
arts & crafts projects
Gabriel Singh Domínguez
415.572.9625
gabesingh@gmail.com
Wooden Trunks.
Salvaged pine, baltic birch, oak. Original design. Features a soft-close hinge so as to not crush little fingers. Strong enough for kiddos to stand on, and big enough for them to hide inside. Lids are made from a variety of visually interesting salvaged woods I've collected over the years.



















Origami Pontoon Boat.
Salvaged election signs from the freeway (corrugated plastic sheets), velcro, cam straps, and extra stuff from the garage. Easily packs down to fit in a car trunk, and light enough to tow with a bike.
Fun for the kids in little local creek, but also burly enough that I was able to take it (solo) down the Provo River's class II rapids on two different occasions.


![]() finished room | ![]() hall almost done... |
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![]() looking down completed hall with baseboard and stain | ![]() looking up the hall |
![]() Articulating transition strip 1This transition strip had to actually TWIST in order to marry the two rooms together. So I cut the transition strip into 8 individual pieces and articulated it... | ![]() Articulating transition strip 2 |
![]() Articulating transition strip 3 | ![]() Articulating transition strip 4 |
![]() Beautiful red oak figuring | ![]() Custom transition to carpet |
![]() Bathroom transition stripNotice the spot underneath the transition strip where the wood meets the uneven contour of the tile. To fill what would've been a gap there, I scribed and fit a custom little shim strip. | ![]() laundry room transition 1overview shot... |
![]() laundry room transition 2check out the space underneath the wood where it meets the uneven tile. I cut a custom-scribed strip to fill this gap | ![]() laundry room transition 3check out that extremely thin piece of wood that's filling the gap where the transition strip meets the floor boards! That was custom-scribed, glued, then block-planed to be flush. |
![]() Baseboard in the hallway | ![]() Guest room transition strip |
![]() Joists with packed sand 1 | ![]() joists with packed sand 2 |
![]() joists with packed sand 3 | ![]() joists with packed sand detail |
Hardwood Red Oak Floor.
The project was to install beautiful hardwood red oak floor, maintaining max ceiling heights, in a tilted, funnel-shaped basement.
I couldn't use self-leveling concrete to flatten the entire subfloor at once, or else some rooms would be left with a 5.5ft. ceiling height and others with an 8ft. ceiling. So instead, I flattened each room to itself. This meant that in each room I found the highest spot in the topography of its wavy concrete subfloor and brought the rest of the floor up to meet that high spot using 2x4 joists; each joist meticulously custom-scribed to the unique bit of concrete floor it was being nailed to. Cavities between the custom joists were then filled with clean sand, tamped, and carefully feathered to meet the high spot.
After nailing in the oak floor, each room (as you'd expect) was pitched at a different planes and heights than the neighboring room.
I then married the tilted rooms together with a variety of custom transition strips.
Before...
...After



Fireplace Glow-Up.
Pine. The fireplace was sooty, the chimney was cracked and drafty, and we weren't looking forward to breathing the byproducts of natural gas combustion on a cold winters night. So I capped the line, plugged the drafty chimney, and converted the fireplace into a display area for our children's books (and our children).
Hallway Linen Closet Remodel.
Materials: baltic birch shelves, pine walls, oak supports, pine baseboard. The original 1950's-era closet (last 3 pictures) was lead-painted and the shelves were stained and sticky. Since the closet wasn't square AND it had a twist in it, each of the six shelves had to be cut into a unique trapezoid. Custom oak shelf supports.
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![]() closet: before 1 |
![]() closet: before 2 |
![]() closet: before 3 |
Dolly Stroller.
Oak, pine, alder, organic cotton. Original design. This stroller has proved strong enough for the kids to push each other around in it and ram into solid objects at high speed.
Backyard Ressurection.
Removed a large dead pine tree, demolished a dangerously leaning and crumbling retaining wall revealing the newer retaining wall behind it, re-graded, updated irrigation, flame-weeded, hand raked the soil, and installed new sod. My favorite part was driving around the skid steer during the demolition phase. First time. But not the last!

before...

...after

before...

...after
Toy Shelves.
Salvaged and new pine. Using dado and rabbet joinery, these shelves were strong enough for my kids to climb. Shelves made from two 1x6's glued and pocket screwed together. Ends were made from colorful bits from the wood pile, with extra distressed textures added by my son (then four years old) and his trusty hammer.
















Slingshots.
Oak. Cut and carved from solid oak, and used to shoot marble-sized felt balls.

Baseboard (various).
Cue the base solo.
Mobile Tool Chest / Hack.
Frame = old rolling baker's cart. Drawers = salvaged pallet wood.


Front Yard, No-Till, Organic Garden.
After extensive soil testing (including hand-digging seven, 2 foot deep holes in the yard with the kids), we got the green light from the labs to convert our front yard into a "no-dig" organic garden.
First I revamped the irrigation, then we laid out the beds and paths with string. Amended the soil as needed with blood, bone, and fish meal. "Sheet mulched" with cardboard to kill and compost all grass and weeds in-place. Then shoveled 12 tons of compost into the yard and shaped it into beds...