My wife and I have been knee deep in a DIY home remodel since last Dec. We started off simply replacing a faulty toilet in the guest bath and ended up laying all new laminate flooring throughout the house, replacing all the base trim, adding crown molding, new kitchen cabinets, new granite counter tops, new garage door/opener and finally all new paint. We did all the work ourselves except the kitchen cabinets and counter tops. We bid that out to contractors.

Along the way I built, in the garage, a few items that I thought I'd share since this a DIY forum.

Built-in Entertainment Center. With component compartments, bass speaker compartments, storage doors and a CD/DVD/Blueray drawer in the middle.

I build the top of the entertainment center from solid black walnut. I even dug out my grandfathers old hand plane and made some curls.




I built a second entertainment center in our "game/bonus" room and that one got a black walnut top as well.

While I was at it, I made a dog gate out of black walnut with a shiplap insert in the bottom to match our recessed entertainment wall and kitchen bar.

Perhaps the biggest project I took on (besides laying the laminate flooring) was a real/useable endgrain butcher block top for our new island. Of course it had to be made from, you guessed it, black walnut. This time I went with rough sawn and milled it down myself, total pita, but worth it in the end.

Here is the completed kitchen. I really think the walnut top on the white island is a great touch.
13 years ago my wife painted that door in the kitchen yellow. When she showed it to me she said, "Yellow makes me smile." Now 13 years later she has been on talking about painting it to match the new kitchen. I told her to leave it yellow because I love seeing her smile.

Looks great! Well done.

Very well done Sir!

Very nice!

That butcher block top is very impressive.

You are a true craftsman.

Very good work Sir. I wondered about the yellow door but if it still makes the wife smile it would stay yellow and if needing repainting it would sty the same color

You have some serious skill. That island top is the most impressive I've ever seen.

Thanks for the compliments! It was a lot of fun. (and work)

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Wow man , great work. Beautiful

Nice work, very impressive.

Bumping to show off the black walnut mantle I made. Book matched endgrain with continuous grain flow throughout.




Just for fun I carved a “Wizard Pipe” from some scrap. (I’ve never smoked)

Very awesome and impressive.

Man, that's some incredible work. That island top is definitely a show stopper.

Nice Wizard Pipe.

Thanks!

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You sir …are the guy . Impressive work

Everything looks looks great. There is a lot of satisfaction in doing it yourself.
I understand contracting out the cabinets, time can be an issue for a DYIer. But you most definitely have the skills, and tools.
After building my kitchen cabinets I figured that was the last of the big woodworking projects for me, I even cut corners to move the project along quicker.
I stick with the smaller projects anymore.