JoshPrime Makes Stuff

Hey Reader, I spent the holiday break doing the wall smoothing of the third bedroom and have aspirations of turning it into a room for all the crafts and projects that I do on this blog. I feel like all the rooms need names. I was going to call it my "craft room," but someone suggested calling it my "maker space." What makes a maker space different from a craft room exactly? I guess a maker space is typically more communal than a craft room. I sort of feel like a lot of the gentlemen I know call themselves "makers" instead of "crafters." It feels like some gender norm nonsense I don't like. You might be sitting there going: "but JoshPrime, the title of this very blog post is "sewing room." Why are you worried about the difference between makerspace and craft room if you are going to call it sewing room anyway." That is a good question. Here is the thing: I eventually want to do a lengthy post on warded mortise lock...

Hey reader, It is time to play with lights! I finally finished painting and fixing all the fence segments and posts. I got some stuff to affix it all to the walls, but before I do that I wanted to try out my lights! I can't really attach them to the walls until I have the TV anyway, so there are going to be a lot more posts about these posts and also the fences. I bought these super cool lights that are LEDs to run along the cross beams of the fence once it is all done. As you know, I wanted to use the fence to hide a lot of wiring and really keep the room clean. Putting lights behind it only adds to the cool factor. I have one strand and it makes it the whole length. The real question is - do I set the lights up above the cross beam or below it? Below: As you can see, the under light gives the fence a kind of eerie glow under it. It also hides the source of the light which only adds to the cool factor. Unfortunately, I can't get a really wide picture of it without fu...

Hey there reader, When we last left Media room, I had bought some segments of fence and assembled a racecar bed! Unfortunately, the fence is not quite what I had in mind for in the house. It is really rough - which is fine for a back or front yard, but not for a movie room. Fortunately, I have lots of experience in making rough things smooth. I started with wood putty to fill in gaps, but after searching online I found that using plaster would be fine as long as the wood never was outside. When working on the first segment, I even plastered the edges of the pickets. What I quickly discovered is that the edges were already pretty smooth - save for the detail at the top - and that adding the plaster there made sanding it a real pain. For the rest of the fence I only put plaster on edges if there was a knot or other flaw, and also on the detail work at the top. It made the whole project go much smoother . Hey that's almost a pun. Anyway, I didn't bother smoothing the cro...

Hey Reader, Happy New Year! My New Years Resolution is to talk about skim coating less and like most people, it will last barely a week into January.  I promised I wouldn't obsess with wall smoothing anymore on this blog, but I did want to give you a slight update. After the stunning success of the primer used in the media room, I decided to test just how good it was in the guest room. After doing only a thin layer of skim coating, I decided to do 3 coats of the magic primer on the walls and just see how smooth I could get it. Honestly, it was another amazing success. I painted the trim and walls - opting for a much more calm mint green for my guest room. Again, I am always so impressed by how much the white trim and ceiling transforms the whole look of the room. It is definitely the most noticeable parts of all of these renovations. When the paint dried, I started to notice some problems on the walls. There were not rills or trowel marks as the primer covered that up beaut...