Our Playroom

Our shop is where my husband and I hang out and play.  We play at fixing and revamping furniture, creating stuff and things, and working on our cars (OK the last is really "Mr. in the Styx's" thing).  We just got done adding some decorations to it, totally my husband's idea, so I thought it would be a good time to show it off.
  This first picture is one of the walls where my husband utilized some of the old kitchen cabinets from our remodel years ago.  The Tonkas were our daughter's, nephew's, and friends son's from days gone by.  Hubby just hung up the deer antlers and skull yesterday.  He's not really sure about them but they are fine for now.

These are a few of his small treasures that he's acquired over the years.  Some were given to him, but most were found at the old dump sites around here.  There is another wall that I didn't take pictures of that is full of different Tonkas and treasures.

The picture on the left is an old mop bucket that I picked up last summer, it makes a pretty good container for the kindling.  This other piece is one of my favorite things. 

 Our shop isn't plumbed, so washing out my brushes was a pain.  I would use an old mason jar that I would have to dump at least three times each cleaning.  I was telling my husband about the stand alone barista at Paris Flea Market, and how the sink was set up with a 5 gallon grey water container that they empty every day.  I thought it would be nice if we had something like this in the shop as a cleaning station.  Well the next day he took me out to this old camper that we have scavenged just about everything out of, and asked if I thought the sink would work.  Heck yah it would work!  On the way back to the shop with the sink I eyed an old barbeque that had been laying around for years and asked if the stand on it would work for the wash station, so in the shop it went and we started creating this.  My husband cut out the top from some leftover plywood and screwed on some old tin roofing on three sides.  The back is open with a 5 gallon bucket.  It works great!  Now if we only had bathroom facilities.

And now for some fish!

We were watching American Restoration the other day and there was a quiz on what to use to age wood.  Well I new the answer to that after seeing it on so many blogs - steel wool soaked in vinegar.  We had never tried it, so the next day hubby makes up a batch and decides he wants to try it on one of the fish he had just cut out of some white pine (these are the two outside ones, and the single one in the picture above.)  This is pretty amazing if you haven't tried it.  The mixture is clear but after you slather on a few coats and let it set, the wood gets darker and aged looking.  Well he couldn't stop at two, so he applied some to the 3 original fish he had made.  You can see how it varies on different types of wood.  The bottom two of this trio are made out of cedar, and the top one is bull pine.  I finished them with some wipe on poly to help preserve them.  Not only did these turn out well, but is also an idea to stash away for some future projects.   

Well enough of the computer, I think I'll go over to the shop and play.

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