Sean Boal

Buying a generator has been on my list of things to do for years. Growing up, my uncle, who worked for the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management, often encouraged me to be prepared for emergencies. Back then, he warned that we were already a hundred years overdue for major movement on the San Andreas Fault, and we’ve only added more years since he first said that.
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In anticipation of some projects I plan to tackle over the next couple of months, it felt like the right time to revisit my small shop area in the garage and make better use of the space. I wanted to improve my workflow, increase efficiency, and finally add a workbench with a pegboard back so the tools I use most often would be right at hand.
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Home Remodeling Adventure: Transforming Our Upstairs
My wife and I decided to remodel the upstairs of our home this year. Our main motivator was to replace the carpet that was installed when the home was built with anything but carpet and update the overall look of the space. This included new paint, new plugs and switches, replacing traditional can lights with LED lighting, new smoke detectors, and pulling out the carpet and replacing it with laminate flooring and new baseboards. Fortunately, our downstairs is engineered hardwood, so we do not need to tackle another carpet replacement project anytime soon. We received multiple quotes for the flooring part of the project that were priced about what we expected. But somewhere along the way, my wife managed to convince me that I could do the work better than a professional. I was already entertaining the idea of doing the work myself. Having a wife who was encouraging and supportive of me learning along the way made taking on the effort less monumental.
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For those that enjoy painting and cleaning up after painting as much as I do, here are a couple of tips to make painting and cleaning up afterwards suck a little less.
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5 ft. x 2 ft. Raised Cedar Planter

I was extremely pleased with the final product of my last build. However, the cost of the material and the hassle of having to special order and pick up the material left me thinking that there must be a simpler, more cost-efficient, and more convenient way to build a functional and attractive planter. This build is the result of the lessons learned from my last build.
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6 ft. x 3 ft. x 3 ft. Raised Cedar Planter

The first woodworking project I completed that is bigger than a birdhouse. No fingers were lost in the process and the wife was pleased with the results. Success!

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