Hurrah for Pop!

If you have any say in the matter, I highly recommend having an electrical engineer as a father. While he couldn't diagnose my problem over the phone, with multimeter in hand he was able to find the problem and fix it in less than one hour tonight. He found that I had rather exuberantly screwed two screws in so far that they pierced the insulation on a wire and caused a short.

But that is all fixed now and ta da...

We've got a spiral going on.

The cone lights work very well for the table, and the opaqueness doesn't blind me!

And of course, the bug


DH was rather in awe at the completed project, but it's perfect. Plenty of light and so not typical. This room is going to be quite interesting!

Other than finishing this up tonight, I've done nothing this weekend... at all. I was feeling guilty, but s DH reminded me, there is no time limit on completing this, and I don't have to work every weekend.

Of course, now I'm so psyched about the room and that I really want to work some more!

Carpenter? Maybe. Electrician? No

I was so excited that my lights arrived on Wednesday. I took Friday off, and started to unpack them because I wanted to see how to layout the rail... that was my first problem. I had no rail. I had two 8 foot pieces of "power extenders" but I had to spend three phone calls to my rep explaining the problem. She was able to find me two pieces that day, though. So huzzah!

Layout the rail was okay. The monorail is "hand bendable," which is true, but it also requires a good bit of force.

After looking at the instructions to install the transformer, I figured I could do it. It seemed like the other light replacements I had done: take off the old one, black wire to black wire, white to white, and ground to ground...

Here's where I stand now:


After we got the transformer hooked up, and the monorail up, with supports, and one light on it (each piece contains its own separate instruction sheet and hex wrench!), I flicked the breaker and lightswitch: pop! The breaker on the transformer blew.

Turns out it blows even without any fixture, or the monorail... so we're back at square one. My dad, an electrical engineer, said he could come out to help me next weekend. So now, I'm sans light, but I do think they will be gorgeous (well, at least colorful) when they're up!

drawers, schmawers

We're still waiting for the fantabulous lights to get here, so I haven't been building anything big yet. I'm sure the electrician is going to need all the floor space, and the pressing table will have to be built in the room b/c it will be so big.

But, I have been working on some drawer boxes. Here's my schematic:
The front is to the left (there will be a face plate on it to cover the joints.
Anywho, since I don't have the skills or set-up to do real dovetails, this is about the strongest joint I can make. The sides have two dadoes in them and the front has a small rabbet to lock into the dado. All were made by the router. I also routed a small groove around all four sides to hold the drawer base.

It's been a week since I've started and I've only got three drawers made. Here's two:


Right now I'm wondering why on earth I decided to make drawer... but then I remind myself 1) I like using drawers more than cupboards or open shelves, 2) I can make them the size I want,
and 3) it's good for me, right?

These drawers are the right size for my patterns, which I store in manila envelopes. I made them a little bigger than standard file drawers b/c I'm always feeling like I'm squishing the envelopes.

I've also got some sewing done. The curtains in the sewing room are finally hemmed to the correct length (finally, almost 2 years after we moved in!).

I have to say I love having all my machines on one run of counter. I just roll where I need to go. The serger was a little bouncy, though. I think I installed the bracket on the edge of the stud not the middle of it. So I've installed another one in the middle and it seems to help. However, if you do a lot of embroidery, you may want to put legs on your table. I still may end up putting a leg at the front, but I'd rather not have to.

Other than that, everything is working as planned!