Expert to Beginner

To have a higher chance of discovering your perfect home, take the time at the beginning of the house hunt to ask yourself a number of important questions that will help you and your real estate agent narrow the field and avoid a ton of inefficient work. Setting aside time to evaluate current market conditions can help you take smart decisions and realize the best return on your investment. Ask yourself the difficult questions up front to shrink down your options and spare yourself the risk of buying a house out of impulse that does not fit your long-term needs.

As the expression goes, location is crucial, and most real estate markets divide along organic divisions that set the pricing structure for a particular locale. Therefore one of the primary choices you have to make is the type of area matches your life best. Are you looking for a rural property with the capacity to expand, or is it more valuable to own less square footage to be close to your place of employment to trim down on your driving time? A small town could be enticing for its tranquilness however buying in the Halton Hills real estate sector when you have to drive to Toronto may not be a good choice. By defining the region that matches your preference in the beginning you are able to concentrate on investigating the offerings in the target real estate market. Narrowing the field by area specifics also helps you focus on the upcoming set of parameters based on what the market in that area has to offer.

Once you’re sure about where you’d like to live, stop to think through the kind of area you’ll need to make your new home comfortable and enjoyable. Besides the fundamental discussion of how many bedrooms and bathrooms you wish, also think about what sort of extra area is very important to you. Do you have plans for a workplace, have any equipment that requires storage or is it important for you to have a guest room. Would you like to have a big enclosed backyard on your property for the security of your kids and pets, or would a condo or tract home that needs little to no outdoor maintenance suit your needs better?

When you have determined where you would like to live and what size would be best, you will find properties in a number of conditions that affect the upfront cost of the property. If you are skilled at carpentry and have time to work on renovation projects, purchasing a distressed home — that are normally quite inexpensive — allows you to buy for less and perform repairs as your finances allow. In an active market like Brampton Ontario you can look for distressed Brampton properties for sale that other buyers may not have thought about. If you have the kind of busy life that makes convenience your first priority, you should concentrate on houses or condos that are “move-in-ready” and will not need any immediate enhancements.

Naturally, the bottom line is usually what you’ll be able to pay, and to make sure you do not set up a circumstance you later regret, it’s important to wisely assess your finances and provide that information freely along with your real estate professional to realistically establish the most advantageous means to finance your purchase. Invest your time in knowing the effects of the current mortgage rates and housing trends and make sure to research to determine if there are any federal programs that apply to your case.

2/26 ... the cylinder bedside tables left this week ... verrrrry funky objects ... we didnt get rich on this one, but hey, we love a challenge .... forgot to take a picture with the doors open and the shelves inside, but it all worked out and the client loved them .... we decided in the end to add hardware later if necessary. probably not as the doors open easily without it ...
there was a bench with a kilim covered cushion ( to be completed by the owners upholsterer) that is in the same room as these. the legs are similar and the photos are at the bottom of this post ...
update 2 11 ... we spent most of this week finishing the big island project ... more on that when its really finished and delivered. in the meantime we puttered on the cylinder tables, trevor made a jig and figured out how to cut the powderjet snowboards on the cnc, and we moved along on four different custom seating projects i have yet to post ... also, were tentatively entering the world of video ... slowly figuring out that people actually watch them ... i checked my you tube channel after i uploaded these two and found that a video i posted two years ago and mentioned once in my blog has been viewed 20,500 times. the others on my channel have also had limited but surprising view counts ... i was just figuring it out .. anyway, well try to do more and better as time allows. above, trevor and jim veneer the tops of the glued up cylinder tables and the doors. theyll be ready to assemble and finish next week. the new videos are toward the bottom of this post ... let me know what you think ... thanks ...
well, you know what they say, no problems? ... might as well invent some ... one of my longtime clients gave me the concept for a bedside table she had seen somewhere .. a cylinder with a door, and a space on top for a shelf, metal legs and a round top ... well, we love a new concept and, really, how hard can it be? a couple of forms, a little joinery? i mean, theyre only 18" x 27" ... how long can they take? ... ok, well try it ... that was a while ago, and while i can delegate parts, i cant exactly delegate a process that i cant actually describe myself .. whats next? hmmmm, lets figure out this step and then well see ... techniques build on techniques and this one is a direct relative of this one, maybe like a second cousin or great uncle ... related for sure ... click the pictures to enlarge them....
we went through a couple pre steps .. drawings, mockups, stuff like that until we settled more or less on the dimensions shown in the cad drawing above.
from the cad drawing, trevor made the form for laminating the wacky wood and bending birch sections of the cylinders ...
one still in the form ...
turn down your sound if you want to watch this video of the operation above. i forgot to record it with the sound off. ive made a lot of things with curved panels over the years and feel this to be a safe operation. some would protest and say im nuts ... so, disclaimer here: dont try this at home unless you have confidence in your wood working hand eye skills. you might want to use a higher reference fence to keep more of the panel in contact with the fence ... a foot operated off switch is helpful too ...
trevor also made the 1/3 jig for cutting the sections to fit together into a circle ... another video clip here ... worked slick ...
we stuck them together, figured out the angles on the solid wood pieces we needed to join them together and recut them using the jig and the new lines...
we added some dominoes to hold the parts together until we get the clamps on them and were almost ready to glue them up ... we still have to add the supports for the interior shelf and do some final sanding ... sams got the first three legs made ... next week, we should have something to see...
this metal bench was part of the same project ... welded steel with rivets by sam


a short note : i hate typing ... particularly on a laptop. my fingers are like carrots and i spend about half the time im writing, correcting my mistakes ... so, those of you who know me know i long ago eliminated capital letters from my email correspondence, i am now eliminating it from my blog posts unless a howl of reader protest ensues ... what would miss shelley say? i say content and time are more important than capitalization ... (three typing corrections in the last sentence, even without the capitals) ... all for now ... packers? ... steelers? ... im originally from penns woods so im going with the steelers ...

My tree house attachment method met with some failure last week, and Im lucky the tree house is still in the trees.

Somethings not quite right . . .

I began my tree house construction by researching methods of attachment which would allow the trees to move without tearing the tree house apart. I came upon the Garnier Limb, which is a special bolt designed to hold a tree house. When combined with the appropriate corresponding bracket, the Garnier Limb allows the tree house to move interdependently of the trees. Becuase Garnier Limbs were so expensive, I came up with a similar method which used commercially available 3/4" galvanized bolts.


I wrote about my attachment design process in my first Tree House post. Dan Wright of treehousespupplies.com commented that my method would only hold 10% of what their Treehouse Attachment Bolt would hold and that. I acknowledged that my design was weaker, but I thought would still be more than strong enough.

Last Thursday I woke to find that I was wrong. As I walked out to my truck on my way to work, I noticed that the tree house didnt look quite right. Once I made it across the yard and to the tree house, I found that one of the bolt had sheared at the tree, and a corner of the tree house deck was hanging down about 18".

I immediately made supports out of some scrap 2x8 to prevent further damage. That night I made more permanent temporary supports out of sistered 2x4. I added one of these supports to each of the three (3) corners held up by my homemade tree house support.
On reflection, I suppose the Garnier Limb or Treehouse Attachment Bolt would have been a better option. At least the failure that did occur didnt hurt anyone and nothing is damaged beyond repair.

In the coming weeks Ill get back to it and the tree house will soon be as good as new.

After a long and rather fulfilling day in the woodshop, Glue Bear takes a step back to admire some of his handy work.
Stay tuned...

Just an update - Im making progress on the staining of the cherry. No pictures this time. I have at least another week of staining yet, and then I might be able to think about pulling onto the jobsite!

I invited the customer to my shop to inspect the desk, and he is very happy with what he saw!
We decided the desk would look a little better with a bigger footprint, so it was decided to add "feet" to the desk. I took the same top trim design (just below the desk top), flipped it upside down, and 45d in some feet. Here are some pics...

The next step is to poly the desk. This will be a spray on application. After that, we will deliver it to the home!