Activesteve.com is Born…

G’day folks. Well, as you can see by the picture, the first step on our basement renovation is essentially completed! Last night at 10pm, I finished building the media cabinet that is built into the wall in the rec room. A while ago Jody and I decided that this fall / winter would be the time we finally renovate the basement. We spend 80% of our time there, so we figure it will be money well spent. The master plan calls for new paint, new carpet, new couch, built in media centre for home theatre stuff, installation of laminate in bar area, and finally the piece de resistance, my new oak bar!

We’ve got the ball heavily rolling now. We ordered our carpet, ordered our couch, bought the paint, bought the bar materials, and as you can see, I’ve built the cabinet. If you’d like to see other pictures of the project, head on over to our flickr sets and check out the basement renovation shots. I’ll update it as we go along.

Hi folks. Well, although summer is traditionally a time of relaxing and getting outside to have some fun, it’s also a time that some people prepare to embark on the next stage of their careers and / or lives. One group of such people that are close to me are my sister, my brother-in-law, and my cute little niece. You see, they’ve just gotten themselves packed up and ready to move away to Riyadh for at least the next two years on a foreign service posting! In spite of the fact that I’ve been training like a madman, and very much self-absorbed, they’ve been very much on my mind, as this is a big move, and means that I won’t get to see Helena entering the terrible twos. I’m going to lose valuable time in my plot to turn her into a little hell-raiser! Oh well, I’ll just have to count on Patrick to do that for me I guess. Anyway, this post is really just to say Bon Voyage, Good Luck, and Thanks for everything to these important members of my Ottawa family. Read on if you’re interested. Also, you can check out some of the pictures of the last few days of their time in Ottawa.

Well, the bar is still coming along, albeit at more of a sloths pace than a gazelle, but what can you do, right? It’s winter, yes, but I’ve still got other things to do. In this picture, you can see most of the rought cut pieces for the bar. Before building, I plan to cut, rout, pre-drill, sand, stain, and varnish most of the wood, so when the time comes to assemble the bar, it’s more like an IKEA project, although much nicer. The little green stickers are the numbers for each piece as per the project plan. If you want to see a few more pictures of where the bar project is at, check out the pictures on flickr. I’ll keep adding more as I go.

Apart from having all the wood cut, I’ve also started tackling the routing. This in itself is proving to be a new challenge, since I’ve never actually used a router. Just to make sure I do an alright job, I snagged a brand new plunge router, as well as a routing table. I’ll say this. After spending 3-4 hours playing with it yesterday, I can safely say there’s no way I would’ve got the project done without those two additions. Now of course, I’m thinking I want a drill press as well. Sheesh. This bar is suddenly getting really expensive! On the plus side, I’ve decided that when I retire, I’ll definitely start doing woodworking much more frequently. Although it can be frustrating at times, I enjoy the precision and the satisfaction of doing something with my own hands. No doubt I’ll tackle a few more projects in the coming years. This bar will be the biggest one in a lone time though I’m sure. There are just so many steps and things I’m learning along the way! Oh well, I guess that’ll make future projects seem that much simpler.