Most of you know that I generally fill my summer up with construction projects around the house and for hire. This summer has been no different. I apologize for being absent from the blogosphere for a while, but I’ve just been enjoying my summer too much to sit and type. So far the for hire projects have included some sheetrock repair, hanging a new exterior door, fixing some rotten entry ways, enlarging some closets, new bathroom faucets, new kitchen plumbing, and a full bathroom remodel that had the room down to the studs and included new tile, shower, and walls. Pretty much every Friday through Monday I’ve been somewhere fixing something. It’s been great as I love doing this type of work, and it’s a nice way to supplement the teacher salary. On the home front it’s been all about the backyard. I’ll write about the pergola project in the next few days, but by far the most fun project of the summer is the sprinkler park. Being a stay at home dad (Tuesday through Thursday), this summer has been a blast, but unlike the previous years I now have a baby to take care of as well as an almost 4-year old. Needless to say this puts a damper on how much time I can spend playing with Annelise. As soon as we start something, Julianna needs her diaper changed or a bottle. Adding to this is the fact that the normal outlets for stay-at-home-moms are not available to a stay at home dad. She can’t have any of her girl friends over and we can’t go to any play dates. To make her summer a little bit more fun (and because I like cool projects) I told her we would build a sprinkler park right in our own back yard. So if you like totally pointless projects, or you just like the smell of PVC glue here is how to get started…

I didn’t really start with much of a plan. I had some ideas, but I really work best by going to Lowes or Home Depot and just playing with the stuff they have and seeing what I can come up with. I was in Home Depot with an assortment of 2″ PVC fittings stuck together in a configuration that should never occur in nature trying to spark some ideas when a man in a “Jon’s Plumbing” shirt looked over and said, “I don’t know what it is but it’s the most complicated thing I’ve ever seen.” The point is that there are a lot of things that can be used for other than their intended purpose…just be creative. I settled for lots of PVC, some small and large foam noodles, a sheet of pink high density foam house wrap, and lots of spray paint (the kind that is made for plastic).

Below you can see the basic core of each sprinkler. The basic idea is that water flows in on the left and can go into the sprinkler or out the other side to the next sprinkler. The whole point is that the sprinklers are all chained together and can be used separately or all together. The only issue with the design when this picture was made is that a second sprinkler hooked up to the right hand output side won’t have water pressure unless this sprinkler is on. My final design placed a T-fitting before the valve and just capped off the output side. Now all the sprinklers have water pressure all the time regardless of which ones are actually on. The valve I choose is a brass ball valve meant for gas. It was the easiest to turn on and off for kids.

You want the water to flow up into the sprinkler not down into the support tube (and the ground) so before gluing the lower tube in place I put a 2″ knockout plug on the top of the pipe.

After gluing the lower pipe in place you can see that the knock out plug has blocked the lower leg of the assembly.

I also painted on a nice layer of silicone caulk to the top of the knock out plug.

The lower pre-assembly is the same for all the sprinklers. Below you can see a basic pre-assembly attached to the “Dueling Noodles” sprinkler body. The top small pipe is capped and does not carry water…It’s just there to support the duck (you’ll have to look at the pictures at the end)

If you are going to use a noodle to carry water it must be one of the large noodles. The smaller ones just split under pressure. To attach a noodle to the PVC core you need an 8″ length of ½” PVC. I taped off ¾” at the end to protect it and coated the other end with plumber’s goop (actual name) and just pushed it into the noodle and let it dry for a few days.

Once it’s dry you can pull off the tape and attach any fitting you need.

If water is not supposed to come out of the other side you can glue a PVC plug to the ½” pipe. I used this technique on the “Tunnel” (again…see the pictures at the end)

For the “Dueling Noodles” station, I wanted to use small diameter noodles so I had to thread a length of ½” flexible hose through the noodle to bear the pressure.

For the “Flower Shower”, I bought the cheapest shower head I could find and broke it apart to remove the shower disc.

I filed the disc down until it would fit in a 2″ PVC compression ring fitting.

Then I screwed the fitting together to make the shower head. The flared out piece in the picture below (the one with the bar code) is not actually glued on anything. The 2″ PVC pipe carrying the water is passing right through it. The piece is a 2″ to 3″ adapter with the 2″ side cut off and just slipped over the pipe before the compression fitting was glued in place.

The flower head is just a piece of pink foam house wrap cut into a flower shape.

Using the basic ideas and techniques described above, I built the following four sprinklers.

Bucket Dump

This sprinkler, while being the most popular with the kids, is the most complicated to build as you must design a pivot mechanism for the bucket. I welded mine out of ½” square tubing and rolled a length of1/4″ round bar into a ring that the bucket could sit in. If you don’t have a welding machine (get one)…or you could probably create something out of wood. It may be a bit bulkier but it could be made to work. You can attach your pivot mechanism to the body of the sprinkler with 2″ pipe hangers. These are heavy clamps that fit around the pipe and have bolt holes for attaching your bucket contraption. I did a ton of math (finally a use for my otherwise useless Physics degree) to find the point on the bucket where the bottom of the bucket is heavier empty but the top is heaver at the moment the water reached the top, so it will dump automatically. Turns out the kids just want to dump it themselves, so I attached a string…

Dueling Noodles

This sprinkler is the most dangerous to the dry adults in the vicinity as it is capable of spraying close to 60 feet. The top decoration is just a silly duck noodle that I found at Wal-Mart and cut shorter and stuck on the top of the sprinkler body. The two noodles on the side can be picked up and sprayed at each other or any other moving targets within the neighborhood.

Flower Shower

This is the simplest and (according to Monique) the cutest sprinkler in the collection. We’ve even let Annie bathe out here. This is the sprinkler that first gave us the idea for putting little one ring pools at the bottom to protect the yard from turning into a mud pit.

The Tunnel

I couldn’t really come up with a cool name for this one, but it’s one of my favorites. Its two large diameter noodles attached together (using a 12″ length of ½” PVC and the goop described above) and have holes poked along the length. I actually used some 1/8″ tubing in the holes to get the spray to aim better. The tubing is attached to the PVC base with a threaded connection, so you can take the noodle off for storage.

The only part I don’t have pictures of is the actual anchor into the ground. I just used a 4-foot piece of ½” galvanized iron pipe hammered 2 feet into the ground. Into the lower leg of the sprinklers, I screwed in a 1 ¾” PVC cap with a ½” hole bored into the center. This fitting slips nicely into the 2″ PVC, and a simple wood screw from the outside holds it in place. With one of these at the top and the bottom of the lower support leg, the sprinklers can be slipped over the galvanized pipe. This makes the sprinklers stable enough to be left out all summer but portable enough to be stored in the winter. Come by and let your kids play sometime…the park is always open!

So I havn’t forgotten my blog.  I’m just really tired.  Julianna has been a great baby but she still has to eat.  Never sleeping more than 3 hours at a time is really jacking up my head…soon I hope to have my focus back…

-By Monique 

If you haven’t heard the news yet, our little Julianna was born on March 12 at 12:16pm. We (and the doctors as well) were shocked at how chubby she is. Based on my pregnancy size and the latest ultrasound, it was predicted that she would be in the 6 pound range. What a surprise when she weighed in at 7lb 14oz. We love those very kissable chubby cheeks. Julianna looks a lot like her sister did at this age, only with dark hair. She is a great little baby so far, and big sis Annelise has been a dream with the disruption to her normal routine. Annelise is completely in love with her little sister, and Julianna calms down and lights up whenever Annelise sings or talks to her. Thank you for your prayers – we can’t wait for you to meet her. Here are a few pictures to enjoy:

I really can’t believe how quickly the time has flown by this go around. Just today I was looking at a calendar and it really started to sink in just how little time is left. I’m both excited and a little nervous at the same time. I guess that’s always true with change but I really don’t know what to expect this time around. I think the Astro’s lineup looks strong but with the soft pitching rotation I’m not sure. Either way March 31st is just around the corner. I love opening day…what did you think I was talking about? Seriously, I can’t wait for Julianna to arrive on March 12th. I know Monique is ready to have her insides back to normal and I’m ready for all the late nights taking care of the baby (with the Astros on the office Tivo of course).

Back to the Astros…Everyone has reported to spring training but our young superstar, Hunter Pence, is home recovering from lacerations on his right hand and knee. Guess how he got these injuries…He ran through a sliding glass door that he thought was open! I love it…at least the injuries aren’t serious. My favorite part of the story -

Pence jumped into the shower to wash the broken glass off of him, but when he noticed he was excessively bleeding, he called his parents. They told him to call 911, and soon after, according to Pence, “firemen, emergency people and medics came to the house.”

He called home first…what a guy.

Babies and Baseball – March is going to be AWESOME!!!

A lot of people ask when I started collecting tools…truth is I’ve always been into tools but the real collecting started after Monique and I moved into our first apartment. I just found these pictures in our box of non-digital goodies and thought you might like them. I only wish I had a picture of the welding machine that lived on the coffee table…

I don’t think the landlord appreciated the table saw and band saw in the office

A typical evening sitting in the living room, watching some TV and building a stainless steel pressure vessel for one of Monique’s experiments…

Over the next few days I’ll do some entries on some of the things I built in our apartment living room…let’s just say they needed new carpet when we moved out.

We’ve been working hard these past few weeks on some projects to get the house ready for baby number two (I’ll do some project write-ups on them soon). As we were cleaning out a closet we came across some stuff that just made Monique laugh. It seems I’m infected with a disease that causes me considerable pain whenever I buy something that I could just make in the shop. The disease usually progresses like this:

1. Monique mentions something that we need around the house that Wal-Mart sells for $29.95
2. I tell Monique that I can build it in “about” 30 minutes for “around” $10.00
3. I go to Lowes and spend $19.00 on materials and $79.95 on a new tool I need for the project but I don’t count the tool because “I’ll use in on all kinds of stuff…”
4. I spend 5 hours in the shop working on the item
5. I head back to Lowes and spend $7.43 on stuff I didn’t realize I would need
6. 3 more hours in the shop working
7. 24 hours later the paint and/or glue is dry and I proudly show off the results of my 8 hour effort to save us $3.52
8. Monique heads to Wal-Mart to buy the real item because mine doesn’t quite work

Luckily, Monique was well aware of this aliment long before she agreed to marry me and many times my affliction does pay off. I love that our furniture came from my hands and I love spending time in the shop working on projects for my family. But there have been some real moments of “why didn’t I just buy this…” Below are a few examples.

A while back Monique wanted some crown molding style shelves.

My Version

Not too bad right? I think they look great too. Only problem is that it took about an hour and a half to build and another hour to sand and paint. Twenty-four hours for the paint to dry and about $16.00 in materials and paint supplies…After building 5 of them we found this at Wal-Mart:

Store Version

So we bought 2 of them for $12 each….oh well.

When it came time to mount my surround sound speakers I never thought to price speaker mounts at the store. I spent almost $20 on materials and the better part of a day cutting, grinding, welding, and painting to create this monstrosity:

My Version

A few months later I’m at Fry’s and I see these for $18.99 a pair…they are about a tenth of the size…you can’t even see them behind the speakers.

Store Version

When we first moved into this house I installed a laminate wood floor in the office. Part of the installation requires the use of spacers around the edge to create expansion room. I spent two hours cutting over a hundred 3/16″ thick spacers…

My Version

By the time I did the next room I discovered that of course they make a plastic spacer that cost like $5.00 for a hundred…

Store Version

But the real prize belongs to the time Monique asked for an aerobic step like this:

Store Version

But of course 2 hours later I deliver this 20 pound shin mangling embarrassment:

My Version

After seeing this on our friend Mel’s blog I had to try it out. Click the link below to see the Nilsson’s get “Elfed”

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1634973406

Annelise’s little preschool class had their Christmas show today.  Here is the video for all the family members who read this blog (You’re probably happy to have a post that doesn’t involve power tools).

Well, as part of the continuing process of getting ready to squeeze another little girl into the room with Annelise, Monique asked for a book shelf that could fit between the two closets and match the armoire and bed that I built when Annelise was born. (I’ll do a write up on those one day…) We looked at a lot of different store bought options but they were all too expensive (the only ones we liked were over $250) and none of them really matched the existing furniture. I don’t exactly need much motivation to start a new project in the shop but this one looked especially fun as it could be completed in a day or two and not cost much money (we spent about $25 plus paint). Monique helped with the design (it was her suggestion to offset the height of the shelves) and the rest of the design was based on the existing armoire and bed. If the details details interest you, read on…if not, just enjoy the pictures (click on any picture for a larger view).

Materials:
I built the project out of MDF (medium density fiberboard) as it is cheap, easy to work with, smooth, and takes paint very well. The only draw backs to using MDF are weight – MDF is very heavy (makes for a stable bookcase) and poor edges. The cut edge of MDF is very soft and rough. To address this I covered the front with a solid wood (white pine) face frame. This not only fixes the aesthetics but protects the shelf front from toddlers with hot-wheels. I primed the entire unit prior to painting with Kilz brand spray primer. This stops the MDF from absorbing so much paint and provides a uniform color to the top coat. The top coat is an oil based interior paint. This is a little harder to work with then water based paints but I have yet to find a latex paint that is anywhere near as durable as oil based finishes.

Tools:
Required

• Table saw or Circular saw with straight edge guide
• Table saw with dado cutter or Router with straight cutting bit
• Band Saw or Jig Saw (only needed for decorative base trim)
• Router with Chamfer bit or tilted Table saw (for detail on top)
• Router with ogee bit for base trim only
• Clamps
• Brad Nailer (recommended)

Mill Work:
After cutting the pieces to size using my table saw (and band saw for the decorative bottom trim) I changed the blade to a stacked dado head cutter. This is basically a stack of blades called chippers that can be configured to cut groves or dadoes of varying thicknesses (1/16″ – 7/8″ in 1/64″ increments).

I set up to cut a 3/4″ thick dado 1/4″ deep. The blade height above the table controls the depth of the cut. Once the cutter was configured I milled out all the dadoes in the sides and middle of the bookcase.

Most of the dadoes in this project are full dadoes that run from one end of the board through the other side. The top however fits on the uprights using a blind dado (sounds like a blues singer). This is a dado that stops before the end of the board. Because the blade is round you end up with what is called “run-out”. This is the shallower unusable portion of the blind dado.

There are a number of ways to address this issue. I could use a sharp hand chisel to “square up” the run out, I could simply round off the end of the board that fits in this dado, or (as I’ve chosen to do in this design) the run-out can be hidden. Dealing with the run-out is easy. Figuring out how to cut this dado is the tricky part. Because the dado stops before the end of the board I had to figure out when to stop cutting without being able to see the blade (while cutting the blade is hidden under the board). To address this I put a piece of tape on my table saw’s rip fence and marked the highest point of the blade on this tape. Then on the back of the board I was cutting I marked where the end of the full depth dado cut needed to be. When I cut the dado I knew to stop when the marks lined up.

With the stacked dado cutter installed I next milled a rabbit in the uprights (blind dadoes and rabbits…getting weird). A rabbit is a ledge (or half a dado) cut into the edge of a board. In my case this was to receive a thin 1/4″ thick rear panel to act as the back of the bookcase. I didn’t want to just attach this piece to the back of the shelf…I wanted it recessed into the bookcase.

To cut a rabbit on my table saw (man that just sounds wrong) I needed to slide my fence on top of the blade so that only one side of the blade would be exposed. To do that I used a sacrificial fence. This is just a piece of wood attached to the metal rip fence. I slid it in place with the blade down. With the table saw running I carefully raised the blade into the wood and was ready to cut the rabbit.

The finial bit of milling to do was to put a chamfer (bevel) on the front and side edges of the top. I used my shaper (just a big router) with a chamfering bit and ball bearing guide.

Assembly:
After cutting and milling all the pieces I was ready for the fun part…putting it all together! Step one was to dry fit (no glue) all the pieces together and make sure everything fit. Next I assembled the bottom shelf between the uprights using glue (I like Tight Bond II) and 3/4″ brads toe nailed (these name get sillier and sillier but this means nailed from the inside at an angle…hides the nail and holds the shelf at the set angle while the glue dries). Of course I used a speed square to make sure every thing was perpendicular.

Next I installed the center upright and both shelves using the same technique and wiped up all the excess glue so I wouldn’t have to deal with it later.

You can see from this rear picture that the shelves stop at the edge of the rabbit. This will allow the back to slip in and attach to the back edge of the shelves later with staples.

You can also see from this front view that the bottom shelf has a lip to receive the solid wood face frame.

The last bit of assembly before allowing the glue to dry was to attach the top using glue and 1 1/2″ brads. After some dry time, I attached the face frame to all the upright edges and across the top of the piece using glue a few 1″ brads (the face frame is 1/2″ thick) and lots of clamps (the center and shelf trim is not shown here).

Here you can see that blind dado run-out from earlier just visible behind the top face frame. This remaining gap will be hidden by crown molding.

The finial step of assembly was to attach the crown molding (maybe I’ll do a post on cutting crown molding later) and bottom decorative trim using glue and brads. The corners are mitered (cut at a 45). After attaching everything I used some sandable wood filler to cover all the nail holes.

After a good sanding I took the unit outside to spray on a single coat of Kilz spray primer.

Another light sanding and I was ready to paint. I used an oil based paint applied with a nice natural bristle brush. Two coats later…

I also painted the back panel at the same time. It was much easier to paint without the back installed. After the paint dried I installed the back using 1″ narrow crown staples. Now it was Monique’s turn to load up some books and decorate the top. Here is the finial version of our $25 bookcase.

Five years ago our church encouraged all the community group leaders to host Halloween block parties in their front yard. The idea was to get the church involved where the people were and not go hiding in some parking lot for a “fall festival”. As our pastor Chuck put it, “we don’t value ghosts and goblins; we value people…and candy”. It has become a great neighborhood outreach for Monique and I and our community groups. Every year around the start of October our neighbors start asking if we are going to have our block party again. I really love the opportunity it gives us to get to know our neighbors a little better (and the candy isn’t a bad perk). This year we gave out 238 hotdogs with all the fixins, 321 cold drinks, at least 100 pounds of chocolate, and 82 cans of play-doh. When people ask why we get to tell them that this is just our way of showing God’s love for them in a practical way.

The Hotdog Shack

Nothing like hotdogs, soda, candy, and….JUMPING!!!

Yes the windmill turns…