Upcoming Carpentry Projects

I've been in my current digs (avec girlfriend and her cat) for about four years now. In the same town for that plus about six months. When you're in an apartment or townhouse that has no garage, no shed, no covered parking spots, and only a paltry patio, it's difficult to rationalize purchasing too many tools or having too many projects. Every time I think of buying something that is larger than a T-shirt or a book or a DVD, I have the same questions for myself:

• How are you going to pay for it?

I'm not poor by any means, but I'm not well off enough to buy my own house or a place that has the aforementioned garage/shed/covered parking

• How much will you use it?

I have that tendency that some others share where I start a lot of projects or think I'll get excited about a various hobby, only to fizzle out soon afterwards. That didn't stop me from buying an electric guitar and amp, nor did it stop me from buying a few paint supplies and building my own easel to try out some Bob Ross-style painting, but the results of those make the next time around a little less likely to result in a purchase.

• Where will you store it?

This is the biggie. At this point, all our closets are pretty much busting at the seams. Two bicycles stored in the master bedroom closet? Check. Or, well, until I took one out, rode it a few times, and have now left it in the kitchen because it's filthy and I don't want to clean it or put it back in the closet. New tool chest loaded with tools in the other bedroom (office) closet? Check. And a damn good thing it is, too, because I kept buying tools and was just piling them on each other...as a result, this was a great purchase, but that doesn't make the closet feel any more full. Bowling ball bag, car wash bucket, old birdhouse, box of paints/adhesives/aerosols, and two coolers in the downstairs coat closet? Check.

You get the idea. It's a damn mess. Girlfriend doesn't complaint much, but if I bring it up she will share my anxiety about it. The cat doesn't complain at all--what a trouper. But that doesn't mean there aren't still ideas running through my head. Occasionally one of them is even decent!

At the moment, I have two that I have considered tackling before we move to our next place (hopefully next summer, if girlfriend gets her first post-doctorate assignment as we hope she does). One is an oak mission-style headboard, and this one seems less likely than the other. The idea is good, I think--we currently have no headboard for our bed and also have nothing hanging on that wall above the bed, making that part of the room seem awfully bare.

https://images.furnituredealer.net/img/products%2Fdaniels_amish%2Fcolor%2
Famish%20mission_30-3111%2B3121%2B3101-b0.jpg

My dad, who actually could be considered a hobbyist carpenter and is a good craftsman, likes the plainness of mission-style furniture and has turned a number of pieces in the style out of oak. I suspect I'm first in line to inherit a lot of this stuff, and will be proud to have it in my home one day. Toward that end, it seems only natural to consider making some of it for myself.

The biggest problem, as I see it, is that I don't have the tools that I want to have (or, in some cases, the caliber of tools that I want to have) to do this project. I have no table saw, which proved to be a problem in my last project of making some large floating frames out of oak (what else?) with acrylic instead of glass. My chisels are also not of good quality, which seems like a problem for a project that requires (if I use the picture above as my guide) mortise-and-tenon joints all the way down the long axis of the headboard. God forbid I make an accompanying footboard to match it!

The other project rattling around, one that seems much more doable, cheaper and less worrisome is a table/bench to go outside. I have a small patio, as mentioned, and we are separated by our closest neighbor by a fence. We also have an A/C unit next to the patio, one of those 3x3x3 jobs, and a small sliver of space between these three components and our house. What I really want it to be is a table that I can put my CorningWare on when I'm grilling, so I don't have to put it on the floor or constantly hold it...it's a problem whenever I'm taking stuff off the grill. I would like it to also be short enough to be mostly hidden from view by the A/C unit to anyone staring at the back of our house. I would also like it to be large and heavy and sturdy enough not to blow away or get ripped off--the former is a good idea with Indiana's weather patterns, but the latter might be impossible.

It struck me while I was trying to think of what sort of small table to build that having it convert to a table would also be mighty slick: a place we could sit and eat on our patio, just the two of us, on a few occasions per summer. Not that it might matter much, as we may be moved out of the house by the time next summer rolls around. But that does seem pretty cute to me, and I was able to find a could interesting ideas that seemed to fit the bill:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/lawn-garden/a14584/picnic-table-transformer/

Obviously, the above has the perk of being portable enough that I would consider taking it with me--you never know when you might need outdoor seating for four that takes up only a third of your compact car's back seat in its packed form. That's small enough to be stowed in a closet or on a garage shelf!

The problem, as I see it is, is that it is MUCH more complicated than I think I can handle. It involves all manner of tightly managed cuts, round seats (maybe not a requirement for the plan but that's how they did it) and probably a lot of hardware. Also, doesn't look hard to rip off when it has a handle built right in to the top of it--my lack of a router might be the biggest hurdle in making it just like this. Finally, it is small, which sounds great, but I'd really been looking for something a bit larger, large enough to take up the whole space between my house/my patio/my A/C unit/my neighbor's fence, which I haven't measured but figure is probably about 40"x30".

https://grabcad.com/library/folding-picnic-table-2

This here has the more ideal shape going for it--a rectangle. It also converts to a picnic-style table, which, let's be honest, is just cuter for looking at and sitting on. It appears it would require fewer bracing points in its various alignments, which requires less material and/or hardware, which helps the wallet. And, finally, it requires fewer strange cuts. I think this might be the one. But I'll have to keep thinking about it--even after watching the .gif 50 times I'm not entirely sure where the strength of it comes from...and I'm no small guy. Me and the miss come to about 450 these days, which is actually an improvement, but this table doesn't look that sturdy.