How It Starts is Not Always How It Ends

I kind of took this weird old cabinet that a friend gave to me and decided I was going to strip it down, flip it on it's back and make a storage chest out of it complete with a padded cloth interior. However, the project sat around for about 3 years never really seeing any progress. I was just a bit too wrapped up in my Phonograph restoration.
Finally, after moving to my new house, I was determined to do something with it. I got it out of storage and started making a lid for it out of old pine slats I had left over from an old Futon I had stripped down a few years ago.

At the same time, I had a plastic tote full of wood scraps and other odd pieces of left over furniture remnants that I would keep around for our fireplace we had in our old house. Nothing painted or treated of course, just plain scraps. Our new house doesn't have an indoor wood burning fireplace, so the wood pieces were basically just in my way.

We decided to buy one of those little outdoor fire pits for our patio and could use the scraps in there. I wanted to put the tote outside but the wood would get wet and the tote would just hold water. I decided that the storage cabinet project I started would make an excellent outdoor wood storage box. I realized that I just didn't need that cabinet for anything else.

I slapped some outdoor paint on it and some fancy wood feet from an old Ikea-like cabinet we had decided not to use those feet on. Works much better now. And it keeps the wood mostly dry without sealing up any moisture.

The Condo Birdhouse

I whipped together a two story birdhouse for our garden out of scrap pine I had left over from a cabinet project I started and never finished. Before we moved to our new house about 6 months ago, we had a successful birdhouse on the back of our old house that my youngest son had made me for Father's Day a few years back.

He was sad that we had to leave it behind, but I explained to him that the birds would return again next year and their house would be gone. So, we left it behind in the hopes that the new owners would also leave it up there.

My son missed having the birds to watch so I made a new unit for our new house. But this time, I wanted to make two small houses out of one. We haven't had anything take up residence yet, but then, it took about a year for the last one to work out either. So, here's hoping.

The Phonograph Was Completed.

I just wanted to update that I finished that phonograph project. I apologize that after all the hard work I put into it, I neglected to take a final photo. However, I will report that the owner was so very happy to get his device back in near original condition (except for a few parts I had to replace) and said he used it for almost a week straight trying out his boxes of old 78's he had lying in storage.

A job well done.