DGS at 15 and IKEA Leksvik Cabinet Remake

Welcome August

Project this week: Repurposed Cabinet to Dresser

This is the 'after' of this week's project - a small dresser.

Part 1 of this post:

DGS 15th BIRTHDAY was a couple of weeks ago.

At 15 DGS helps with more things we (mostly me) can not reach, lift, fix, move...

He is showing a good ability to discuss a problem rationally (so rational that he usually comes out ahead on problem solving).

DGS has 2 years of high school woodworking with a great teacher who thoroughly taught using all the hand tools and how to use every machine in the workshop before letting the students work on their projects, lots of practice before using the expensive wood. Clean up after yourself was included. He is carrying on with Woodworking and Tech as his electives in grade 10.

This week... DGS did the following projects...

• installed curtain rods, level
• installed shelves, level
• installed a smoke detector
• figured out how to take weird screws out of DH's IKEA Cabinet  
  Remake project and then found the right bit to make it happen 
  PLUS how to separate the pieces of wood once the weird screws 
  were either loosened or removed  (lots of wooden dowels in 
  construction (depending on their placement)

When DGS was14 earlier this year he clipped a long blue computer type of wire up high to connect his wi-fi stuff to direct wi-fi stuff.

DGS has a very weird and clever sense of humour, keeps us on our toes.

Grandparents of a terrific grandson always get to re-learn something they likely practiced when they were 'parents'.

What I am re-practicing now as I leave the years of the  'helping' part of Grand-parenting is to learn and remember to 'back off' because when you are 15 you know how to ...

So, don't boss, don't re-ask, don't butt in. Let this precious 15 year old do what he either is figuring out how to do something (thinking time) or reviewing what he can already do. Be patient and keep your mouth shut, if he wants to do the work he will, if not, well, you get to do it yourself.


So, the 2nd part of this post - the IKEA Leksvik Cabinet update. 

I posted finding and hauling home Curb Find and Remembering March 15, 2018.

It is an IKEA Leksvik Cabinet (a reader identified it for me). Big, heavy, solid pine, well constructed, missing a door and two shelves. DGS (at 14) helped me get it into the back of the van - and that was not easy. It has been in the living room now for almost 6 months.  It is too big and there is no-where-else-to-put-it -in-our-house. 


Problem: the living room is crammed full of furniture and stuff and this cabinet did not make the situation better.

(Peaches is being a VERY good patient as her leg heals from her operation last Friday).

What is our solution? Well, first there was a LOT of discussion. I removed all the piles of stuff on the shelves and top and boxed it for now. 

We decided to take-it-apart.

The IKEA Cabinet was put together VERY well and the screw/dowels holding the system together were amazing. Finding a screwdriver head that would work on the big sized screws plus the small sized screws took awhile (I think they use special IKEA screws that may have originally come with the corrected screw drivers for assembling).

This is the back of the cabinet before taking it apart (below).

I don't know how many photos of  'take a piece of furniture apart and make something with the pieces' you can stand.


The bottom board of the cabinet was used for the top and bottom of the drawers. DH added a base using the narrow boards on the top shelf of the cabinet and DGS tacked on the back pieces which you can see above in the 'backboards' picture.

All pieces used to turn the 'drawers' in a cabinet into stand alone drawers were part of the original cabinet.

 

Before and After

Here is another 'scaled down' project from a large shelf to a "Shrinking Bookshelf", January 25, 2018.

Now we have a small chest of drawers and space.

My job: find things and cleanup

Cost: no cost
Time: about 4 hours over a couple of days
Retrieving space in the living room: priceless


The left over wooden pieces from the cabinet will be turned into a free-standing shelf.

Thank you for visiting today.

Always appreciate your comments.

Joy

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