Bee Handy

Thursday, 22 January 2015

This last August I when on a road trip up north to Bellingham Wa. to attend a circus camp out. Hosted by a great group of artist / circus performers @ the Lookout arts quarry. what started as a weekend skill share, turned into a good part of a month of building and learning greatness. Their land is on what was once a lonely rock quarry and now is a progressive and creative place to make dreams come true. One of the many things they have built there, that I wanted to take back with me and build in my own warehouse space in Oakland, were the cargo nets installed up among the trees. Made with dumpstered commercial fishing nets. So before I left I made sure to find out where to find these magical dumpsters and grab a small net for myself.

This is the net I dumpstered and put up in my space. It is about 30ft above the first floor. I built my own rope latter out of scrap pieces Oak, that I got from my neighbour the cabinet maker.


The windows face West and have a great view of the Sunset.

detail of custom rope latter

Had to build a little dumbwaiter for drinks and snacks while relaxing in my net.

In Dec. of 2014 I decided to build my own climbing wall.

This is how it looked the day after I attached the last sheet of plywood.

The wall is approximately 10ft H x 14ft L with the inside and out side corner.

At the same time I started carving my own hand holds,

and building features.


I thought this one resembled a mountain, so I had fun with the paint job.


All the features are made out of 3/4in ply that I had left from the wall panels

I carved this handhold out of a scrap piece of purple heartwood.

this is an off cut of a redwood stump. I did very little to change the shape of this one.

One of my next door neighbours is a cabinet maker and often has very nice off cuts of hardwood. That I have been using to make my handholds.

I found this off cut of hardwood to already have the look and feel I wanted. So I simply made a few cuts to the bottom edges, cleaned it up and mounted it to the wall.

here's what my wall looks like today.

Phase two of my climbing wall will be to add another 18ins to the top edge and to create a lead route on the left wall leading up to my third-story sunset viewing cargo net. Read about it in the next log.

Friday, 20 May 2011

Build your own loft bed


use 4x4's for the legs cut to the height you want you bed to be (don't for get to account for the thickness of your mattress)


Use 1x4's as you bed support space them about 2" apart. Screw 2x2's to the inside of the frame 3/4" below the edges so the lats are flush with the sides of your frame


attach a 2x4 in the middle lengthwise at the same depth for additional support

optional: a fold down laptop self, so you don't kick it off the bed when you're not using it.

Use 2x8s for the framing. I use bolts to attach the legs so I can take them off and move the bed. Though often it is needed to build the loft bed on the spot. For cross support I uses 2x4's about 2' long cut on 45 angles. I do a complex notching system for mine but you could just screw one end on the inside of the frame and the other end strait into the legs. My loft bed is only four feet off the ground, but if you want to make you're high enough to walk under, I would use longer cross supports to keep it from wobbling. Depending on how high you make it you may need to build a latter or use a step stool to get in and out of bed.

Monday, 2 May 2011

Building a large chicken coop

Over the last few weeks I've gone down to Rickreall one day a week. To help my Friend Ryan design and build a chicken coop on the Boat Farm ( http://boatfarmers.com/ ). This Last week we finally finished the siding and hung the door. Only thing left is to build the chicken nest boxes and some roosts. Then it's time to get the chickens!