Wine Label Honorable Mention

I'm happy to report my Apple Wine label got an honorable mention in Winemaker Magazine's label design contest. The latest issue of the magazine arrived at the house with the results of this years label contest. The competition was good, and the winners had some fun label designs. They awarded some big prize packages to first, second, and third place. Mine was one of 16 other honorable mention labels. According to the magazine I won a Carboy Cleaner, so I may be receiving a package in the near future. Thank you Winemaker Magazine!

The TV Cabinet Takes Shape...

What started as three 4' by 8' sheets of plywood and some assorted lengths of solid maple is starting to look like a real piece of furniture.

Wednesday night Dad and I picked up the supplies so we could start right away on Sunday morning.

8 am we started ripping down plywood and laying out the cabinet. Add some nails, glue, and biscuit joints and we started to have shelves. With help of a drill jig we also made plenty of holes for shelf pins for the adjustable shelves. Thanks to Dad, I think it came together much nicer (and faster) than if I had done it myself. It's nice to be able to work with someone who's built cabinets for years, with a complete arsenal of tools and in a heated garage in the middle of winter.

By 6pm we had everything done except the doors (which will get done later) and had it loaded up in the truck to go to our house. Now it's sitting in our laundry room ready for some paint. While it's a shame to cover up such a nice wood grain, since everything else in our family room is white we'll be painting the new cabinet to match.

I have to say I learned quite a bit, and I'm proud to see my design come to life. Now I just have to paint it and set it up in our basement. Expect another update and pictures when it's done.

My Foray Into Furniture Design

Since moving into our house, we've wanted a better TV cabinet for our family room. For the time being we're actually using one I built in junior high wood shop. While I'm rather proud of the piece, it doesn't exactly suit our family room nor the way we want to use it. The TV it holds now is bigger than what used to sit on it, and its placement in the room isn't exactly normal.

Because of the size & shape of our family room, the best place for our TV cabinet is somewhat in the middle of the room, leaving the back of the TV visible to half of the room. With the back of the cabinet exposed, we wanted to accomplish two things: conceal the unsightly cables and keep them away from little hands, and create some storage space accessible from the back of the cabinet.

Enter Google Sketchup. This free program from Google has been a useful tool for some of my other small projects, and provided a fun way to design our cabinet. The design shown here is the basic concept. I plan to include some doors on the front, and a panel to conceal the wires on the back.

While I've managed to stock my garage with enough tools to get by on small projects, I haven't really built anything large since our current TV cabinet. This is where it comes in handy to have a Dad with years of experience building cabinetry and a high quality table saw in his garage. At this point with the design laid out, Dad and I will be getting together to buy some materials and start building this thing! Let's hope it all goes well.