Last Saturday I found a bus that I really liked. I’ve been searching Craigslist and TheSamba several times a day for at least a month prior to Saturday. I had a pretty specific set of criteria…must be a 1971, must not have major body damage, must be able to drive as-is, must have a camper pop-top, etc. So imagine my glee when I saw this around lunchtime on Friday:

After being giddy for a couple days, I’m realizing just how much work there is to make Boris running and operating the way I want. Read more…

I saw this Vivaterra knife block a long time ago, but couldn’t justify spending $90 on a box of bamboo skewers. As with many things, my first reaction was, “I could make that.” However, I never did.

Fast forward 3 or 4 years: Paula and I are visiting one of my favorite stores, Harbor Freight. It’s one of the bigger ones, and it happens to have a kitchen section. And in that kitchen section….a very familiar (if ugly) knife block for only 13 bucks!

The original is pretty blah looking. The black polypropylene bristles look awful next to the light wood. The block is also in a very traditional style–ok for some, but not quite my taste. On a side note, the bristles were instantly fun to play with as soon as I opened the box.

I brought the block into the woodshop for a few modifications. It actually has a false bottom, which works great for what I had in mind. I began by removing all the cheap hardware bits from the base.

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