Sewing Room - Countertop Install

 

This is where we left off several weeks ago.  We have been waiting on the countertop to arrive.  We chose to  use a laminate type countertop that we had custom made.  The right side of this is on the side of the room with the sewing machine.  The Kallax cabinet on that side also has the standard drawers available for the Kallax range of bookcases.Thus the over hang on that side is to be about 1.5" as is the over hang at the end.  On the left side, we chose to have 9" of over hang so that stools are "lab type" chairs could be used.  

First task was to put up a ledger board to support the countertop and a place to tie the countertop to the wall.  The ledger board was screwed into the studs in two places and then I will attach the countertop with L brackets.

Next step is to paint the ledger board the same color as the wall.  While under normal circumstances you cannot see the ledger board, I decided to paint it anyway, just to be complete.

While I was painting, I also put one more coat of white paint on the bottom of the closed in storage area that is between the Kallax bookcases and the wall.

As you can see the ledger board is blended into the wall.

I used small four 1" L brackets with one 3/4" screw in the countertop and one in the ledger board.   This should provide sufficient attachment force to keep the countertop stable.

Then in the four upper cubes on each side and the two at the end, I placed a 2 1/2" cabinet screw with a large flat head.  That provided a total of 10 screws through the Kallax bookcase and into the bottom of the countertop.  As a reminder there are also ten 2 1/2" cabinet screws in the bottom cubes, that attach the Kallax bookcases to the 2x4 lumber and plywood base.

In the original table on wheels, the user was slowly chasing the table.  By leaning over on the table in the fabric cutting process, she would slowly push on it.  While I did not put an attachment point at the free end, I believe that the screws in the base and those four in the countertop to the wall, should be sufficient to hold it in place.  I guess only time will tell.

Here are two views of the finished cutting table.  The rounded corners on the free end should prevent anyone from getting caught on the corners.  You can see in the first picture the over hang on the left side for the chairs.  The second picture shows the three upper cubes with the double drawers in each.  

Well in the last installment I said that only task left was the countertop.  Well I was wrong.  There needs to be base board installed around the three sides.  The 2x4 raw lumber is exposed.  But this will have to wait until at least March.  Once I cut these, they need to be painted before they are installed.  The garage is too cold to be painting, so we will wait for warmer weather.  The baseboard is pure cosmetic, so let the quilting begin. 😄

Sewing Room - Upgrade

 A complete change of pace, adding more storage to the sewing room.

The upgrade will consist of multiple wall storage units from IKEA.  This time I am using the Kallax bookcases as the base.  The first wall unit is this one.

This consists of 5 by 5 on the bottom and two 2 by 2s on the top.  The top is done with a gap in the middle.  The two top bookcases were attached using standard sheet rock type screws as shown here.

Then all three bookcases are attached to the wall using the standard hardware provided by IKEA.  Except i move the bookcases locations so that the screws would go into the studs in the wall.  This makes the three sections act as one piece now.

 

 

In order for the bookcases to be flat against the wall, the baseboard had to be removed as can be seen here.

The next issue was the switches on the wall.  There are three switches

1. The overhead electrical box.
2. The half hot electrical box in the wall.
3. The fan electrical box.

The overhead electrical box was for the track lighting I put in.  this provides adequate task lighting for all for the two main work areas.  Putting up eight foot tracks on a 10 foot ceiling was a challenge, but it is done. Included my wife standing on a step stool with a broom, trying to hold 8 foot end in place while I attached the other end.

 

One of the vertical walls of the 5 by 5 bookcase went right over the switch plate.  I cut a small notch in it so the book case would sit flat against the wall.  But this made one of the switches inaccessible.  Fortunately this was the fan switch, so I just removed it.  Permanently connected the fan and placed a blank off plate with a note to remind me the fan is always connected.

That left the track lights and the wall half hot which has stand lamp connected to it.  Since these are at the back of a cubby, either the space can't be used or switch access will be limited.  I already have a Lutron Caseta wireless system in the house. I installed On-Off Caseta switches for the track lights and the stand lamp, as seen above.  Then I installed two PICO remote controls on the side of the bookcase as shown here.

This provides a user experience that is the same as a normal wall switch.  Now the original wall switch access is not needed and thus the cubby can be used.  If access is ever needed, we just clean out the cubby.  The notch in the book case provides enough space to remove and install the switch plate.

The track light connection in the ceiling is the only 120VAC connection in the house that had not been tested.  I changed out the mechanical switches for two smart switches, they are not dimmers just switches.  The down side to these is they require a neutral wire, fortunately code up here says the neutral has to be brought to the switch box.  I have installed about 8 of these now, the first 7 went perfect.  The switched plug one worked as expected.  But the track lights would not turn on.  If I took a light out of the track and put it back in, it came on and the switch would turn it off. But would never turn it on.

I did not even want to think that the wiring was messed up.   I started thinking the switch was dead, or could not handle the LED track light or the wiring came loose or something.  So I disconnected the track lights at the ceiling, wired the track lights to cord with a plug and plugged into the switched outlet.  It all worked with a smart switch.  Thus it had to be somewhere between the switch in the wall and the ceiling connection.  This meant removing the wall palate and pulling the switches out of the box.  It could have been worse.  All the connections were solid, nothing had loosened or slipped out of a wire nut.  So I disconnected the offending switch and just hot wired the ceiling box.  And it worked.  Well the wiring is good and that is a good thing.

 I reconnected all of the wires just to  be sure.  As a last resort, I go to the LUTRON site ( LUTRON Caseta Smart Switches) to see if they have any sage advice.  First thing on the list is reverse the two black wires.    I have installed 7 of these without even a thought about which black wire goes where, with no issues.  My track lights work.  I had a 50-50 chance and  got it right 7 times.  Maybe I should play the slot machines. 

And this is done.

Bricks by the Bay - Recap

 

The first live Bricks by the Bay since 2019 (@bricksbythebay_official).  It was the same and then again it was different.  The venue was the same as the last few times, so that was the same.  All the MOCs were in the center of the ball room and the vendors were around the sides. 

The MOCs were arranged by theme.  Unfortunately we were busier than in times past.  So we were not able to take as many pictures. (Actually my free time was spent in the two brick piles searching for parts.  I should have been taking pictures, but the draw of the brick pile was just to strong to overcome.)  

The one I should have taken pictures of was an interesting "mixed media" presentation.  To recreate a lot of the StarWars scenes, Dagobah, Ewoks, etc, they used a form of Japanese Bonsai trees with extended above ground root structures.  These roots were then woven into the MOC for an extremely realistic effect.  This is something that could not be done in pure LEGO.

The attendance was of reasonable size given the circumstances.  Not as big as in the previous years.  Traffic was much better on Saturday than it was on Sunday, which is fairly typical of these events. We would have like to see more people, but the ones that were there were highly motivated.  There was a lot of interest in what we were working on.  The softwear side had lots more interest than in the past. While our basic controller and USB power devices always draw lots of questions, there was a lot of interest in the Lighting effects we were showing.  Besides our MOC display, we had a demo of the new light controller.  Here is a video of it running the demo script.

One of the most visited vendors are those with bulk LEGO or brick piles.  Placed on a table or on the floor, people of all ages will rake through the Bricks looking for that one piece they need, select colors to fill out their inventory or just pick out every part they can find.  While the competition for select parts can be fierce, it is always a congenial competition.  I think the Bricks just brings out the best in people.  It does not even come close to Big Box stores on Black Friday.

 

 

Here is a quick video of the display we used to attract people to the table.I only brought three sections, the new Main Section that I first showed in Omaha in April, the Vertical Generator, the Space Port and the areas behind the cliffs.  These areas behind the cliffs are yet to be finished and are only the beginnings of a larger space that will exist behind the cliffs.

As I indicated earlier, I did spend a lot of time searching for parts in the brick piles.  Here is my collection prior to some washing and sanitizing.

 That is it for now, looking forward to next year.

 

 

 

 

Countdown to Bricks By The Bay 2022

 

 

Date:  June 23 through June 26

Location: Santa Clara Convention Center

Website: Bricks By The Bay

Social Media: @bricksbythebay, @bricksbythebay_official #bricksbythebay 

Our Location:  Across from the Great Ball Contraptions & near the Lego Masters

Bricks by the Bay is this weekend.  Here is what we will showing at the convention.

• Brick Power.  We have a limited number of our USB based power converters for Lego Motors (Power Functions)
• Brick Controller.  We have a limited number of the our USB/Bluetooth controllers with 4 motor channels and 4 LED channels.
• LED Lighting.  New LED lights that fit on a 1x1 or 1x2 plate/tile.
• LED Power Distribution.  Simple device that takes USB power and provides punch down type connections.
• LED Lighting Controller.  Expands the number of LED channels to 15 for those MOCs that need multiple LED controls.
• Brick Shirts and Softwear.  New brick shirt designs for young and old.  Plus other softwear that we are famous for.
• Minifigs.  Assorted Minifigs that were acquired over the years.
  

Brick Power and Brick Controller

 

My biggest problem has been the current chip shortage.  Finding electronic parts has become an all day task.  Most are available in Asia at the "brokers", but it is not uncommon to see anywhere from 10 to 100 times cost increase over normal MSRP.  As an example, an item that sells for $60 cannot afford to pay $55 for a part that was $1.24.   I still have inventory of these two items and they will be aggressively priced for the convention.

LED Lighting

I have always wanted a simple and consistent way to mount LEDs both in my MOCs and for my HO train layout.  These two products get me closer to the goal.  One is the size of a 1x2 plate/tile and the other is the size of a 1x1 plate/tile.  You can glue these onto a plate for mounting on a ceiling or a tile when you want up lighting.  Right now the product only comes with white LEDs, either a simple single Dome type LED or a larger flood light type.  Custom colors will be available, with a small charge.  I have not priced these yet, but they will be well under $5 each, depending on the size and LED.  The website will have a list of vendors where you can buy wire.  Each board provides a rather large pad to solder the wires onto.  We will not be providing wire on the standard product.  We don't know what you need.  The Website list a few places where you can get wire and what the difficulty level is with each.  Look here for more information.

LED Power Distribution

When you don't need the fancy lighting effects and all you need is for the lights to be on, this is the best answer.  This device takes in USB power and then distributes to either punch down connectors or small connectors that are popular with other 3rd party LED vendors.  What I do is solder a piece of solid 24-26 gauge wire to the ends of the small wires from the LEDs and then place these stiff wires in the punch down connector.  Depending on the USB power source, you can power over 25 LEDs easily with this.

LED Lighting Controller

 

At a minimum, I hope to demonstrate this at the convention.  There is still a lot of work to do on this, so it is iffy right now.  This is 48 x 64mm or the size of a 6x8 plate.

Brick Shirts and Softwear

We will have a new selection of of shirts and other softwear items. These include

Snack Mats

Bowl Cozy

Brick Themed Shirts for Adults and Children

Minifigs

We have been downsizing everything.  Long story, so the younger ones have decided to divest some of there childhood collections.  These Minifigs are the ones they are willing to part with.  There will be some good deals.