drawer slides. The reason I had to wait for the face frames to be in first was because I needed to know how much to pad out the drawer slides so they could clear the frames.

Now, finally, I was ready to install the desktop. That’s next time.

About a year or so ago, my sister asked me if I could make her some kind of bench for her front door foyer. It’s an open space and it lacks any place for people to sit and take off (or put on) their shoes, or for her to store things like hats, gloves, scarves, etc.

Of course I’d be happy to, I told her, and started thinking about what might work well in the space she had. But, as time went on, I got busy with other projects and let this request slip into the recesses of my mind.

It was jogged forth this spring, however, when I was paging through an issue of Woodsmith magazine, which featured a cute padded storage bench that I thought could be just right for my sister’s project. Conveniently, it was also her birthday, so I let her know her present would be this bench. She’d just have to wait a little longer for it.

Like many of my projects, it builds on concepts or techniques in previous works while also challenging me with new things. For example, the drawers feature a continuous grain pattern, like what I sought to achieve with the writing desk project, but the drawer pulls are recessed, requiring an entirely different approach to any I’ve taken before.

After consulting with my sister, I decided to make one small alteration to what was pictured. While, as in the photo, I’d build the bench out of ash, which has a beautiful grain pattern, I would stain it black to match her other decor. It would also be the same wood and stain as the tabletop I had made for her and her spouse several years ago.

As with all projects, this started with a trip to the lumber yard. I picked out a few boards, including some nice two-inch thick pieces from which I’d make the robust legs. Back in the shop, milling and cutting the lumber to size was straightforward.

The bench is mostly straightforward mortise-and-tenon joinery — basically the wood equivalent of “insert tab A into slot B.” The tabs are the tenons and the slots are the mortises.

To make the mortises, I first marked their locations on each leg, and to do that, I had to make sense of the plan’s diagrams.

Now maybe it’s just me, but despite the exceptional detail these appear to display, I was frequently confounded by certain aspects.

In any event, I marked up the legs and used a drill press to make the initial mortise holes. Then I squared them off with a mallet and chisel.

Once I had the mortises in good shape, I milled the cross pieces or rails that would fit into the pegs. These rails would have the tenons — or tabs — on their ends, created by cutting away material, like you might cut the base of a candle to fit into the candlestick.

To help make everything super strong and tight, the tenons would be cut at 45-degree angles so that they’d meet like the corners of a picture frame inside the mortises, as shown above in the plan’s diagram. (Look at the inset box titled “b.”)

I test fit the tenons and mortises, adjusting both as necessary until everything fit together snugly.

To this point, the project had been pretty straightforward. The next step was a bit trickier, though. I needed to cut a slot along each rail and between the mortises on each leg — all perfectly aligned with each other — for ¼-inch plywood to slide into, thus creating the solid sides.

For the rails, this was easily done on the table saw. For the legs, though, I needed the slots to run only between the mortises — something I would not be able to accomplish with a table saw. For this trick, I had to turn to the router table.

A router is a machine that spins a cutting bit like a top. Different bits can make different kinds of cuts. To make the cut I needed, I used a small ¼-inch straight bit. If I push a piece of wood straight down on this bit, it’d make a ¼-inch hole, like what you’d get with a drill.

However, if you push a piece of wood across the bit as it spins, it will cut a ¼-inch groove. What’s really helpful about this is that you can start and stop your groove wherever you please, creating a groove with definite end points.

By carefully aligning start and stop blocks on the router table and even-more-carefully setting a fence to just the right distance from the router bit, I was able to gently drop a table leg onto the bit where a mortise was cut and then push the leg until the bit reached the other mortise. Then I’d carefully lift the leg and voilà! I had a perfectly cut groove just between the mortises.

With the grooves cut, I rounded over the edges of the legs and rails, sized and cut the plywood sides and the ash drawer dividers (which also gives the bench added strength), gave everything a thorough sanding, and then glued and clamped it all together.

Next, it was time to make the drawers. Rather than build these out of plywood, I made them out of solid ash and assembled them using tongue-and-groove joinery. While the glue on the drawers dried, I started staining the bench frame. I also cut the plywood top that would serve as the bench seat and once the stain dried, installed drawer slides.

There wasn’t much left to do, but what there was left was the one thing that I’d been worried about since I started: the plans called for the drawer fronts to have recessed hand pulls cut into them. And I had no idea how to do that.

Well, I had some idea. Or ideas, anyway. At first I thought I’d make a jig or pattern that I’d run a bit around. But that seemed convoluted and a lot of work. I’d also need a bit that had not just the right profile, but also a bearing to run along the jig. And such a bit I could not find.

I even went to the local woodworking store and pored over their router bits, but failed to find anything I needed.

Then, in talking about the problem with a friend, I realized I was approaching this all wrong. Yes, I needed a bit with the right profile, but the way to cut the grip was to turn the drawer front face down on a router table, set the correct stops, and then simply push the piece into the bit.

I found and ordered a bit online and once it arrived, tested this method on a piece of scrap wood. It worked perfectly, giving me the confidence to cut the actual drawer fronts.

With the finger grips cut, I then attached the drawer fronts to the drawers and stained everything black. Then I installed the drawers and realized I had made a terrible error. Despite all my care and attention, I had misordered the drawer fronts so that the grain was no longer continuous. As I let out a string of expletives and scathing, self-loathing invective, I realized I could detach the faces and re-order them properly, though doing so would create some extra screw holes and other minor blemishes that only I would know about (and now all of you).

Once it was all properly set and the stain and top coat dried, I delivered it to my sister — just four months after her birthday. I had earlier sent her dimensions so she could order a made-to-fit cushion for the top. In truth, once we placed the bench in her foyer, it seemed a little small for the space. But, I think with some strategic placement of house plants or other items on either side, it will fit in quite nicely.

When we last left off, I had just finished installing hundreds of feet of PEX tubing to heat the first floor. That work was arduous, which every muscle in my body made abundantly clear.

And yet, I wasn’t done running tubing. I still needed to create a circuit of PEX pipe to service the radiator panels I planned to install in the basement itself. The basement stays nice and cool in the summer; in the winter it gets downright frigid. Installing a few wall radiators (and a bunch of insulation) should solve that.

Unlike with the ceiling, the running of the tubes for the radiators was rather simple. I just needed to create a circuit from the manifold through each radiator and then back to the manifold. The trickiest part was that wherever I planned to set a radiator, I needed to have the PEX tubes come out of the walls and then return back into the wall to continue to the next radiator. And, this is key: to pass inspection, I needed to keep the tubes in a continuous circuit so that they could be pressure-tested.

After scouring the Internet for advice, I determined I could use a wooden brace with two holes and plastic grommets to guide the PEX through the wall and back again. Once I had done that for the four radiators, I connected the PEX back into the manifold and pressure-tested to 100 psi to verify all was tight.

I held my breath while the air compressor pumped the air into the system. To my relief, there were no explosions, leaks, or other failures.

Once the still-to-happen inspection is complete, I’ll be able to add drywall and trim and fit the mess of tubes around the manifold to make it all neat and tidy. Then I can hook up a boiler, pumps, and other equipment to make the system fully operational.

Rough-In Plumbing

Next up was addressing the plumbing — mostly in the bathroom and also moving a few pipes or valves that would have gotten in the way of drywall.

Although I can do some plumbing myself, I’m keenly aware that being in the basement requires some additional considerations and code adherences, such as handling a “wet vent.” Not only was I moving a few things around, but I was also adding a shower and installing a washing machine in the basement. So, I decided to call in some experts.

Perhaps one of the best feelings in the world is knowing you have tradespeople you can trust. I am lucky that I’ve found such folks and have developed relationships with them. For plumbing, I turn to Brian. He’s helped me on projects including installing a water softening and filtration system, replacing a hot water heater, replacing a dead well pump, and running new garden hydrants.

To save some money, I had already demolished the old bathroom and busted up the concrete where the new drain system would go. Then Brian came in and set the rest of the plumbing in place. Watching him, I never felt that it was work I couldn’t have done if I had an advisor and some additional (and expensive) tools.1 Nevertheless, I was pleased he did the work and that I would have complete peace of mind that all would be well once walls were closed in and cement entombed the drain.

I also had Brian move some pipes and valves that would have gotten in the way of my future drywall.2

More Carpentry

After Brian finished his work, I realized I had a bit more carpentry to do — namely I needed to address a few areas where drywall would need additional support or backing. Mostly, this occurred just under the floor joists in a gap between the bottom of the joists and the top of the walls. Why there was a gap here I don’t know — for the most part, the perimeter walls had been erected by the previous owner. Nevertheless, I had to deal with it so that the drywall could be screwed into backing at the drywall’s edges.

In addition, I realized I needed to build a few more bulkheads and add straps to a few places I had previously missed. None of this was hard, but it reminded me that good work is always about good prep and attention to details. If I hadn’t done these things, drywall would droop or hang funny.

Rough-In Electric

Another tradesman I’ve come to rely on and trust is Andy the electrician. He has helped me with all manner of projects, from installing an EV charger to upgrading circuits to handle heavier loads, to helping me install ceiling-mounted and 240-volt outlets in my shop and more. Again, most electric work isn’t that hard, but specialized knowledge and tools make all the difference between work you can rely on and work you’ll always worry about.

Luckily, Andy is also happy to have me pitch in and lend a hand, which saves me money (and him time), and allows me to learn.

Over two days, we pulled wire, installed new gang boxes for outlets and switches, set locations for lights, and made sure everything was code compliant.

The hardest part for me isn’t the manual labor; it’s trying to figure out where everything should go at this relatively early stage. This is especially true for the home theater setup I’m planning for the family room. The idea is to have a great 7.1 audio system including speakers in the ceiling and the rear wall. For that, I need to make sure I’m running speaker wire to the right spots.

Because I plan to build custom cabinetry for the family room and media center, it’s critical I lay everything out just right. Same for my office’s built-in desk and cabinetry. Where should everything go so that when I’m sitting at the desk, outlets are just where they need to be?

To figure this out, I needed to research the items I planned to (eventually) have in place — TV, speakers, fireplace, monitor, etc. — and size them. Then I drew it all out. Once I worked out those plans, I could decide not just where outlets and switches and lights should go, but also the placement of in-wall conduit runs for various A/V cables. Hopefully I get it right and that future Josh will thank past Josh for making his life a bit easier.

I think I’m now ready to get the inspector to pay a visit and sign off on all the rough-in work. Assuming that goes well, it’ll be time to add insulation and drywall. I’ll also be able to start building my cabinetry and finish the heating system.

There’s still an awful lot to do, but progress is progress.

It all started with the daily visit to the duck run. As I was refilling feeders and waterers, I noticed one of the ducks was crawling on the ground, seemingly unable to walk. Sure enough, she had lost all function in her right leg. Examining her, I spotted a sore on the bottom of her foot. It looked like bumblefoot, perhaps due to the incredibly soggy/muddy conditions of the run, thanks to copious rain and an accidental flooding from me inadvertently leaving a hose running for several hours.

Poor girl, I thought. I decided to pull her out of the run and confine her to a small pen in another building. I dried her foot, applied some medicine, and left her with some food and water. I called the vet and they suggested I bring her in for an exam.

The vet thought the bumblefoot wasn’t really the issue. It seemed the duck had injured her leg. How, we weren’t sure, but we speculated that she may have injured it from jumping down from the above-ground pool I had built for her and her duck sisters.

“Duck” as she became known the vet, seemed happy enough and certainly still enjoyed life (especially when we let her swim in a tub), but her right foot was completely nonfunctional. We were worried that if she had indeed injured herself as a result of the above-ground pool, then the other ducks might as well.

That was on Friday. On Saturday morning, I turned to my wife and asked, “what would you like to do for Mother’s Day?”

“How about you replace the duck pond?”

In other words, she wanted me to pull out the old above-ground pool (and deck) and replace it with a pool at ground level. This would not be such an easy task. It would involve:

1. Removing the existing pool and deck;

2. Removing the in-ground drain pipe I had installed;

3. Digging a large hole and new drainage trench in what was a very compacted, rocky/gravelly/clay soil;

4. Refitting the basin with a drain at the bottom; and

5. Plumbing a new buried drain pipe with a ball valve

The Project Begins

Removing the old pool was actually the easiest part. I pulled apart the decking and disconnected the plumbing from the tub. I tossed all of it outside the run and schlepped all but the tub, which I’d re-use, to the dump.

The rest — particularly the hole and trench digging — was the real challenge. It seemed to me the best path forward would be to drag the 16' x 24' run a few feet from where it stood so that I could bring in a mini excavator and dig without any interference. Once I had finished digging, I could drag the run back into place.

However, dragging the run was not such a simple proposition. I figured the run probably weighed about 500 pounds. Even with my superhero physique and strength, that was too much for me to push around. But, perhaps I could screw in some eye bolts, lash a chain to them and then drag it with my tractor? Why not?

Once I got the hardware in place, I hooked the chain to the tractor and slowly drove it forward. Instantly, the bolts gave way while the run sat unmoved. That was why not.

The run wasn’t going anywhere. Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise as I’ve come to believe that had I been able to drag it, it most likely would have torqued and twisted and collapsed, which would have been much, much worse.

In any event, was time for Plan B.

Bring in the Digger

If I couldn’t move the run out of the way, I’d have to figure out a way to dig from inside the run. I rented the smallest excavator Home Depot had available and brought it up to the run. It was too big to actually fit inside the run, but I could at least reach the bucket in through the doorway and dig out a hole for the tub. This worked fairly well until I mishandled the excavator and rammed it — several times — into the run. Boards broke, I cursed. I’d have to repair the run later. For now, I kept digging.

Eventually, I managed to dig a big enough hole to hold the tub and the plumbing that would run underneath it — all without destroying the run. I then turned the excavator toward digging a ditch into which I would lay new drain pipe.

It’s All About the Drain

Ducks are delightful creatures, but they make a mess that would shame a toddler. We have to drain and refill the tub every day or two, so I need an easy way to empty it. With the above-ground set up, I had a 1-¼-inch drain pipe that exited the tub’s side. Before it turned to go underground, I had a ball valve that we could open and close to help drain it. It worked well, though it took 10-15 minutes to drain.

For the new installation, I drilled a large hold in the bottom of the tub and installed a shower drain. Connected to that was a two-inch drain pipe with an in-line ball valve. By installing the drain in the bottom of the tub, I would be able to more effectively empty the tub. And by upsizing the pipe from 1-¼ inches to 2 inches, it would drain far, far faster.

I also had to find a way to install a new ball valve and make it accessible, since the entire drain pipe was underground. For this, I used an irrigation valve box with a removable lid. (To drain the pond, I’d open the lid, turn the valve and within a minute, the pool would be empty with all the water drained into the woods.)

Once the trench was dug, it was time to connect everything together. I set the tub on some concrete block supports to keep weight off the drain, connected the pipes and valve, and then backfilled the trenches.1

With everything in place, I added several bags of mulch, sawdust, and straw to the run to help dry it out, and laid river stones around the pool to help with drainage and keeping the pool clean.

Duck has yet to regain functionality in her leg, but we brought her back to the run and despite walking like a pirate with a peg leg, she seems to be managing ok. At least now the pool is at ground level, so that should eliminate further injuries.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Ok, so let’s keep this one short. Last fall, a friend — my other friend — asked if I would build her a writing desk. Let me say here and now that I love being asked to build things for people. It may be my favorite thing.

I was delighted, of course, though I warned her it might take me a bit of time due to other projects. True to my word, it took about six months and I annoyed her to no end with questions and options. Ultimately, we decided on a simple writing desk made out of maple and stained a rich, deep brown. Ideally, she said, it’d have a couple of drawers.

Even though I had a good idea of what I was going to build, I still wanted to get ideas from catalogs, websites, and woodworking magazines. Ultimately, I found an article in Fine Woodworking magazine that was pretty close to what I had in mind, so I used it as a guide.

I picked up some beautiful maple at my local hardwood supplier and got busy planing, jointing, and all the rest. Three seven-inch-wide boards came together to form the top. I laminated two-inch-thick boards to create the desk’s legs.

Using the drill press and hand tools, I carved out mortises in the legs before tapering them on the table saw. The desk’s aprons — the parts the run under the top and connect the legs — would have tenons that fit into the mortises. Then I’d drive dowels through the mortises and tenons to lock everything together.

All of that is simple enough and work I’ve done before. Adding drawers, through, added complexity. The idea was that the drawers would be “hidden.” To the casual observer, you’d see the wood’s grain run uninterrupted across the front apron, not realizing two drawers make up most of that front face. To make this work, I needed to build a frame to sit behind the front apron to keep the front tied together. And to support the drawers, I needed to build guides that would run from this front frame to the back apron. Of course I also had to build the drawers themselves, which I made with interlocking finger joints.

It is at this point that I must point out that in woodworking, like in math, order of operations matters. A lot. And it is at this point that I must point out my supernatural ability to screw that up. In this case, the supports that are to run front to back should have been nestled into the rear apron in order to give the drawers maximum support. For that to happen, I should have made cuts in that rear apron before I glued it into the legs.

Alas.

Suffice it to say — hey, I’m trying to keep this short for you, AE — I had to come up with a workaround that was kludgy and embarrassing. Furthermore, I had made other missteps. Some of my mortises were too big for the tenons, though I managed to “fix” and hide that problem with wood wedges. The draw bore holes I made to lock the mortises and tenons in place were too misaligned in a foolish attempt to help keep things super tight, which resulted in some tenons splitting. I failed to properly adjust the length of the rear apron to account for the slightly shorter front apron (by about ¾ inch) due to the three cuts that create the drawer fronts leaving unsightly gaps between the drawers.

In other words, I had made numerous mistakes and my displeasure with the desk was growing.

Nevertheless, like Elizabeth Warren, I persisted. I sanded everything smooth. Knowing maple’s propensity to “blotch” when stained, I applied a pre-stain treatment designed to prevent said “blotching.” Then I applied the stain. It blotched anyway.

The stain looked terrible. It revealed all kinds of scratches and sanding marks that I thought I had scrubbed away. Did I mention that it blotched terribly? It did. Furthermore, the continuous grain I was seeking for the front apron and across the drawers was impossible to see.

I was annoyed and dismayed, but I also took it as a sign. This desk was not working out. I needed to start over.

I had kept my friend apprised of the progress and that the desk was nearly finished, so I was a bit sheepish to break the news that I was going to have to start over. She assured me it would have been fine as is, but I wasn’t willing to sell her this desk. It just wasn’t up to par. I was embarrassed.

After a few weeks, I began desk number two.

But before I made any cuts — or even purchased any wood — I decided to build a mortising jig. I used another set of plans from Fine Woodworking with the idea that such a jig would allow me to make higher quality, better fitting mortises than what I did on the first desk — and more quickly and safely to boot.

Once I had the jig built, I bought red oak for this new desk. Oak takes stain beautifully and would definitely allow the grain across the front apron to pop.

Then I repeated my process being sure to avoid the prior mistakes. The mortising jig worked great. The drawers fit more tightly. The drawer runners were properly supported in the frame and apron. Before too long, I had the desk and built and it looked beautiful. I sanded and sanded and sanded some more. Then I applied the stain. And this time, I was not disappointed. After several coats of stain, more standing, and some protective top coats, the desk was finally finished. This time I was happy. Or at least as happy as I get.

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Richard Trethewey, if you don’t know, is the personable plumber on “This Old House,” the home renovation show on PBS that is sublimely designed to maximize my lizard-brain FOMO. (Or maybe that’s a Limbic system, I don’t know; I’m not a neuroscientist.)

For a couple of decades, Richard has been singing the praises of in-floor hydronic radiant heat. That’s fancy talk for tubes of hot water under the floor. This warms the floor, which not only feels great on your feetsies and toesies, but it also warms the room in the most comfortable way. There’s no blowing air or noisy condensers. Just soul-soothing warmth.

And I want it.

Funnily enough, my basement actually has radiant heat in the concrete slab. When I’ve turned it on, the warmth it generates is truly marvelous. However, that radiant heat is generated by electric wires embedded in the concrete. This form of radiant, in which the heat is created by electrical resistance — similar to how an old-fashioned incandescent light bulb works — is wildly inefficient and expensive. When I’ve turned it on, my electric meter nearly spins off its mount and my bill skyrockets to five or six times normal. Safe to say, I don’t turn it on any more.

Hydronic radiant, however, works differently. As the name suggests, a heated liquid (usually just water) is pumped through coils of tubing. This is the system Richard hawks and that I’m now implementing.

Path to DIY

Embedding tubes in my basement concrete wasn’t really an option. Doing this would require building up the basement floor by several inches, including pouring new concrete. That was neither desirable nor feasible. However, since the ceiling in the basement was open, it should be relatively easy to install the tubing under the first floor, which would make that space (and the floor above) nice and toasty. Then I could add baseboards or radiators in the basement to help heat that space.

I called several plumbers and HVAC companies and most didn’t install hydronic radiant. But eventually I found two that did. They came out and gave me estimates: $26,000 from one and $34,000 from the other.

Talk about a nonstarter.

But really, how hard could this be? I’ve been watching Richard Trethewey install these systems for years. I watched YouTube videos. I found a company that supports do-it0-yourselfers. That company, Radiantec, out of Vermont, promised it could be done by any competent DIYer. It was time to find out.

I sent Radiantec my floor plan and talked to a rep. He assured me that it was all quite doable and all of the materials would cost about $4,000 to $6,000. That seemed promising.

After several back-and-forths, I placed an order. A couple of days later, several boxes of PEX tubing and other materials landed at my doorstep. It was time to get started.

Oh What Tangled Webs We Weave

Even though I had the boxes of materials sitting in my basement, I was slow to open them and begin the installation. A kind interpretation would be to say I was being cautious. A more judgmental way of looking at it would be to say I was afraid. At the very least, I was a bit anxious. Despite the assurances from Radiantec, I was worried about screwing things up. To buck my my courage, I watched and re-watched a bevy of YouTube videos, including ones from Radiantec that walked through the process:

They certainly make it look easy, but that’s because their joist bays are empty and they have five experienced guys doing the work. Neither of those benefits existed for me.

Still, I eventually mustered up the courage to get started. To do so, I had to first determine the placement of the distribution manifold, which is an array of piping that serves the various circuits of tubing that will be coursing through the basement ceiling. You can’t just use one long tube because by the time the hot water reaches the end, it won’t be hot anymore. Instead, you need to have several shorter circuits that each terminate at and are fed by a central distribution manifold.

Once I determined the manifold’s location, it was time to drill holes in the joists. For this, I bought a right-angle drill and a hole saw. Once I made the necessary holes, it was time to feed the plastic PEX tubing through the joist bays. While the PEX tubing is flexible, it’s not what I would call pliable. It’s more like al dente spaghetti; You can manipulate it, but only to a point.

Meanwhile, the tubing comes in coils and the PEX really, really wants to maintain the coil twist. So, when you’re pulling it through the joists, you have to unspool the tubing rather than letting it uncoil. If you’ve ever struggled with a garden hose that is twisted, you get the idea. Only unlike a garden hose, the PEX tubing is 300 feet long and stiffer.

The key to making this all work, in addition to properly unspooling the PEX tubing, is routing it through your joists correctly. Another YouTube video demonstrates this:

Despite these excellent tutorials, my dad and I ran into problems. First, unlike in the videos above, many of my joist bays already had wires and pipes and ducts running through them. And some bays were narrower than the typical 16 inches on center due to various supporting joists. This made it difficult or even impossible to get all of the holes in a line, making it more difficult to thread the PEX through the holes.

And that became even more difficult when we had to thread the PEX back through the very same holes to complete the circuit. (And more so again when we had a second circuit running through some of those same holes!)

Plus, it’s not enough to run the PEX down and back. We had to keep pulling more PEX through the holes in order to have enough tubing to run down each joist bay. And keep in mind that A) you can’t let the PEX twist or else you’ll be in all sorts of trouble; B) you can’t let the PEX kink or else you might create a hole that water can escape from and flood your house; and C) you’re looking up over your head the entire time, which might be find for an orangutan, but it hell on an old human body.

The entire time we were sweating and swearing and bickering, I just kept reminding myself: this beats paying $26,000 or $34,000.

Once we finally pulled the PEX down the joist bays, it was time to staple it to the ceiling. To do this, Radiantec provides sheets of aluminum pre-bent to go around the tubes. Sometimes called Omega plates because their shape, these plates not only keep the tubes in place, they also transfer heat from the tubes to the floor.

Unfortunately, some of our PEX unwinding and threading did not work as planned. In a few spots, we got irreversibly tangled. Or the line kinked completely. In these cases, I reluctantly cut the PEX, removing the kink or the twist, and then spliced it back together. Whenever I did this, I felt like I had failed a test. More importantly, I worried it could be the source of a future leak.

Finally, after a full day of struggling, we got our first circuit in place. I looked at my dad, who clearly was reconsidering his life’s choices, and cheerfully said, “only four more to go!”

Under Pressure

The other four circuits were (mostly) easier to deal with, in part because we now had some experience. I was able to drill straighter holes. We altered our approach to ensure unspooling of the PEX rather than uncoiling. We had simpler and shorter runs. I temporarily removed some HVAC ducts and bought extension rods for my drill in order to cut some of the more challenging joist holes. And we also eliminated one of the five planned circuits. As a result, two days later, all of the tubing was in place.*

*One of the four circuits we ran is actually an attempt at being a friend to my future self. It doesn’t actually go to heat any of the floor above, but rather runs to the ducting for our heat pump. One of the HVAC estimators suggested putting a copper coil in our duct that would be served by the hydronic system. That way, as the air blew over the hot coil, it would augment or super-charge that system. I needn’t put the copper coil in now, but by bringing over the hot water, I would set myself up to do that later. So I did.

With the tubing in place, it was time to hook up the manifold. I temporarily mounted it in the utility room — temporarily because I still need to add drywall before I can permanently mount it — and attached the tubes. As supplied by Radiantec, the manifold is ready for my to pressurize the system to ensure there are no leaks. After the pressure test, I’m supposed to cut away the bottom half of the manifold in order to connect it to the hot water supply.

I nervously connected my air compressor to the manifold. I watched as the pressure gauge slowly rose. Once it got to 50 psi, I stopped and watched. For five minutes, the needle stayed put. All seemed well.

The next day, I looked again. The needle still hadn’t budged. No leaks. All was well! I felt a surge of relief.* I depressurized the system out of a sense of not wanting to ask for trouble.

*Later I found out that in order to pass inspection, I need to pressurize the system to 100 psi. Now I’m nervous all over again. I’ll test it before the inspection, but not without heart palpitations.

With the system tested, it was time for me to go back and add more aluminum plates. For two days, I stapled the plates in place, straining to reach tight spots.

All was going well until I sent a staple through the PEX. $&#@! I yelled. My wife thought I had stapled my thumb to the ceiling. I wish! But, the fix wasn’t too difficult. I cut out the section with the staple and spliced the two ends together.

Then I did it again. Again I swore. Again I fixed it. And eventually I was done.

I pressurized the system again and was relieved to see it still didn’t leak.

With the system fully in place, the next step is to staple an aluminum-backed paper barrier over each joist bay to help trap the heat and aim it upwards. Once I’m done with that, it’ll be time to light fixtures and insulation before closing up the ceiling with drywall.

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Meanwhile, I still need to run tubing to the planned basement radiators and hook up the hot water supply. But that work will come later. For now, it’s time to stretch my neck and shoulders. Looking up turns out to be pretty hard work.

For that reason, I’ve been looking for someone to provide me with expert guidance. A contractor on retainer, perhaps. A construction sherpa, you might say. Alas, I have nobody at the ready who fits that bill. I do have a wonderful electrician who is willing to take and respond to my texts, and a plumber who kindly answers my questions. But those are somewhat awkward conversations; I don’t want to bother them for advice on how to do something I’m not hiring them for, even if I do (and will) bring them on for other jobs, including aspects of this one.

I put out a call out on a social network for someone — a retired contractor, perhaps? — who would be willing to give me advice for a small fee. I heard from a couple and connected with one who was perfectly friendly but I think wasn’t super eager to be my on-call advisor.

As a result, YouTube and home improvement sites and magazines have become my go-to resources. The problem with them is that they provide generalized information. It’s up to me to figure out how to apply that generic guidance to my specific circumstances.

Last of the Demolition

Although I had emptied and cleared the bathroom (and the rest of the basement), I still had more demolition to do. That’s because as I stood in my empty bathroom, I decided to site the walk-in shower where the toilet had been, which meant shifting the toilet and vanity down a couple of feet. And that meant breaking up the concrete slab so I could relocate the drains.

I ventured to Home Depot and rented a 14-inch concrete saw and a jackhammer. After taping up some plastic sheets to contain the oncoming mess, I used the saw to slice relief cuts, which saturated the air with dust. I also nearly sliced off my leg when I set the saw down before the blade stopped spinning. The huge 14-inch blade didn’t stop immediately, so the blade’s angular momentum created a gyroscopic effect that caused the saw to lurch toward my thigh. I suspect the diamond-tipped blade would not have been much bothered by my Carhartt jeans. I’m glad I didn’t find out.

I then grabbed the jackhammer and started pounding away on the concrete. To my surprise and delight, it broke up the slab with ease. I picked up the debris and kept hammering away until I had broken up all of the concrete. Using a pair of bolt cutters, I snipped the embedded steel mesh and heating wire that had been embedded in the slab.

With the section of slab fully broken up, I then dug out the remaining debris and stone to make room for the future drains and traps. Then I covered the existing drain to keep sewer gasses from seeping into the basement. Finally, I spent the next rest of my life cleaning up all of the dust that had settled throughout the basement and even up into the house despite my plastic curtains.

Walls and Bulkheads (or Soffits)

Another part of the project that was calling my name was erecting new partitions, bulkheads (or soffits, depending on who you ask), and fire blocking.

For this part of the project, I decided to invest in a pneumatic framing nailer. I could nail everything by hand, of course, but with five walls to build, plus the fire blocking, I knew a nail gun would be put to good use. And boy, was it. I measured and cut my footers, headers, and studs and quickly nailed them together. I raised the walls, made sure they were level and plumb, and then nailed them in place. In some cases, that meant adding blocking between joists for the wall’s header to be secured.

To affix the walls to the floor, I bought a RamSet “gun,” which uses .22 caliber cartridges to shoot a nail through the footer into the concrete floor. It’s kind of awesome.

Being a basement, there exists some HVAC ductwork that hangs below the floor joists. To account for this, I had to build bulkheads to go around the ducts onto which drywall can be attached. With my dad’s help, we tore out some existing drywall to expose a wall’s header and studs. Then we attached “ladders” to the ceiling joists and then nailed ¾-inch strips across the ladders to create the bulkhead’s ceiling.

I also took this time to stuff two layers of R-13 mineral wool insulation into the basement’s eaves — that is, the space above the basement wall over the foundation’s sill toward the outside of the house. To cut the insulation, I used a serrated bread knife, which worked like a charm (but did cause some confusion upstairs when nobody could find the knife to, you know, cut bread. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I swear within minutes of pushing the insulation into place, I could already feel the basement getting slightly warmer.

Fire Blocking

In order to comply with code — or maybe more aptly, to help prevent fires from burning down my house — I needed to install what’s known as “fire blocking.” Put simply, fire blocking is using material to close gaps in the wall to prevent a fire from being able to spread along a wall or up into the floor above.

The previous owner had already built stud walls along the basement foundation, setting them off the waterproofed cement block by about an inch. So, to comply with code, I needed to close up any gaps along the tops of the wall. I also needed to close vertical gaps every 10 feet along the wall. To do this, I cut pieces of 2x4s, pushed them tight to the concrete block, and nailed them to the existing framing. I then sprayed special fire block foam along every seam where I installed the 2x4s.

I think I did it right, but I’m not 100 percent sure. This is why I’d love to get that consulting contractor. Absent that, I expect the building inspector will let me know if I’ve failed to do it right (and presumably will guide me on how to fix it properly).

Next Up

With the walls and bulkheads in place, my attention now turns to installing the hydronic radiant heat in the joist bays over the basement and along the baseboards. That’s next time.

But, as is often the case, life has other plans. We ended up living there for only about four years. At the closing when we signed our papers and handed the keys to the new owners, I was suddenly struck with an overwhelming sadness. It wasn’t just letting go of a place that played such a significant role during the most dynamic years of our lives that I found difficult, though that was true. It was also the sense that I was losing grasp of a dream I was only beginning to realize. It would be more than a decade before I felt like that dream was once again within reach.

And what is that dream? It’s not just homeownership itself. Rather, it’s something like world-building, though on a personal scale. It’s crafting one’s environment. It’s the act of creation. Imagination realized.

All of that is to say, I spend too much of my already limited brainpower thinking about how to reform our current house and property. I have a vision for what I want and lots of ideas in various stages of baking. To be clear, it’s a much grander vision with many more ideas than we have the money or time to make a reality — at least in the near future. But the great thing is I always have some project to work on. And right now, that project is finishing our basement, turning a cold, underused space into a warm, inviting hideaway.

I don’t know how long this project will take or how it will turn out, but you’re invited to come on this journey with me. It should be fun and educational. I will probably screw some things up. It will certainly be an adventure. Time to start creating.

Starting Point

Our basement is essentially four rooms: a utility room that houses the electric panels, hot water heater, and other such things; a dated bathroom with far more cabinetry than necessary; a small office lined with shelves and sporting an old wooden desk; and a large open room that tends to collect boxes and other things that have no better place to go.

There’s no finished ceiling, only floor joists. Pipes, electric lines, and ductwork sprawl across the joists. The floor is concrete. (Embedded in the concrete is a resistance heating system, which, when turned on, makes the concrete slab and entire basement delightfully warm. Unfortunately, it also costs about as much to run that system as it would to lease a Lamborghini, so it’s permanently off.)

There are open stud walls along the foundation and a few interior partitions to separate the aforementioned rooms. A system of French drains and a sump pump indicate a problem with water in the past. But no more; the basement has stayed bone dry in the years we’ve lived here.

As I stand in these rooms and look around, I can see how this space can be transformed from dark and utilitarian to warm and welcoming.

Since the ceiling is open, I’ll run hydronic radiant heating in the floor joists to help make the upstairs more comfortable in winter. And I’ll run more hydronic radiant along the walls to serve baseboard heaters and make the basement itself comfortable year-round.

I’ll reconfigure the bathroom to enlarge it and add a curbless shower. I’ll move our washer and dryer from the upstairs mudroom/pantry/kitchen to the utility room, creating a new mudroom/laundry room outside the bathroom and setting us up for a kitchen remodel sometime down the road.

I’ll make custom built-in cabinetry for the office. I’ll create a new small storage room. And I’ll transform the large room into a family room with built-in bookcases, an electric fireplace, a large TV, and space for overnight guests.

And I’ll do it all myself.*

*Maybe not all myself.

First Things First

In a sense, my project began when our water heater started leaking. As a plumber once told me, a leaking water heater never gets better. So when I arranged for a replacement, I also arranged to relocate it in anticipation of the work I wanted to do. The new hot water heater would be placed near the future home of my washer and dryer, against the partition wall that separates the utility room from the bathroom.

It’s kind of like the book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” where one action inevitably leads to another. In this case, for want of hot water, I destroyed a bathroom. And for want of a new bathroom, I’ll renovate the basement. And for want of a finished basement, I’ll eventually renovate our kitchen. Don’t worry if that doesn’t make sense. It’s not about logic, it’s about rationalization.

Knowing that I wanted to remove old cabinetry and fixtures and remove old flooring, I began demolishing the basement bathroom. Out came the door and partition. Out came the cabinets. So long, sink and the toilet. Bye-bye mirror and fake tile and drywall. Too-da-loo, floor tiles.

The floor tiles were the most difficult to remove, requiring a heavy-duty floor scraper and lots and lots of elbow grease. They also might be the eventual cause of my death, as I realized partway in that they could be asbestos. I didn’t test them, but after working with them for a short time, I did don a mask. Then I bagged up all the debris and hauled it to the dump and then vacuumed everything and cleaned with wet rags.

The cabinets I saved and re-used in my garage/shop. The fixtures I offered to Habitat for Humanity, but they weren’t interested, so they went to the dump instead. With the bathroom demolished and the walls opened, I was ready to get my new water heater.

Packing Up

The next step is not a terribly interesting one, either to read about or to participate in; I needed to pack up my stuff. From the office to the “big room,” the basement was filled with papers, boxes, cleaning supplies, kitchen items, wrapping paper, sports gear — you know, the kind of crap you toss into the basement. But if I’m going to get this thing going, I need the space to be empty. I bought more boxes than I thought I’d need — and fewer than I ended up needing — and start packing. Days of packing.

Then it was time to move. I carried boxes to the attic. To the spare bedroom. To the garage. I threw away things I should have thrown away years before. I listed free items on craigslist, Facebook marketplace, and Next Door. I gave away a desk, a drafting table, and other things my vision had no room for.

Eventually, the basement was empty. Rooms always seem smaller when they are empty. But I could also begin to see my vision take shape. I removed the old florescent light fixtures and ran painters tape where I planned to build new walls and doors.

The rooms are ready. My plans are in place. Now it’s time to start.

One question: What do I do next?

When last we left, the greenhouse was mostly constructed and I was waiting on the polycarbonate panels that would serve as the see-through walls and roof. I ordered the panels from a manufacturer in New Jersey, which promised to ship them to me within a couple of weeks. Not wanting to wait, I briefly considered driving to New Jersey to pick them up, but after calculating gas and tolls and 11 hours of driving time, decided that wasn’t the best idea. So I waited. Impatiently.

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When they finally arrived, the weather was what I believe meteorologists describe as “shitty.” Rain. Rain. Rain. And more rain. After a brief respite where it was drizzly for a bit, it then returned to more rain.

When the rain finally stopped — or at least slowed enough that I could work in it — I hauled the panels up to the greenhouse and got started.

Unfortunately, all the rain had caused some of the lumber to sprout black mold. I don’t know how big a problem that would end up being, but it didn’t seem good. So I mixed together some hot water, detergent, and bleach and scrubbed each piece of affected lumber. It didn’t seem to remove any of the black spots, but I hoped it would at least arrest any further spread. After doing a little internet research, I decided the problem wasn’t really much of a problem anyway — once the greenhouse was sealed up, the lumber would dry out and everything would be fine.

Putting the panels up along the long side walls was pretty easy. I needed to make only a few simple square cuts and then I could quickly screw the panels into place. For the front and back, I had to make more careful angled cuts, but even those weren’t terribly difficult, especially since the edges of the panels would be covered in cedar trim.

Once all that was in place, I turned to the roof. To start, I applied strips of butyl tape — kind of like a putty — down each truss. Then I hoisted the sized panels and plopped them down. The challenge here is that — ideally — the first time a panel touches the butyl tape should be the last time it touches the butyl tape. Moving the panels after they make contact is — to use construction jargon — not great.

And that means dropping the panels exactly where they should go the very first time. Unfortunately, that is not what I did. With my wife’s help, we dropped the panels kind of close to where they needed to be, but not exactly where they needed to be. So I had to push and pull and slide them around until they were lined up correctly. It’s not how it’s supposed to go, but in the end, we got there.

With the roof panels in place, I then had to screw them down to the trusses, which I did by placing cedar battens on each seam before driving screws through the battens and panels into the trusses. It was pretty easy for me to reach the bottoms of each batten, but to screw them down at the ridge line, I needed some way to get to the top of the greenhouse.

The best way I could do this was by extending a long ladder up the roof line at a precariously acute angle. Thanks to a wise suggestion from my dad, I wedged a 2x4 against my raised beds and used that as a brace for the bottom of the ladder. That allowed me to climb the ladder to the roof line where I could screw down the battens and attach a ridge cap.

Finishing Touches

Here’s the secret I’ve learned about construction: trim is your friend. Trim hides all the little mistakes and imperfections in the underlying construction. And so it is with the greenhouse. At all the corners, edges, and seams, I cut and attached pieces of cedar, which immediately transformed the greenhouse from “rough” to “finished.”

I also cut out two squares of polycarbonite so that I could install an exhaust fan in the back and seat a piece of stained glass in the front. The stained glass initially had a white frame, but once I installed it, I realized the white didn’t fit with the overall look, so I removed it and repainted the frame a rich blue to match our house’s front door.

For the greenhouse door, I removed the screen from a store-bought wooden screen door and attached a panel and some cedar trim. Unfortunately, adding the cedar trim made the door too thick for the knob I bought — the spindle that connects the two pieces wasn’t long enough. To fix that, I bought a metal bar and reshaped it to serve as an extension rod.

Inside the greenhouse, I installed not just the exhaust fan, but two oscillating fans to help move air. I also attached screw eyes to each truss from which I hung strands of wire to hold grow lights, which are extraordinarily bright. Then I strung fairy lights across the ceiling for when I want a softer light to come from the greenhouse.

After neatly wiring everything together and tying them into HomeKit-powered outlets, I cut a hole in the siding for a hose to connect to the outside yard hydrant. I attached it to a hose bib inside the greenhouse.

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I vacuumed up the sawdust and packed up my tools. Everything was dry and buttoned up. Electricity, ethernet, water were in place. The door was hung. Light were set. We set up two heaters and set out our plants. The greenhouse was done.

Unfortunately, few lumber yards or home centers near me stock much cedar, and those that do are closed on weekends. What to do?

My answer? Drive 150 miles to a Menards in West Virginia (and 150 miles back) to pick up a boat truck load of cedar. So that’s what I did. (I do wish there was a Menards closer to me; it’s a great store.)

On the one hand, the journey totally made sense. I had the time and the inclination. Menards had the cedar. On the other hand, it ended up being a 9-hour day, including the two hours it took me at Menards to pick and load my haul. Oof.

But I don’t regret it. It allowed me to spend a couple hours each evening this past week continuing to do work. And I’m quite pleased with the progress.

Sizing Up the Siding

At Menards, I calculated what cedar I’d need — praying I’d gotten that right — and picked out dozens of boards, including several 16-foot-long pieces that had to run through my pickup bed and into the cab up against the windshield. I tied everything down with straps.

Once I got the cedar safely back home, the first step was to cut a few 2x4 pieces into 1-½-inch x 1-½-inch sticks to use as corner trim. These would act as “stops” for the beveled siding. They also served as “posts” for the sills I’d wrap around the greenhouse.

For those sills, I planned to start by cutting a small channel in the underside of the 2x4s. This would act as a drip edge to break water surface tension and help water drip off the board instead of running back to the greenhouse. Then I’d slice a five-degree bevel off the opposite face. This would give the top of the sill a downward slope to help water run away from the structure.

Because the long side of the greenhouse is 15 feet, I bought 16-foot boards so the sills could be one long piece. However, in my shop I discovered I couldn’t feed a 16-foot board through my table saw without it hitting a wall on the outfeed side.

I considered my options: disassemble my saws and move them? Use a handheld circular saw? Use my track saw? Cut the 16-foot boards in half and just do eight feet at a time?

None of the options were particularly attractive, but I decided that cutting my boards in half — as painful as that would be, since I purposely bought them long — was the safest and most reasonable path forward. The alternatives seemed too likely to result in a bad cut, ruining the sills and forcing me to drive back to Menards for more material.

So I cut the 16-foot boards in half on a 45-degree angle known as a scarf cut. Then I ran the boards through the saw to cut the drip edges and the bevels. Once everything was cut, I carried the pieces to the greenhouse. To hold the sills in place, I added blocking between the studs, screwing them in place. Then I screwed the sills into the blocking from the inside, being sure to keep the sills level.

With the sills in place, I turned to the siding. I bought eight-foot boards of 6-½-inch beveled cedar siding. For each side, I started at the bottom and worked my way up, making cuts as necessary and ensuring that no two seams landed on top of each other.

I had calculated that I needed 35 boards, but as I worked my way around the structure, I realized I really needed 36. Or maybe even 37. As I got to the final side, I nervously measured and discovered to my relief that I had actually brought home 36 pieces (sorry, Menards, I owe you for one) and that by being extra careful, it was just enough. In the end, I had two tiny offcuts to spare.

With the sill and siding on, the exterior of the greenhouse was as complete as I could get until my polycarbonate panels arrive.

Turning Inward

By this past weekend, over the course of several evenings, I had gotten the siding installed and was now ready to focus on the inside of the greenhouse. The big question I’ve been wrestling with is whether or not to insulate the bottom part of the structure, and if so, how. At one point, I decided I’d use fiberglass rolls — you know, the pink stuff with the Pink Panther marketing — but then I got worried that it’d get wet from watering plants. Maybe spraying closed-cell foam would be better? I can buy kits from the home center and this seemed like a smart, if somewhat pricey, way to go. I picked up a kit —the only one the home center had in stock — and brought it home, along with all the necessary protective gear.

I got out the kit and started reading the instructions and was all ready to go when I realized it was missing the nozzle. Without it, the kit was useless. Argh!

So I returned the kit and contemplated my next move. Maybe I’d leave it uninsulated for now and instead work on building the bench. So that’s what I did.

My plan was to build a single U-shaped bench. To do this, I’d attach 2x4s to the studs to serve as a rear bracket. From those, I’d attach several “stretchers” that would connect to 2x4s that would serve as the front of the U. I’d also add several support brackets running diagonally from the underside of the front to the studs.

With my wife helping, I got all of the supports and brackets screwed in. Then I added a few more stretchers and other pieces for additional support.

For the top, I used 1-¼ x 5-½-inch pressure treated decking. I cut the pieces to length, rounded over the ends with the router, and screwed them in place, making sure to mark screw locations to keep everything looking lined up and symmetrical.

That was all pretty easy for the straight sections, but for the two corners, I decided to make things a little harder on myself. I wanted the corners to look like an unfolded paper fan, sweeping around the bend. To do this, I cut a piece of construction paper to fit the open space and then with a pencil and straight edge, drew out how the pieces should be shaped.

Back in my shop, I cut the paper to create templates for each piece and then transferred the templates to the wood. I should have used a circular saw or my track saw to cut the pieces to keep all the lines straight, but for some reason I used my bandsaw instead, which meant some of the straight cuts weren’t quite as straight as I might have liked.

Anyway, after cutting them out and rounding over the sharp edges — all of which took considerably more time than I expected — I brought the pieces up to the greenhouse and set them in place. They fit remarkably well, if not perfectly. I screwed them down and found myself pretty pleased with the results. With a jig saw and a router, I trimmed and rounded over the edges a bit more — again, not perfect, but not terrible for a greenhouse.

With the bench in place, I re-wired the electrical outlet and ethernet jack and added some temporary fairy lights. I brought up some of the outdoor plants that had been sitting on our patio and sat them on the bench.

Then I pulled up a chair, took out my laptop, and wrote this blog post from the greenhouse.

I’m probably on a construction pause until the polycarbonate panels arrive. Once they do — hopefully in a week or so — it should be pretty quick to install them and add the final trim. There will be a few more things after that, but I’m excited to see this project getting close to finished.

So, four days after framing the greenhouse during Labor Day weekend, I was back to my project where the next step was to construct the floor. My first thought had been to build a wooden floor — more or less a deck — with two 6x6 support beams spaced across to provide support for 2x6 decking I’d lay across. It’d be fast, easy, and relatively cheap.

Then, as I thought about how to heat the greenhouse, I decided on a more brilliant approach — a concrete slab into which I’d embed plastic tubing for hydronic radiant heat. This is what they do on This Old House all the time and it would be the perfect way to heat the greenhouse during winter. I’m so smart, I thought.

But, as I did research on this approach, I discovered it might not be the right path forward after all. The cost looked to be higher — much, much higher — than I expected and the mechanicals more complicated — much, much more complicated — than I hoped. In all, it seemed like an expensive, complicated risk not worth taking. Maybe I’m not so smart after all.

Somewhat dejected by this dose of reality, I realized I had a good solution already on site: recycled bricks. I had several thousand that had been stacked in the woods by the previous owner. I had already pulled out and re-stacked the bricks near my garage, so they were all ready to be used. There were at least three different brick styles, which really couldn’t be combined, but I was fairly confident I could find enough of one style to use for the floor. It certainly would save me money. And a brick floor should, in theory, act as a thermal battery whereas a wooden floor could not. So, brick it would be.

Of course, a trip to the home center was still in order. I calculated that I’d need about 2.2 cubic yards of crushed stone, half a cubic yard of leveling sand, and 200 pounds of polymeric sand to fill in the joints.

At the home center, I found crushed stone sold in ½-cubic-foot bags. At first I thought, “hey, great! I just need five bags!” Then I realized I was being a moron and I needed cubic yards of material, not cubic feet. Seeing as there are 9 cubic feet in a cubic yard, that meant I’d need something like 120 bags of gravel. Oof.

Then I saw a new product for paver patios — basically a foam board, kind of like a beach boogie board, that serves as a paver base. Instead of 120 bags of gravel and 40-plus bags of sand, I could buy 20 of these foam mats, just a few bags of stone and a few bags of sand (plus the polymeric) and be laying brick in no time. It still wasn’t cheap, but it was significantly cheaper. And faster, too. Sold.

Back home, I unloaded the material and got to work. With a helper by my side, we spread the gravel and tamped it down. Then we unrolled a layer of weed block and topped that with the leveling sand. We smoothed and evened the sand with a level and then started plopping the foam mats into place.

I think the mats are made from recycled plastic, which I feel good about, and I suspect they may provide a little hint of insulation, which wouldn’t be a bad thing either.

Once the mats were in place, it was time to start laying brick. I decided to go for a pretty herringbone pattern set on a 45-degree angle from the entrance. Laying the brick was fast and easy, but this pattern creates a lot of small corner and angled pieces that need to be cut off full bricks. For that, we rented a paver saw, which proved its worth in gold.

By late afternoon, all of the bricks were in place. For the final step, I dumped several containers of the polymeric sand — basically a special sand with additives that make it more like mortar than sand — and swept it into the joints. To set it, I soaked the brick and sand with my hose and let it dry.

From Floor to Door

The next day, I briefly delighted in my new greenhouse floor before turning my attention to the next step in the framing — the door. Rather than build my own door, I got lazy and bought a wooden screen door from the home center. At 36 inches wide and 80 inches tall, I needed to make some alterations to the front wall for it to fit.

I started by measuring the center of the front wall and then marking a 42-½-inch opening for the door. This would allow for the door itself, plus a ¼-inch on each side, plus two sets of studs that would frame the door. With these points marked, I cut the gable header. Then I installed two king studs that run from the floor to the gable. Once those studs were in, I added two more studs standing 80-½-inches, based on the height of the door plus a ¼-inch above and below. On top of these studs, I screwed in a header plate and cut the base of the wall to complete the opening.

I set the door in the opening and it fit perfectly.

With the door framed out, I was left with just two more small framing adjustments. First, I needed to frame a 16-inch square opening in the rear gable for an exhaust fan to sit in. I made a frame for the fan, cut the cripple studs in the gable, and screwed everything into place. I test fit the fan and found that it was ever-so-slightly too tight. I’ll have to figure out how to shave away some of the studs to make the fan slide in easily. Maybe I can just take away a little wood with a small block plane. I’ll deal with that later.

The second task came about thanks to a brilliant suggestion from my wife. She pointed out that a piece of stained glass we had found at a flea market years ago would fit beautifully above the door to the greenhouse. She was right, so I framed another square opening above the door — this one 20-½ inches in each direction.

I won’t put the stained glass place until later, but this was the time to prepare for it.

Alas, thanks to earlier sunsets, the lack of a holiday weekend, and other life events, this was all I could get done this weekend. I’m hoping to get a little done during weekday evenings, but I don’t expect to get to much. I’m already counting the hours until next weekend.

But before we get to that, a quick recap since the last posting way back in mid July. When last we left off, I had mostly finished the “chicken wing” and started the new duck run. Since then, we finished the duck run, got water lines and electric up to the coops and buried the duck’s drainage pipe. The poultry are now living the sweet life.

We also harvested our first honey after having bees for the last 16 months. From one hive we managed to pull 45 pounds of delicious honey with a delightful floral taste. (Next year I’m hoping to double that haul.)

I made one jar of hot honey with peppers I had grown and my god is that delicious. And speaking of bees and honey, here’s a shameless plug for a recent story I wrote in the Fauquier Times about a former Marine who is building a community around his burgeoning career as a honey entrepreneur.

Ok, back to the greenhouse.

Day 1

A few years ago, I bought Cynthia a little greenhouse kit. It measured about six feet by eight feet and stood about seven feet tall. Made of metal and thin acrylic plastic panels, it did a decent job giving seedlings and plants a sunny place to live in mild months. But during winter, it struggled, even with a heater, to keep plants happy. And it was small — too small to really do anything in. So I decided to build a bigger replacement.

I came upon a greenhouse I thought looked pretty great on Family Handyman’s website. It certainly seemed like it’d be a nice upgrade. And the write-up and video made it look pretty straightforward. Why couldn’t I build that? I decided I could.

The plans describe building a large stone base and setting the greenhouse on that. But I didn’t like that idea. Rather, I decided to lay 5x5 pressure treated timbers on the ground to serve as the foundation and then build the greenhouse on top of those. So that was step one: laying the timbers.

I loaded them onto the Gator and carefully navigated them into position. I already laid electric and ethernet through underground conduit and was getting water brought up next to the greenhouse, too.

The footprint of the greenhouse would be about 15 feet by 10 feet and would stand about 12 feet tall. By square footage, it would be about three times larger than the old greenhouse; by volume, it would be about six times larger.

With the foundation in place, I headed off to the home center and picked up the wood I’d need for the walls. I’m always surprised how much material is needed for a project. In the cart at the home center, it seems like so much. But then it quickly gets absorbed into the project and you wonder where it all went.

It was time to cut and assemble. I made each wall with 5’9” studs set 16 inches on center. I built the walls on the ground, nailing in the studs by hand, and then lifted the walls into place. I used braces to keep the walls plumb while I screwed them into the pressure-treated timbers. By the time I got the two side walls up, it was getting dark and I was beat.

Day 2

On the second day, I quickly built and erected the front and rear walls and then made another trip to the home center to buy lumber for the roof.

The roof is made of trusses that stand directly over the studs in the side walls. The ridge is a perfect 90-degree angle, so every cut is an easy 45. To make the trusses exactly the same, I built a large jig in my shop. For each truss, I set a pair of 2x6s — each with one end cut at 45 degrees — into the jig. That made assembly quick and allowed me to mark the cut ends of the trusses with consistent accuracy.

I needed 11 trusses to stand over each stud, plus two gable ends, each of which are two trusses sandwiched together. It took more than half the day to make the 15 trusses, but once I was done, I loaded them onto the gator and hauled them up to the greenhouse. For each of the two gable ends, I attached a 10-foot 2x4 to the bottoms of the double trusses and then lifted them into place. Using a long board to brace and hold the ends, I screwed them through the top plates. To keep everything even, I added top plates to each of the side walls as well.

Sweaty, exhausted, and hungry, I called it a day, glad that the long weekend gave me one more day to get the greenhouse to a good stopping point.

Day 3

To my relief, Labor Day itself brought beautiful weather — cooler and far less humid than the previous two days.

With the trusses already constructed, all I needed to do was hoist them into position and screw them to each other and to the walls. To make this easier, the plans suggested I cut spacing blocks that matched the spacing of each stud bay and pre-attach those blocks to each truss. You’d think the stud bays would all be the exact same width, since I placed the studs 16 inches on center. But, they weren’t. They varied by as much nearly an inch, so I measured everything out to get everything exactly right. Then I screwed the blocks in place, making sure to mark where everything went for a perfect fit.

Although I was able to lift and set the gable ends on my own (although not without some difficulty), I couldn’t do the same for the trusses, since, thanks to the spacing blocks, they were unbalanced and would be unable to stand straight without being held in place. I simply didn’t have a way to lift them, hold them, and screw them down by myself. Lucky for me, my daughter’s boyfriend stopped by for a visit and I was able to recruit him as a helper. Together, we lifted the trusses and while he held them steady, I screwed them to each other and to the frame.

Once the trusses were in place, I turned my attention to sheathing. To help give additional strength to the greenhouse, the bottom 32 inches would be sheathed and, later, sided. The first part was easily done by cutting 4x8 sheets of sheathing into thirds and then screwing the panels to the studs of the greenhouse. The second part (the siding) will come later.

Next Steps

This was a good stopping point for the weekend, but much remains to be done. The next step is putting in the front door. Then I need to add a sill and siding over the sheathing.

Once that is done, I’ll turn my attention to the floor. I might build a wooden deck for a floor, or maybe I’ll pour a concrete slab or lay brick. I haven’t decided yet. After the floor, it’ll be time to attach the polycarbonate panels, after which I’ll add trim to finish the outside. Then all that will be left will be finishing the inside, including benches and a few accessories.

But all that will have to wait for now. Labor Day weekend is over and it’s time to get back to actual work. The fun work will have to wait until next weekend.

The first project was the easiest: expanding our raised garden beds to double their depth. I cut up some 1x6 cedar planks, built new boxes to match the 4x8 footprint of those that already existed, and then set the new ones on top of the existing ones. I used short stakes as splints I could use to screw the boxes together and then filled the expanded boxes with well-rotted compost. The taller boxes should give my plants more rich soil depth for their roots, and less bending over for me.

Then I turned to the chicken coop. Ever since I build the mega coop last summer, I’ve been wanting to get back to it to add trim and make it look less, to use a technical term, “constructy.” I decided to use the same cedar lumber that I used for the garden beds, so I made my measurements and picked up a truckload at the local lumberyard. I never cease to be surprised by all much lumber I need for projects like this, and how much it ends up costing.

As I discussed this plan with my wife, she asked if while I was working on the coop, I could add an extension to it to give the girls more space and more sunlight. Access to sunlight is a primary factor in egg production. Sure, I said, So I picked up lumber for that project as well.

I figured I should extend the coop before trimming it out, so I laid down pressure-treated 4x4s and then built walls in the same fashion as the original coop. The addition — or “chicken wing,” as we’ve taken to calling it — measures 8 feet square, only slightly smaller than the original coop’s footprint.

Once the walls were up and a door added, I added stain and then hardware cloth to keep predators out and chickens in. I opened up the wall between the original coop and the wing and the chickens quickly and happily explored the extra space.

Then I made a huge mistake. I turned to my wife and said, “there’s enough room here for twice this many chickens!” As the words escaped my lips, I saw my wife tear down the driveway to the local livestock supply store.

With the chicken wing added, it was time to add the trim. Using a battery-powered circular saw, I cut the 1x6 cedar planks to length and screwed them to the coop. Several pieces needed to be ripped to a narrower width, which I did on the table saw. Except for a few funky angles, the trim went on quickly and the improvement was instant.

I will admit that I have not (yet) trimmed out the entire coop. To save money, I focused only on the sides that we usually see. Maybe sometime later I’ll add trim to the other sides and really give the coop the final finishing touches.

Duck, Duck, (But, Thankfully, No Goose)

When my wife returned from the store, she not only picked up 9 more chicks, but five ducklings as well. She figured the ducks could live in the chicken coop — surely there was plenty of room in this expanded cluckmansion.

Alas, a few minutes of Google searches suggested that wasn’t such a great idea. Ducks are notoriously messy. They love and need lots of water, which they splash everywhere. They also poop as if they have chronic diarrhea, which if that prompts you ask, “why did you get ducks?” all I can answer is “fair.” Anyway, it seemed giving them their own space was the smarter way to go.

Duck coops differ from chicken coops in a few ways. For starters, chickens like to roost and they like their nesting boxes to be a few feet off the ground. Domestic ducks, on the other hand, don’t do well with steep ramps or steps, can’t fly, and need larger nesting boxes. With that knowledge in hand, I found a duck coop plan that seemed reasonable, so I trudged to the home center to pick up the necessary materials.

Construction in the shop went quickly. I hauled the new duck house to its eventual home near the chicken coop, gave it a coat of stain and a metal roof. I added outrageously overpriced white silicone sealant to the floor of the coop to waterproof it.

Then I 10 ten eight-foot-long 4x4 pressure-treated posts around the coop to create the outline of a 16-foot-by 24-foot run still to come.

With some of the leftover cedar, I added a bit of trim to the coop and made a note to add more later to help finish all of the edges and seams.

Next, I addressed the ducks’ need for water. Did I want to go with an in-ground pond or an above-ground pool? An in-ground pond would certainly look nicer, but not only would it be more difficult to do, I was worried about keeping it clean. An above-ground “pool,” on the other hand, seemed like something I could do fairly easily and would give me something I could clean pretty simply.

My plan was to build a raised deck that I could drop a small tub into. A shallow ramp would make it easy for the ducks to walk up to the tub. In the tub itself, I’d insert a drain that I’d plumb with 1-¼-inch PVC piping and a ball valve.

My thinking was that whenever I wanted to drain the tub, I would open the valve and let the water run out into an existing drainage ditch above a patch of wildflowers. (The “nutritious” water should make the flowers very happy.) Based on what I’ve read about ducks, I might need to do this quite often.

I bought some pressure-treated five-quarter decking and put the assembly together within a couple of hours. Once I dig a trench to bury the PVC piping and build the run’s walls, it will be ready for use.

Still To Come

By the first of August, the ducks will need to move into their new home. That’s now my deadline for building the fenced-in run that will surround the pool and coop and keep the quackers safe. I also plan on installing a new yard hydrant near the coops to make cleaning and refilling water containers and the pond easier. Once those are done, I can finally turn my attention to building a new greenhouse, because apparently anything worth doing is worth doing twice.