Not Finished, But The Studio Is Taking Shape

Spent a day cleaning up this area, which was previously filled with tools and paint buckets. I still have to finish that window bench (an upcoming weekend project), but, in the meantime, I’ve got a place to finally get around to learning to paint! (Sorry for the low-res photo… quick shot with the iPhone.)

Painting Wooden Countertops, An Adventure

I had a nice finish-ply base for my countertops, which I installed with the help of my dad about two years ago, and over a recent rainy weekend, I had an idea for finishing it. Because the walls were crooked to begin with, which threw my countertops out of square, I didn’t think a finish with strong lines (like tile) would look good, because it would show the crookedness. Something with thickness, like concrete or granite, was too high-end for this application, plus it’d be way too thick when added to the 3/4″ ply. I considered formica, but I had never done that sort of work, the quote I got seemed too high and I didn’t want to risk learning on my own kitchen.

So, I looked into painting the wood countertops. Just regular plywood, more or less. After looking around, I settled on an unexpected solution: epoxy-based concrete floor paint. It was super thick, and it turns any surface it’s applied to into a non-porous, water-tight piece of continuous smoothness. Like one giant span of tile. It cost about $200 and took three days to do, mainly a few hours each day. I’d recommend it.

Anywho, click here to see the whole photo slideshow of the process!

There Should Be An Award For That

Andrew and I just launched a fun little web app, our first collaboration. It’s built around the idea of when people say, “there should be an award for that.” GR8WERK.com empowers you to create those awards. Whether Husband of the Year, Worst Office Party or anything else, it is a simple little app designed to let people express their celebration, sarcasm or humor in a whimsically official manner. For example:

Generally, it’s built with jQuery, AJAX and PHP. Special thanks to the Jeditable Plugin, which made the “editing in place” feature super easy.

Anywho, check out the site! Let me know what you think! There are some updates and new features on the way, but I’m going to let this simmer for a while as is.