I Have a Desk!

Sitting at my new "desk", drinking the morning smoothie and munching on more of the sesame bread. It didn't cause any digestive distress yesterday so I figure it's safe to eat. However it reminds me a lot of lembas bread: I can see it being very nutritional and filling (especially in conjunction with the aforementioned smoothie), but it's already getting old. So far this morning I have tidied, practiced piano, and cleaned the cat box.

Now it's time to post and I have a couple of driving subjects for the day: the desk, and Jessie's first week at school. I may have to post twice today (gasp!). I don't think I have ever done that before. But before I go on, the dogs are jumping around like jacks so I think I need to take them for a quick walk down the street. They can look for lizards, and I can look for Pokemon. Back in a few...

.....

So about the "desk"... Got it set up this past weekend. It's a "desk" instead of a desk as it's really just a 3X6 sheet of plywood on sawhorses, but it's better than the dining room table. Dave and Jessie think so too as we might now be able to eat without having to shift mounds of papers out of the way! It's especially nice because it comes with a great view (out of the bedroom window into the backyard). Part of the view this morning included what looks to me like a juvenile hawk or eagle. It's definitley not a vulture which is what am used to seeing. (The turkey vultures are enormous and soar on the thermals looking for, I don't know, dead things.

The desk even has its own cat tree already occupied with cats! Though the
cat tree this morning is going against the natural order as Pavlova is on the top and Kaiju is on the bottom. Even after winning the top spot she still can't resist coming down to annoy him... I can tell it's going to be hard to get things done at this spiffy new desk--too many distractions!

You might wonder why I didn't just buy a desk. I'm afraid I am lost in a new project space: Furniture. And everywhere I look, I see a potential building/redoing project. This new artisanal space was introduced to me back in the spring of 2015 when I did an inlay project for Jessie's class auction project for school. I have wanted to do more of that type of work ever since, but haven't had time. Arguably I still don't have time, but the idea stayed in my head and now it's expanded to include glass and lighting. And Dr. Who. In fact for the desk project, I may not do any wood inlay at all. Instead I may focus entirely on straight lines and common geometric shapes (circles, triangles, etc.) and if I do, I won't inlay. Instead I'll route out narrow grooves for all the lines, stain the wood on either side of the lines different colors (oak, ebony, walnut, ash, e.g.,) and then fill in the routed lines with black something-or-other. I'll still do glass inlay, however.

As part of the work I do with Todd, I drill circles out of my finished pieces with a core drill and a drill press. Till now the glass circles were a by-product which occasionally got used in pieces by Todd, or which I thought might make interesting jewelry. They come in diameters from 1/2" to 4", but most of them are about 1.25", and they are 1/4" to 3/8" thick. After they have been cut out, I grind the sides with my lap grinder and then fire polish them so they are all nice and shiny but still have straight sides and crisp edges.

Now I want to inlay them in wood with the hole they are in going all the way through the wood so light shines up from underneath/behind. Because the glass is thick and the colors can be dark, if there is no light the glass will look meh. That's where the lighting comes in. I am working with our electrician here to create some led rings that can be mounted with the glass so that it's lit up. The wiring will be channeled through the wood and come out in a standard plug. We might even (at some point) make the lighting work with a rechargeable battery pack so furniture like tables and chairs won't have to be placed near an outlet. The other pieces of furniture I want to do this way are a headboard for our bed (built from scratch) and our dining room table refinished, inlaid and retrofitted with lights). The dining room table will definitely be inlaid with wood and the glass circles as I want to do organic, meandering cracks (like the one in the original games cabinet). I'll post pics as I go.

Now it's time to head out to the studio to put a slump load in the kiln, finish a wall panel with a Hang Your Glass system, and wait for USPS to deliver my grinding pads so I can polish up an 8"x13"x1" slab that I am supposed to ship to New Jersey today...