Bedtime Story

I got a nice task to build a loft bed for two children in to a block house apartment in Helsinki.

The family happened to be on holidays, so after receiving keys from the janitor I made some room to begin.

I set up a level laser among the toys..

And after carefully measuring the spot..

Went outside and cut the necessary pieces.

I attached the first parts firmy to the walls with screw anchors.

Then made the stairways and the middle pole ready

Tried on the pole, fixing the frame for the middle wall..

 Set the partition up to it's grooves.

 Attached the safety rails..

And after fixing all the shelves and filling all the screwholes with chemical wood,  I protected everything for painting.

And after few layers of paint..

Life found its way :)

Rotten log repair

For my expertise in log crafting, I was called to join a venture on an island in Lohja to fix an old log mansion.

The place was beautiful and there was a lot of work to do..

The main concern was the back wall of the main building.. But since the damage was not that bad, and we chose that we will put a door there with a terrace for the lake shore, we moved to fix the "small" house that was a bit smelly.

 After some disassembly we could see the variety of construction errors, and chose to redo the whole porch.

 The column on the left (or what is left of it) shows the seriousness of the damage with moisture, and pretty much everything had to bee changed.

 We also opened the wall a bit to see how the damage was worse then originally thought.

 It was this bad..

Actually far worse :D

 Took out the monster..

 And replaced it with a good one we got from the neighbor.

 

 Then the hard part, fit one between!

 :) Like new-old!

Drilling and filling like any dentist!

That's gonna hold it!

 The old house thanking in its own way!

Only one more thing to do..

To enjoy the evening, sauna, the lake and the Finnish summer!

The permit- and story-barrel of two strange parrots

What you get when you add up these strange panels with parrots from postcards, a shell from a toaster and a broken lid from old barrel?

 Of course the

 "Lollun ja Lillin lupa-automaatti ja tarinatynnyri",

meaning this strange machine that produces permits tickets - for anything! 

Or alternatively creates storyes out of thin air by those two birds named Lollu and Lilli by our two-year-old.

 Being creative is about playing. When time to tinker is diminished by the need of loved ones in a family setting, there is only one proper solution, integrate!

It is the greates thing to be excited about the same kind a idea with a child and create it together 

-as much as possible.

Here's how the machine works;

 First use those buttons vigorously and talk to the parrots, of course! Then draw some figure on the paper going down from the backside so the permission slip comes out nice and has some carecter.

 Then stamp it with invisible magic ink from the parrots to give it ist power,

and use the looking glass to make sure the stamp came out well,

but only a child can do this part.

Except if you recognize to be a grown-up-child, but then you really need to know what you are doing!

After pressing some more buttons pull the ticket out of the machine and rip it. 

After that place it on the slit and validate it by pulling the lever.

Now it is ready to be used! You can give it to your stuffed animals for a train ticket etc, or just look at it an tell a improvised story with a serious face - as you would be reading it from the slip.

Works every time for those who still remember how to play :)

The impossible hole

This is a story of the impossible hole.

Im not saying it was impossible to make, but before I realized how to do it I was facing a typical situation in my life.
Bad conditions representing something I would not prefer,
and it seemed like there was no way out feeling discouraged about them.

But I could not recommend anyone to do something like this except in an emergency,
 because it is a lot of unnecessary work, 

requires immense focus over relatively long periof of time 

and angel grinders as a tool can somethimes be tricky.

.......

 So I was doing this bathroom tiling in the middle of the woods far away from the closest big hardware store
and it was a tight weekend to wrap up all the tiling.


And because every story needs a villain this is it;

 A box of cheap set of hole saw drills for tiles.
I asked my friend to bring them for me to make few holes.
I mean it was just a black box.
It had no name, no brand.. Nothing, and that is how they where selling it in the shop :)

Usually I work with people who have these tools as well, and because the need for new tools is never ending, sometimes Im satisfied with moderate quality.

The whole bathroom had like a single hole in a middle of a tile, since all the plumming was coming on the surface.
So I was quite certain that these saw blades would do it,
 but this is what happend.

The centering drill got destroyed immediately from trying to get trough.
I had to make those holes with a other dimond, but the actual hole saw blade hardly scratch the surface.
A hi speed drill with a proper cooling with water,
a lot of time,
and still the hole saw blade went in just like a millimeter.

So the question was how to make a hole in the middle of a hard tile with these tools.

The hole should be from 73 to 75mm and this angle grinder blade is 115mm !
First I thought it was impossible to have and impeccable solution for my situation,

but then I realized that I can make the hole with the angle grinder
and I can finish this tiling over the weekend!

 So first I started by using the hole saw drill to draw two circles.
And then I grinded the perimiter with the 115mm blade and made a cross in the middle.
 

It looked like this from behind and I could continue from the back.

 Then I cut off everything that I could to clear it out,

  Cleaned the rest with the blade from behind coming very close to the edge.

And it became like this;

The other hole was easy to do from the border.

 And from behind - what was previoisly known to me as a impossible hole - looked like this!

 Cleaning it a bit after first fitting.

Adding the plaster,

 and putting the tiles to the place they belonged.

These holes became my gift to the house.
I did not charge of the time it took me to make them,
because I felt it was my responsability to have the proper tools with me in the first place.

And suprisingly it became a journey of excitement
to see how I would manage to change my beliefs about the (w)hole situation.

A classic stand

I've been busy working on house renovation and construction lately, but here's a glimpse of especial tinkering. I was asked to make this classic stand and this is the streak.

First this antique piece of wood was selected and cut to the lenght requested.

Then I procecced it by sanding it slightly to rounden it and to get it splinter free. 

Only the finest paper was used to bring out the awesomeness of the wood, the figures of the original round saw blade.The patina was left untouched.

 

The holder slabs were needed to be made well to hide the attatchement and to take any weight neccessary.

 Then I made the bed,

 and sank it in a millimeter under the surface of the wood, so the brass will not touch the wall.

 Then after careful measurements and pre-drilling, I simply attached every screw to its center.

The hooks are new swedish production, but untreated, so they will darken nicely over time.

And rise and shine!A touch of timelessness to a modern apartment.

The Old Market Hall

It's been busy lately doing house construction so here's a story from few weeks ago.

I was asked to do these hanging signs for the Old Market Hall next to Market Square.

First I drilled holes for over hundred sign slabs.

Then turned same amount of brass hooks for hanging them.

After that I changed all the shop keeper signs to new ones that represent a fresh look for the market hall. If you are around there, thake a look of the ALKO sing, it's funny since the L is tilted and it look as someone made it drunk ;)

And the same for outside.

Finally open for the public!
The Old Market Hall was renovated for a whole year!
I was there just few last days :)