Oaken Gearbox

The area around the University of Cincinnati, my alma mater, is laid out more or less like a big Monopoly board. The campus is one city block, and the streets around campus are filled with run down houses that get rented out to groups of students, packed in 4 to 7 per house. Different slum lords have begun buying up as many houses as they can on each street, and on the south side of campus they've begun putting up big 'hotels' that they rent by the bed and charge three times as much as usual for. Senior year of college I lived with five of my friends in a big, roach-infested house that we rented from a guy named Bill. Bill also owned most of the other houses on our street, which was more Oriental Ave. than it was Boardwalk, if you catch my drift.  Even so, Bill was slowly working to fix up his properties, and one day we found two solid wood five panel doors out on the curb, demoed from the place next door. Naturally we snapped those up and moved them into our basem...

Since long before moving to Minnesota, I've been fascinated by winter camping. Faced with the reality that I lack both the experience and the cold weather gear for such an endeavor; not to mention the strain that would put on my wife (six months pregnant with our first child), I settled on a better plan: renting a cabin. We chose "The French Canadian" After scanning online adds for over an hour and passing over scores of "cabins" that boasted such features as 70" televisions and high speed internet, I finally found exactly what I was looking for about thirty miles north of Two Harbors, MN. Run solely by its good-natured owner and his receptionist Willie (an aging golden retriever), Snowshoe Country Lodge was the perfect mix of civilized and rustic. Although cell service was completely non-existent, according to a printed sign, there is free wifi if you are willing to stand in the cold over near the well-house. The same well house includes a hand ...

I really don't like going to Ikea; I like buying furniture from Ikea even less. The craftsman in me detests the functional but charmless lack of detail work, like box or dovetail joints, that really make a simple piece of furniture stand out. The hipster in me hates thinking, "Hey, I have that bookshelf." every time I visit a friend's apartment. But most of all, the cheapskate in me can't live with the fact that I could have made a better piece for half the cost. Below is my alternative to flimsy Ikea shelves. Total cost: $20 Time to complete: A Saturday afternoon Materials: 4 2x4's 6 boards for shelves. I used the 9 1/2" x 24" ones from Ikea (but the joke's on me, because they've already started sagging) Edge-joining two boards for each shelf as described in a previous post would be a better, if more time-consuming solution. A box of screws Wood Glue (I use Titebond) Stain, paint, varnish, etc. Tools: Tablesaw Drill...