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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.

After.HEIC
Before.jpg
finished room

finished room

hall almost done...

hall almost done...

looking down completed hall with baseboard and stain

looking down completed hall with baseboard and stain

looking up the hall

looking up the hall

Articulating transition strip 1

Articulating transition strip 1

This 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 2

Articulating transition strip 3

Articulating transition strip 3

Articulating transition strip 4

Articulating transition strip 4

Beautiful red oak figuring

Beautiful red oak figuring

Custom transition to carpet

Custom transition to carpet

Bathroom transition strip

Bathroom transition strip

Notice 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 1

laundry room transition 1

overview shot...

laundry room transition 2

laundry room transition 2

check 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 3

laundry room transition 3

check 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

Baseboard in the hallway

Guest room transition strip

Guest room transition strip

Joists with packed sand 1

Joists with packed sand 1

joists with packed sand 2

joists with packed sand 2

joists with packed sand 3

joists with packed sand 3

joists with packed sand detail

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.

closet: before 1

closet: before 1

closet: before 2

closet: before 2

closet: before 3

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!

backyard before.jpg

before...

backyard after.jpg

...after

IMG_1540.HEIC

before...

IMG_4744_edited.jpg

...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.

IMG_4669 2_edited.jpg

Baseboard (various).
Cue the base solo.

Mobile Tool Chest / Hack.
Frame = old rolling baker's cart. Drawers = salvaged pallet wood.

IMG_4587.HEIC
IMG_4588.HEIC

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...

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