Good morning & happy Friday :)
Last week was a pretty fun week for me. After almost a year of putting it off, I committed the time to build "me" something. haha! So often in my work life I'm building things for other people and businesses - which is totally and completely fine! I'm grateful to build things for people :)
I think this is how a chef must feel spending so much time cooking for everyone that making themselves something special or a bomb ass sammich (me, I love sammy's) that, that kind of creativity must feel awesome... so! for me, I built some custom Chevy orange aluminum race shelves to match the desk I built last year. :)
Here's a short 3min video of the completed race shelves and a quick rundown after completing it... also gives a quick tour of my office. https://youtu.be/JLUpKsE7qf8
Last year I built a custom sit stand desk [which I'm standing now btw ;) ] that was made of extruded aluminum with a glass top over a melamine base creating a Chevy orange angle shadow box. I love, love this thing. Since my first water feature, this is the first thing I've built myself that I can actually use.
Just this morning! I posted a video of exactly how I built my desk. After about 1500 views on youtube I got feedback asking how exactly I built it... so if you have 8 minutes, check out this detailed video :) https://youtu.be/czo0oFXQgx4
Back to the point... :) Over this year, I have had my car shelves right behind my awesome desk. As a motivator, I decided to NOT clean the cars or my shelves until I built the new one. As you can tell the shelves here do not match my desk... as one whom coordinates their belt color with their shoes, or hat to a type/color of shirt... The wood color didn't jive with the feel and feng shui of where I spend so much of my time... surprisingly, this kinda bothered me! >D
Additionally, the traditional brackets didn't allow stack-able space for more shelves. This again was a problem. So, I reached out to my buddies at JMT Electrical Manufacturing and asked if they could bend a piece of steel up that would allow me to stack more shelves together...(there are about another 8 cars that don't fit and are stowed away elsewhere) So I sent them a design and they bent it up perfectly!
This design allowed me to add an additional shelf and stay within the height requirement I set on myself not to exceed. Taking out the angle of a traditional bracket made this possible. She's a stout 3/16" THICK piece of steel... stout enough to not bend while under weight without the angle. Since I was making these custom, I kicked the size out to about 50.5" instead of the traditional 48"... every inch counts! ;)
After cutting all the material, grinding the brackets down for paint, I happily assembled each on... in case you were wondering.. yes! I felt exactly like a chef taking a napkin and polishing the plate before presentation. :)
Hot DAMN!! .. the paint is Chevy Orange ENGINE paint.. that stuff is heavier than air.. Just look at the orange paint dust everywhere in this pic compared to the pic above. hahah! Chas wasn't happy with what I was tracking into the house that day...haha! >D
and YES! I did have that much Styrofoam just chillin in my shop.. well shed. ;)
... a craftsman levels everything ;) at least that's what my grampa told me. RIP GP <3
I occupied the same exact footprint as the last shelves, this time, though, we tightened it up and added the extra one.
A design oversight I had was not accounting for my view below.. the bottom of the shelves were brown.. that = no feng shui... I was able to tastefully cover the bottoms with white contact paper. It looks really sharp and would never have known. ;)
This turned out really cool... the studs I put in the wall were finished with a special rubbered washer and acorn nut... it looks like a valve stem on a tire.. perfect for the cars :)
BLIZAM! :)
I could not be happier with this final look / balance between the two. Problem solved! .. yes, that's a big ass picture of Optimus Prime on the right.. He helps hold me accountable to me.
After :)
Before :)
Coming into my office this week has been a really cool feeling. You can tell I'm still jacked with excitement. :) I really appreciate you allowing me to share my project with you. I hope you have time to check out the videos when you have time. :) Here they are in case you were so memorized by my awesome photography. :)
How I built my Custom Chevy Orange Sit Stand Desk: https://youtu.be/czo0oFXQgx4
Custom Chevy Orange Aluminum Race Shelves: https://youtu.be/JLUpKsE7qf8
Now to what makes Friday's so special :) In the spirit craftsmanship.. :) grinder and sparks never looked so cool!
I hope you enjoyed this Friday's post. Lots of detail, lots of time went into this and I really enjoy sharing it with you; thank you. If it's any correlation, we take this same attention to detail and level of explanation into how we market your house or explaining the process of buying or selling. All with the same level of enthusiasm. If you or someone you know would appreciate this attention to detail and kind guidance, Chas and I would be grateful to help.
We hope you all have a fantastic weekend! Be safe and love those around you.
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