I am always staying busy being creative and for the longest time I have wanted to enclose my LED tv in my bedroom into a picture frame. I have been hesitant to do it because I thought it was too difficult, but today I decided to just do it and I did. This is how I did it.
First I went to the local home depot and picked out some wall trim that I liked. I chose a vinyl trim casing that was 8 foot long and it was about $13.00. I got 2 of them.
I also purchased a 12 foot long 1×4 pine board, some recessed cable plates, and a french cleat.
A french cleat is hard to explain so here is a picture. It is a nice way to hang things.
This is what the wall inserts look like:
This is how they look in the wall after I rerouted my wiring.
I am getting ahead of myself a little but in this article but what I did was hold the frame up against the wall and inside the frame I marked where I wanted to cut the hole out. Using the provided template that came with the outlet box, I drew it out on the wall and used a dremel with a drywall cutting drill bit that lets you cut sideways and I cut the square out.
I did this same thing a lot lower in the wall behind the dresser for the power to go up the wall to the frame.
Now back to making the frame.
I first measured the outside length and width of the tv as it lay face down on a piece of foam.
Next I cut the 1×4 pine board to create a box around the tv using a brad nail gun powered by air.
After that I used a miter box to cut 45 degree angles into the pieces that will become the frame.
I carefully measured for the frame cuts. I wanted to cover the tv’s silver edge, but not the buttons and remote sensor, so I measured carefully, did some figuring and decided to come in about 3/8 of an inch all around the tv. I built the frame and stapled the seam with a staple gun. This was the only way at the time for me to connect the pieces.
It looked like this. I didn’t get a good picture at the time. Sorry about that.
After that I had to position the box and frame carefully as the tv was bigger on the bottom than the top, so this meant that the box would not line up with the square in the frame. Again hard to explain, but basically you have to do some math and measuring and configure the frame atop the box in the precise location to where the tv will look its best and no infrared sensors or other touch buttons will be affected by the frame, then proceed to nail it to the box. You can cover the nail heads later with putty or just pain right over them.
Drill some holes in the top for ventilation. These tvs can put off some heat and after all this work, you dont want to burn up your precious tv!
I put some big 3/4 holes in the top since heat rises, and smaller holes at the bottom which serves at dual purpose. More ventilation, as heat rises, it will also pull air up into the box, and for sound to escape as the speakers are on the bottom of the tv.
You will also see the French Cleat installed in the above picture.
Here is the other half of the cleat mounted to the wall.
Here is the frame unpainted mounted on the wall. Very easy.
Now to paint it. I chose a leather brown and let some of the white shine through in spots.
Here it is all finished.
Total cost of this project:
2 eight foot white casing boards = $25.12
1 one by four pine board = $7.18
2 wall passthru plates = $8.00
1 French Cleat = $15.00
1 can spray paint = $4.00
I had every intention of making an iPhone application and have it in the app store by now making me some money. I made it my new years resolution! I wrote about it here http://www.seizethepage.com/mac-and-ios-application-development/ Unfortunately for me, I never got around to it.
Sorry, but I got caught up in a new hobby after the kitchen remodel in April.
My new hobby is artisan concrete.
I taught myself how to make my own custom concrete counter tops during the kitchen remodel. It was fun and very rewarding. We could not find any style or color of granite that we liked. Granite is over done, played out. It has limits. We decided that we didn’t want it, and wanted some pre-cast custom concrete tops.
I must say that there is just something about taking a custom recipe mix of dust and making it a liquid and then a solid that will be appreciated for years to come.
Since then I have been learning about making sinks and other cool projects with concrete.
After the kitchen remodel I was consumed by concrete and with summer coming on full blast, I was not near a computer unless I was at work. I live in the backyard from sun up till sundown in the summer time and never made time to sit inside and code an application for the iPhone.
Sorry for that. Maybe I will give myself an extension of a year to try it again.
As many of you that read this blog know, I am doing a concrete sink project that will be in the shape of a guitar and used outdoors. It is a really big project with the counter top being 8 foot long. I have been taking my time with this sink because it will be my first sink. If I wanted to do it like my kitchen counter tops and make it with the hand pressed technique I could have already been done, but I want to try something new.
If I were to do the hand pressed look which makes it look more like granite or marbled, I would have to slurry coat the entire thing to fill in the voids, and also do this deep inside the sink. Then I would have to sand it several times to get a glossy finish. That’s OK, but I really do not want to slurry this one if I do not have too. Nor do I want to sand and sand and sand. I want a more machined look, crisp, smooth and clean.
This can be achieved two ways. I can either wet cast or spray the concrete.
If I wet cast, that’s simply a wetter mix that is really flow-able and I can just pour it into the mold. This is good, but my counter top thickness is 1.5 inches and the sink is 6 inches deep. In order to wet cast I would have to build my mold up in tiers so that I could pour the counter top, cover it with more melamine, then build sides around the sink and pour some more. This will require more concrete mix and more melamine.
If I spray the concrete, it will be a GRFC mix (glass fiber reinforced concrete) and I will not have to use any metal bracing in the concrete like I would have to do in the other two types of concrete casting. Whats so cool about doing this, is that not only will it use less concrete, but I will not have to build up a two tier mold, will not have to add metal bracing, will give me a smooth finish with less if not no bug holes to fill.
I really really wanted to do GFRC but I have never done it before. When I researched it I kept finding out that I needed a really large air compressor. I needed a hopper gun specifically designed for spraying concrete, and I had neither of these things. I only have a 2.5 horsepower 15 gallon compressor.
I read in very few places where some guys were getting by with even smaller compressors. This made me think it might be possible after all. Next I needed a gun to shoot the concrete with. Luckily a friend of mine has a drywall hopper gun. With a few modifications to tilt the hopper bucket further back using a 45 degree PVC fitting, I think this too will work.
Drywall Hopper Gun used to Spray GFRC
After I got the hopper gun I plugged it into the compressor to see how it works. Now I know why they say I need a large compressor. When you plug the gun in, its constantly blowing air. All the trigger does is dump whats in the hopper in front of the moving air.
I came to an realization that in order for this to work I was going to need to regulate the air and be able to turn it off and on when I needed it, so I could save the air and this way my compressor would run out of air so fast and I have to wait on it to fill up. A quick trip to Lowes to find what I needed and all was well.
Now to test.
OK, so I need to test this stuff out, but on what? Not going to waste an effort, so I remembered this small plastic pond thing that I picked up at Lowes several months back that wanted to one day make a sink from.
Pond Liner used for Concrete Sink
Well today was that day. I quickly fashioned a standard mold, its quite small actually at 19×24 inches. I affixed the pond thingy with silicon, added my tail piece for the sink drain made from a PVC pipe and rubber gasket, then 3 other pieces of PVC for the faucet, a typical 4 inch bathroom faucet. Now I am ready to spray, or try to.
Concrete Sink Mold
I made my mix and poured it into my hopper. I then sprayed a little on a piece of cardboard to see how it would spray.
I felt confident I had most of it all right, and I began to spray my mold. After it set a while I back-filled with my not so wet mix. I did this by hand. Everything looked good and I covered it for 2 days. On the 3rd day I took it out of the mold and I was delighted at what I was seeing. For my first run at this it was pretty flawless. There were a few bug holes to fill inside the sink and seal it up.
First sprayed layer of GFRC
Concrete Sink
This was a great first test run and I think I will do one more of this same sink and make the counter for it larger, before I tackle my outdoor integral guitar sink.
I recently got into a discussion over the internet with some friends about charging the iphone with shake technology.
Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a reserve battery in your cellphone for emergencies and all you had to do was shake your iphone for 30 secs or so to get it charged enough to use it? Think about it. Your cell phone could be charging its reserve while you run, walk, or while its in your pocket while you are walking!
Some have never heard of such, and here I was thinking that everyone knew about this kind of technology to charge things.
I cant remember when I heard about it first, but many many years ago my Aunt got me a shake light for my Birthday and I was wow’d at the simple technology behind it. It has this really neat wireless switch that works of magnetics. It charges itself with a magnet passing through another magnet with wires wrapped around it. This charges a capacitor and stores the power. It can be charge hundreds of thousands of times.
Here is a video from the company demonstrating all there is to know about the light.
Its a fantastic flashlight and I recommend it to anyone. Its a great light to keep in your trunk as you will never have to worry about batteries corroding. Take it hunting or fishing, camping, anywhere!
REMEMBER: if Apple decides to use this in one of their future phones. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST !!!
This is my first attempt at making a concrete sink and I am blogging about it in parts.
In this post I wanted to post several pictures of the cabinet as it is now completed. Also the sink will take the shape of a guitar. I worked on the guitar mold for quite some time now and tonight I completed it.
The cabinet was a simple build with 2×4′s and later I put older would on the facing of it so that it looked rustic.
The guitar mold was fashioned out of the pink 2 inch thick foam from Home Depot. I used 3 layers of it glued together. I then sanded it slightly and coated it with plaster in 2 coats then sanded it down to a fine finish and coated with a two part epoxy. The epoxy should allow me to reuse the mold on future guitar sinks later on.
Quick little funny, tonight as I was looking at the mold and marveling at the glossiness of it and daydreaming about how the sink would look, I noticed that the 2×4 boards I was using to keep it off the work bench was now glued to my mold. WHAT WAS I THINKING !!!!!???!!!
I quickly reacted and tried hard to get the boards a loose from the mold trying desperately not to destroy my hard work.
I succeeded with minimal damage and learned a valuable lesson. I think I can fix the rough edge I made. Everything should be ok.
Here are some pics of the cabinet base.
Here is a small video of the concrete sink mold getting fabricated.
Stay tuned for the next installment Concrete Sink Project Part Three
