Are we having fun yet?

Last January I spent a fair amount of computer time planning the route for my Spring ride with Jenny and I was looking forward to it.  That's all gone by the wayside now with the shutdown of Washington and California due to the Corona virus.  I'm still doing day rides with my buddies, because we stay at least six feet apart, wear masks (full face helmets) and gloves, but with restaurants closed and motels risky, it's not possible to make a multi-day ride.  When I ride with my friends we bring a lunch along and keep our distance when we eat.

Despite the disappointment of not making the ride, life for Carolyn and I has been good.  In fact, being retired, it's not that much different, and this time of the year is pretty busy, with Carolyn getting the gardens into shape and me making my standard 4.5 cords of firewood.  I also have been doing a woodworking project for Brian, which has kept me occupied on rainy days.  It is a counter for his patio dining area.  He sent me the following plans:

With it being over nine feet long I told him it could not be built as one piece as we have no vehicle that can transport it and it would be too heavy and fragile to load it if we did.  So we decided to make it in two main sections connected by the middle part after it was put in place.  I started first on the left side shelves:

Notice I'm using my motorcycle lift as an assembly table.  This has turned out to be the handyest tool for furniture making as it allows me to adjust the height of the piece and avoid a lot of bend over working.

Then I built the right hand section with a full extension drawer included:

Finally I put it all together with the center section that can be disassembled and reassembled at Brian's house:

Building this cabinet made me appreciate even more all the great tools that I have gathered over the years, and I think I used a majority of them, at least the woodworking ones.  Here are a couple of pictures of my shop in action:

Last Saturday Carolyn and I delivered the cabinet while maintaining social distance from the Tacoma Urbans.  Here is a picture Brian took after he installed a TV above the cabinet.  He plans to have a top made of the same material they used in a recent kitchen renovation.  I had put a coat of Thompson's Water Seal on the cabinet, and Brian intends to let the wood grey-out naturally.

So, with regards to the title of this blog.......yes, we are having fun!

Here is a picture of the final product: