Couch Potato

Smells bring back memories. The smell of coffee and bacon brings me back to being a teenager at Setting Lake in Thompson, MB. Sitting on the deck with my Dad in the morning, munching on a breakfast sandwich while he drank his coffee and we talked....or just sat in the comfort of silence.

The smell is wood dust, fresh wood dust. It brings back more recent memories of my own kids and playing in the workshop. Making birdhouses that will never go out, but will be painted every colour of discounted mistint from the hardware store while I lean on the work bench and listen to her stories, making cars out of 2x4 for my 3 year old who loves everything and anything he sees with wheels.

I know I will forget many useless details and info in my life but I hope, when ever I smell coffee, bacon and wood dust, I smile as deep and as broad  like I did last weekend.

Order of business for today, couch. I have, on a number of occasions, "installed" the couch. But now I'm getting serious. It's time to fabricate a frame. Specifically end supports and arms for the couch potato in us all. After Jeff and I did a mock up, it was time to fabricate a real thing

Of course, nothing is square and nothing is quite 'plum', so we have to scribe the wall contour first...

Then a little trim...this only shows the first pass...each piece required a little nip and tuck here and there, about three go rounds per I'd say.

After a bit of figuring on the fly, and prolonged laying on the floor looking at the problem from various angles, here is what we have.

Now, one of the challenges is heat ducts from the furnace. I have six outlets, so I have to lay them out to decide what I want and where.

I designed the arm rest/support foot to house one of the adjustable registers....now it was time to commit.....and drill!


Things worked out well. The ducting runs just where I need it to be, the arm rest is nice and sturdy. I even managed to incorporate a wood accent from a couch that was in the house I grew up in. Right now it's temporarily in place but is designed to be hinged so you can open a storage area in the arm.

Now it's time to move to the other side....the more difficult side. This arm has to straddle over top of the front passenger wheel well.

So far so good....it's a work in progress, but the key word is progress.