Rustic Workbench

Making a Rustic Pot Rack for a Log Home Kitchen

Ineeded a pot rack here at the lodge. I couldn’t have one hanging overhead with cathedral ceilings in the kitchen and even if I could I didn’t want to interrupt the space. I use my copper pots and pans. What is the point of having them if you don’t use them? I have seen iron [...]

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Disguising Track Lights in a Log Home Kitchen

Rustic Workbench

I have not been a big fan of track lighting but it does have its place and time. In an effort to provide more light in the kitchen here at the lodge, the previous owners had installed track lights on the log trusses overhead. As if Ethel Merman stepped in to sing Ave Maria the [...]

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Remodeling a Small Bathroom in a Log Home Part 1

Rustic Workbench

The bathroom remodeling has begun. The original bathroom had lovely salmon floor tiles. The walls were covered to a height of 48 inches with cute white 4×4 tiles with delicate little blue and pink flowers. A built-in Medicine cabinet with fluorescent tube lights helped to illuminate the brilliant sunflower-yellow sink and tiny white toilet. The [...]

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Log Home Details: A Touch of Whimsy with a Black Locust Deer

Rustic Workbench

I had been given this little refrigerator magnet of a twig deer head and thought it would look good life-sized and figured it would serve well as a rather whimsical way to greet guests to the lodge. The charming but goofy looking little deer was of simple twig construction.

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Log Railings: Rail Against the Machined

Rustic Workbench

One of the many tasks on the list here at the lodge is to replace a second floor deck railing that had been removed by the previous owners yearsago. The 16′x16′ deck also serves as the roof for the master bedroom below. The previous owners had removed the railing most likely at a time when [...]

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Calculating Made Easy

Rustic Workbench

I‘m lovin’ this nifty construction calculator I picked up this past spring. Quickly calculate stair layouts, framing, baluster spacing, calculating the number of studs, hip/valley and jack rafters etc. The display presents figures as fractions or decimals and conversions from fractions to decimals or back again. It also comes with a well laid out quick reference [...]

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A Workshop Where There Once Was None

Rustic Workbench

I began attacking the second basement. It was one of those areas that got out of control. Well I’m taking control back. — l’ll use a portion of the room and put in a workshop of sorts. Its a room of mostly log and stone walls 16′ by 57′. For years it has been general [...]

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DIY Appliance Repair: Priceless

Rustic Workbench

To update the previous post on appliance repair – Appliance Repair: No More Soaking – I’m down in the basement clearing off my workbench when DHL arrives. The part (belt and manual) that I ordered from RepairClinic.com for my old GE Hotpoint dryer came early. I had just ordered it last night and figured it [...]

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DIY Appliance Repair: No More Soaking

Rustic Workbench

The long humid day was just beginning to cool off. Yard work had been finished up and my filthy work clothes needed a good dance in the suds. So I pull off my Filson boots, peel off my socks and strip down naked on the back deck. After taking a moment to enjoy the sun [...]

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Restoration: 3D Visualizing the Changes in Home Remodeling

Rustic Workbench

When tackling a project its not always easy to see what it may look like when you are done. Certainly when you are in the midst of a project there is usually so much upheaval it can make it very difficult to visualize what its going to look like when you have finished. Not everyone [...]

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