After a few minutes of trying to knit I decided I'd rather round up our scrap wood and build a cat tree.
A few hours later I walked away from a moderately satisfactory cat tree, or at least I thought so. The cats only seem inclined to use it when we're also in the room with them, something that suggests that it's not really as attractive a play thing for cats as I'd hoped.
Even if the cat tree was as successful at distracting the cats as I'd hoped, I think it was successful in another area - it re-ignited my interested in making wood products of questionable quality. So while I'm not knitting, Jeannette's ultimatum was successful in that it got me interested in making thing (which was really all she wanted).
After the cat tree process I began to realize that not having a stool to use at my work bench was a little frustrating. Over the next few weeks I began to think about various commercially produced stools that are available at some of the local stores. Of course, as I don't expect to use this stool all that much I wasn't interested in paying all that much.
Then, I think it was last Thursday (it could have been last Tuesday or the Thursday before that), I realized that we probably had enough wood left over from the cat tree scraps (which, as you'll recall, were themselves scraps) to fashion a quick stool, or at least something approximating a stool.
Almost as soon as Jeannette was out the door and on her way to band practice I got down to work on my stool.
Within maybe an hour or so I was done.
While I was relatively happy with my quickly conceived and constructed stool I was also aware that it wasn't the world's best stool.
Almost as soon as Jeannette returned from band practice she was shown my new stool.
Almost immediately Jeannette noted the stool's relatively unstable nature. That both of Jeannette's feet are off the ground when she sits on the stool make this feature particularly problematic.
Of course, even before Jeannette was kind enough to point out my stool's various faults, I was somewhat aware that it was a less than ideal stool. Hell, I even know that it was a touch 'tippy' if the user wasn't careful.
Almost as soon as I received this criticism I began to formulate plans for a bench that would be anything but unstable. If the Titantic was to be unsinkable, than this bench was to be untippable.
To achieve this untippable nature, I decided to use an A-frame base that would be quite wide, much wider than the bench's seating area. Of course this A-frame would then be braced in various ways to ensure stability and, most importantly, untippableness.
Of course, as easy as the a-frame concept was to devise, how I might attach a bench-like sitting area to an A-frame base wasn't immediately obvious to me.
I eventually settled on chopping off the top of the A-frame off and then just using a bunch of long screws to attach the sitting area to the base.
Once I'd designed the bench in my head (an approach to design that does not require one to take measurements or really even plan for likely problems) I had to convince Jeannette that buying wood and tools for this project was worthwhile.
Fortunately, Jeannette was relatively easy to convince and last Saturday after picking up about 90% of the necessary supplies I set about working on my bench.
Much to my surprise it started to come together quite quickly and easily.
By the end of the first day I'd cut all but two pieces (the 10% of the supplies I didn't have). On Sunday I cut the final two pieces and began to assemble the base - which also came together quite quickly.
On Tuesday evening I started assembling the sitting area. Unfortunately, relatively early on in the process I managed to snap a drill bit and basically bring the night's work to a screeching halt.
Finally, after getting a new drill bit yesterday after work, I was able to complete the assembly of the bench.
Unfortunately, this bench is also a little high for Jeannette (maybe one of the drawbacks of an all mental design process?) but just as sturdy and tip-proof as I'd hoped.
I've been doing a little sanding tonight and eventually we'll but some kind of finish on it and then we'll call it a day. Jeannette's even hoping that by next weekend things will be warm enough outside that we'll be about to use on our patio.
Anyway, if you ever happen to come over please feel free not to test the untippableness of this bench. As we all know, the power of hubris brought icebergs into the Titanic's path and I'm hoping to avoid a similar tipping related fate for this bench and those who might be sitting upon it at that ill-fated moment.
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