I’ve got a lot of projects I’ve cataloged over the years, so I figured Thursday’s would be a good schedule to compile them all and post them. The worst thing about going back and revisiting these old projects is the reminder of how bad I was/am at cataloging what I’ve been doing. A lot of projects don’t have that many pictures, and those that do, I’ve missed most of the good parts because I’m so caught up in the creation. If nothing else, hopefully it will keep the reminder to document fresh in mind, so when I look back at the projects I’m working on now, I’ll have a better record of them.
So the first up is from over 2.5 years ago, when we were building the nursery for baby-to-be. We decided on an adventure theme with the walls covered in fantasy maps. It seemed fitting to create some bookends for our shelves that fit that theme. We found some exploration gadgetry online that fit perfectly – a globe, a compass, an astrolabe, and a sextant. I wanted the bookends to highlight the objects themselves, so I chose a very simple, square L-shape. Short on time in getting the nursery together, I tried to find some online, though it appears that simple bookends are not in high demand. So decided to quickly put some together. This project worked out fairly fast – only a couple of hours of construction on the weekend.
I first cut some squares from some leftover boards I had lying around. I was making 4 bookends, so I cut 8 in total. The squares were all identical, as I wanted them a little taller than wide.
To get a joint that was more stable than just glued the two boards together, I drilled a few holes and secured the top board with two dowels and some wood glue. The dowel guides made it fairly easy to line everything up.
With the rest of the nursery still needing finishing touches, I opted for an all-in-one stain and sealant. Once dried, a little bit of adhesive tack secured the exploration tools to each of the bookends. This doesn’t provide any sort of permanent adhesive and you can see it very obviously from some angles of the sextant, but if we ever want to change the theme of the room and bookends, it will be very easy.
The final product on the bookshelves, ready for adventure.
Seritech Workbench 