The master plan for my back yard.

Here's a photo of my back yard along the north side which faces the street. We live on a corner lot, so the other side of the fence is a street, with a small park and tennis court on the other side.

Compost bin

Here's a photo of the completed compost bin:

Another:

Compost bin plans

Here's a sketch of the compost bin I'm planning for the garden.
It's two bins side by side, together 2 feet high, 2 feet deep and 3 feet wide each.
I will be made out of cedar 2 by 4's and 1 by 4s.



The lids are not attached and sit on top, centered by cleats. In the figure below, I've tilted a lid back to show the cleats. Shown also, the front boards are held vertically in channels made from cleats.



The basic structure is made from three squares formed from 2 by 4's, joined by lap joints, as shown below. I am planning to cut the joints on my table saw using a dado blade.

Workshop area in my house

Here's a floor plan of my house. The garage is my workshop. I'l ltake some photos tomorow.

Here's a Sketchup drawing of my house. I'm really getting to like Sketchup, it's easier to use than Solidworks and still looks good. In this drawing I traced out the wall of my house from the scan of the floor plan. I haven't added all the doors and windows yet.

You can see my workshop area, the garage, in the lower part of the drawing. The work area is about 400 square feet.

Nightstand drawer

This is the design of the drawer for the nightstand.
Click to enlarge. The drawer has lap joints front and back. The bottom is 1/4 plywood or hardboard. The drawer box has a false front mounted on the front of the box. It gives 1 inch clearance around the box. An xray view of the box is shown in the lower figure.

I'm trying to decide whether to build it from some cheap wood like yellow pine, or to go the full monty and buy some oak or cherry. Expensive wood would be a waste on such a basic unadorned design.

Learning to use Google Sketchup: nightstand project

I've been learning to use Google Sketchup, it's easy in some respects buy hard to learn in other ways.

Below is a nightstand I designed using Sketchup. I haven't designed the drawers yet, and the drawer handles are just dummies to substitute for something purchased.

The unit is panel type construction. The panels will be made from 1/4" plywood.

Click on the image for a larger view.

The view below shows the case with the panels removed.