Trial and Error

Over the weekend, I thought I’d make a little something for my girlfriend. While at it, I thought I’d try to make some tenon and mortises — or whatever this turned out to be.

We have a relatively small shed: it’s 8 x 12 feet. Empty, it was quite large, but it became obvious it was smaller than we imagined. Like everyone, we put some time on Pinterest and found someone who stacked their lawn mower and snowblower and so we set out to do something similar.

To me, there’s nothing like spending the summer outside. Granted, I don’t do it nearly enough, especially given the short summers we have, but whatever time I do spend outside, I wanted to make it better. Our backyard has a large terrace and I wanted to spend as much time outside as possible, so I came up with some small objectives for my (ambitious) build:

• Space for a cooler to store drinks and keep any food cold before dinner;
• A counter-top to prepare food;
• Both a trash can and a recycling bin;
• Casters so I could move it around if needed.

Mind you, I’ve never done any of this, so calling this an 8/10 is really underselling how hard I made it, but probably being harder on the project than it really is. But hey, I’ve only been woodworking for about 2 or 3 months, and only on my free time, so I guess it’s all relative.

Disclaimer: The project was done with wood purchased before the Covid-19 pandemic, so wood prices were considerably lower. At the time of writing this, prices have nearly doubled and are expected to rise much more. I hope it doesn’t because this is truly something I enjoy doing and hope to do much more in the upcoming weeks and months!