Hooray Dad

Author: Paolo

  • Building a reusable, low-tox Christmas Tree from Poplar

    As we thought about our first Christmas in Seattle, we were torn between all of the options. Do we buy a tree from some lot nearby? Do we drive out to a farm and cut our own tree down? Do we go for an alternative to the traditional Christmas tree?

    TL;DR: I built us our own tree.

    We weighed the options and we thought about all the effort we’ve put into curating the food in our kitchen… We wanted as much organic as possible to reduce or eliminate the presence of pesticides in the home.

    Why shouldn’t we apply this same thinking to a big wooden tree that would be sitting in the middle of our toddler’s playroom for over a month? I was also not excited about the idea of bringing a tree into our home to slowly wither and be discarded at the end of the season. There was something hauntingly sad about that thought.

    So I did a little research into tree alternatives and found myself drawn to the wooden options. We’ve been slowly filling our home with wooden furnishings, so getting a wooden tree felt like a natural next step. The irony of wooden boards being cut to resemble a tree doesn’t escape me here.

    From what I could see on the internet, there were a myriad of plans for how to make a wooden tree, but I found myself drawn to a style that involved rotating bars on a pole. The rotation gave you customizability for how to arrange the branches. Each of the branches was a nice place for ornaments.

    My mind quickly deconstructed the pieces and I realized that I could probably build a tree like this rather than paying over $100 on Etsy. A regular tree from Home Depot was around $80.

    I had access to the woodshop, and I knew where to buy lumber, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Here’s how it went.

    Designing the Tree

    Because I was inspired by trees I saw on Etsy, this might look similar to others—it’s a wooden tree with rotating branches and a wooden base. But that’s where the similarities end.

    I started by calculating how high I wanted our tree to be—about 72″ tall. This was an arbitrary height—I just wanted a tree taller than me.

    Then I decided I wanted our branches to be 1″ thick with 1″ spacer cubes in between each branch to give the tree an airy feel. I also wanted to have a few spacers on the bottom to create about 6″ or so of space for presents below the tree.

    So with 72″ to allocate between 1″ branches and 1″ spacers, I figured I could have about 30 branches while leaving some space at the bottom for the gifts and the base.

    Tree design and estimate lumber cuts to yield the pieces.

    I used my plan to estimate how much lumber I would need to buy from the lumber shop in order to yield the pieces I would need. Even with this planning, I ended up overbuying and had some leftover poplar which I was able to use up to build a riser shelf for a standing desk.

    It’s not obvious to tell here, but each branch and spacer are going to be square prisms measuring 1″ wide by 1″ high and varying lengths. I planned for a wooden dowel to run through the center of every single bar and spacer to serve as the trunk of the tree, and I needed this trunk to be thick enough to not snap in half when standing, so I went with a 5/8″ dowel thickness.

    1″ x 1″ prisms with 5/8″ holes in the center—what could go wrong? We will soon find out.

    Steps

    Tree

    1. Chop: First stop is the chop—I had some pretty lengthy boards that I needed to cut down to size to make more more manageable jointing. From the design,you can see that one very long board becomes three shorter boards.
    2. Joint: Took those boards flat pretty easily with the help of some pencil marks.
    3. Plane: Pretty straightforward here, just needed to make sure we were planing to the same height for all of them—came into the 1″ thickness pretty easily.
    4. Rip: Now here’s where things start to get fun—we need to rip the three boards into 1″ bars.
    5. Chop: Now for another chop. I designed the 1″ bars such that they would be bisected at incrementing distances to create the various branches of the tree. A single 38″ bar can be cut into a 1″ square and a 37″ bar. The next one yields a 2″ bar and a 36″ bar, and so on.
    6. Dowel joinery: Taking a break from the bars, I needed to create the dowel that would span the trunk of the tree. Problem is I only had 48″ dowels, but we needed a 72″ dowel. We had the idea to use smaller dowels to reinforce a half-lap join for the two dowels. This worked temporarily, but the frankendowel broke at the end of the lap—the dowel reinforcements worked, but not the wood. I ended up using a drill and another dowel to create a mortise-and-tenon situation to reinforce a butt join of the other ends of the dowel. It was hacky, but it worked.
    7. Drill: Back to the bars, it was time to drill our 5/8″ holes. This was a very trial-and-error situation where we broke several spacers trying to figure out the sweet spot of drill speed, penetration force, and the right set of jigs to hold the small pieces in place while the drill comes down. We got it done using a 5/8″ forstner bit. In retrospect, I wish I had drilled the holes before chopping the bars into such small pieces—particularly for the spacers.
    8. Sand: I was out of shop time by this point, so I did the sanding at home. In retrospect, I should have done it at the shop because hand sanding that many pieces as a pain in the ass.

    Base

    1. Joint: Our base will be made of two live edge slabs of maple—the lumber store was having a sale so I pivoted at the last second to use these two. However, while jointing one of them, I ended up losing focus and jointed in a slanted edge into one of them, removing way more material than I intended. To compensate, I would be pivoting from a butt join to a half-lap join instead, which takes us to routing.
    2. Route: After working out how I could fit my nice slab into the slanted slab, I figured i’d need to hog out a good chunk of wood to create the half-lap. This was my first time using a router table, and it did not go well. I foolishly tried to take off too much material on the first pass instead of going gradually and ended up snapping a router bit in the process. It may have been old, but I still pushed it too hard. But we got it done in the end.
    3. Drill: With the half laps looking good, the last bit was to drill in the holes for the central dowel so that the two slabs lined up nicely. We used the drill press for this and it turned out well. I probably could have finessed a slightly smaller hole for a more snug fit, but after all of the other mishaps so far, I was worried of doing further damage to the dowel by forcing a tight fit.

    Once everything has been milled, drilled, sanded, etc. we move on to assembling at home. This is where everything really started to come together. All of the mishaps along the way soon forgotten as the tree rose in the living room, swaying slightly with the weight of the Christmas lights, but not falling.

  • Making Closet Shelf Risers

    Before this project, our laundry sat in containers stacked on the floor. It was a haven for dust trap dust and who knows what else. Vacuuming the space was a pain.

    I broke this up into two builds so I could go through the entire process with my design. I wanted to see how everything would ultimately come together and expose any shortcomings in the design before getting to the second set.

    Build 1: Making a riser shelf from red oak.

    Design

    I had to iterate through a few versions of the design. I started with a basic single-level shelf lifted a few inches off the ground. This would solve the immediate need of making it easier to clean the closet.

    The simple design that lifts our bins off the ground.

    However, from a UX perspective, I wanted to make it easier to navigate through the grid of stacked bins. It would be less cumbersome to access each bin if they were not stacked, forcing you to unstack them to reach the lower levels.

    The stretch vision for creating a multi-level shelf.

    Ultimately, the stretch goal was abandoned after pricing out the cost of lumber. The single-level design cost less than half of the double level design and would be simpler to build. I made a promise to myself that I’d come back and iterate on the multi-level design in the future.

    Costs

    Lumber

    DesignBoard FeetRed OakPoplar
    Double91.7$206.25$194.79
    Single41.7$93.75$88.54
    Costing out the double-tier shelf vs the single-tier shelf for Red Oak and Poplar.

    All-in

    I also spent on some hardware to assemble everything and the shop time costs.

    ItemNoteCost
    LumberRed Oak + Poplar$130
    HardwareDeck screws$30
    Woodshop$17.25 / hour, 12 hours$207
    All-in$367
    Build 2: Making a riser shelf from Poplar.

    Steps

    1. Chopping
    2. Ripping
    3. Jointing
    4. Planing
    5. Ripping again
    6. Sanding
    7. Pre-Drilling
    8. Screwing

    Learnings

    • Oak is hard! I knew conceptually that Oak is harder than Poplar, but knowing a Janka number is nothing compared to feeling the wood push back against a drill bit or table saw. I initially chose red oak because I wanted to ensure that the design would, be able to withstand the gravitational force of all the laundry bins, but mid-build I decided to use my leftover cutoff to add another support under the center of the shelf, removing this hardness requirement.
    • Take the time to cost out your lumber based on the design before you get to the lumber shop to avoid getting sticker shock. I ended up shopping around based on BF price. Know exactly how much lumber you need to avoid overbuying.
    • Don’t forget to bake in the cut off and milling losses when you’re estimating the lumber requirements. My 6/4 boards ended up being closer to 5/4 after all the jointing, planing, and sanding.
    • Don’t forget your pilot holes. Predrill the groove portion to about the size of the shank of the screw.
    • It’s easier to joint 6 smaller boards than 3 larger ones
    • When trying to get boards to the same thickness, use the planer, not the sander—the sander will take ages.
    • If you’re screwing two pieces of wood together, clamp them together so you can ensure that the pilot holes are aligned
    • It’s ok to drill deeper than the screw.
    • Don’t fall in the trap of over sanding.
    • Check your measurements before you cut!

  • Homemade Chicken & Turkey Nuggets

    So our toddler loves chicken nuggets, and it’s important for us that our little girl gets as much protein as she can.

    BUT! We don’t love all the ingredients in store bought nuggets.

    Hence we are making our own now—with a twist! I’ve swapped in 50:50 chicken and turkey to give the meat a little more complex flavor. This recipe is great because all the measurements are just estimations—it doesn’t have to be precise. On the next go I’ll be giving the breadcrumbs a try for extra crispiness.

    Anyway, she didn’t reject them so it’s a win all around! 🤠

    INGREDIENTS

    STEPS

    1. Prepare a bowl of flour with seasoning and spices
    2. Melt the butter on low heat to avoid burning it; transfer to another small bowl for dipping
    3. Mix the ground turkey, ground chicken, egg, and seasoning in a bowl until you have a nice clumped up ball that sticks together
    4. Preheat your oven or toaster to 400ºF / 200ºC
    5. Form a ball of meat and flatten it into a nugget-looking disc; about 1/2″ thick
    6. Dip the disc into the butter to coat; use your fingers to ensure full coverage
    7. Transfer to the flour bowl. Flip and roll it around to get a nice even coating of flour
    8. Set onto a baking pan; parchment paper optional
    9. Repeat steps 5-8 until you’ve used up all of your meat
    10. Optional: the flour may start to saturate from the butter and meat moisture—feel free to give the nuggets another dunk into the flour bowl to enhance the coating
    11. Spray the nuggets with a high-smoke point oil—we use avocado before baking
    12. Bake your nuggets for 25-30 minutes; check that internal temps of 165°F / 74°C are reached for safety!
    13. Remove, cool, and enjoy! Sauce it up how you like

  • Building a Poplar Desk Riser for Valentine’s Day

    This Valentine’s Day, I wanted to build something for my wife.

    I looked at her standing desk and wanted to replace the boxes and books she’d been using to support her keyboard and trackpad. Although it makes her look a learned woman, it lacked storage space and stability.

    A 6-hour build cut down into less than 60 seconds.

    I had some leftover poplar from my last couple builds which I thought I could use. Since I’m working with leftovers, I had to measure my spare lumber before I could design the riser. I wanted to maximize the size of the platform using the materials on hand.

    Thankfully, all of the leftover pieces were 5/4 boards. This gave me a uniform place to start with, but it also meant that I would be working with very thin boards, as I needed to re-saw the boards in order to create enough surface area for the desk riser.

    The sequence of work

    1. Sketch a design that made use of the spare cutoffs I had handy
    2. Chop the pieces to rough size
    3. Joint the boards flat
    4. Plane them down on the other side
    5. Split my 5/4 board on the bandsaw to get ~5/8
    6. Plane again to smooth out the rough banding—this took us down to ~ 1/2″
    7. Glue up top platform
    8. Cut dado grooves along the sides, center, and back
    9. Sand down the inside of the grooves to get a snug fit
    10. Sand down all the boards to 180g grit
    11. Glue up the sides, back, and center support
    12. Break the edges with a sanding bar

    Skill Development

    There were a few new skills I developed while making this piece

    • cutting dado grooves
    • re-sawing with the bandsaw
    • using a nail gun
    • dry fitting
    • glueing

    Learnings

    As part of my journey into woodworking, inevitably, mistakes were made. I’ll incorporate this into future builds.

    1. Start thicker: I started with too-thin boards. This was set by my leftover cutoffs, but if I was planning to make this again I would start with 6/4 or skip the re-saw and use 4/4 boards without splitting them.
    2. Create even more glue-able surface area: Had I had thicker boards, I would also have been able to cut dado grooves into the back side so that I could have the legs slot into the back instead of just butting against the panel.
    3. Measure twice: I would also have been more meticulous with the measurements of my boards for flush fits along all planes.
    4. Consistent groove depth: I would have found a way to make my dado groove depth consistent after removing the sled from the crosscut saw. I got away with it in this case, but it would be nice to have all the panels line up fully flush.
    5. Get a second opinion: I have the luxury of working in a woodshop with other people. Especially if my plans involve something I haven’t done before, it doesn’t hurt at all to get a second opinion about my plans before I cut myself into a corner.

  • Broccoli Cheddar Smash Bites

    A girl needs more broccoli. Certainly our toddler does.

    Tried this broccoli cheddar smash that I saw online and was surprised how easy it was to make. Mom and dad were fans, but it looks like the little lady might need a few more chances to acquire the taste.

    She liked the cheese at least. Might add some garlic next time to spice things up. Definitely see this becoming a staple in the house to keep our vegetables up.

    Ingredients

    • bag of frozen broccoli
    • cheddar cheese block
    • mozzarella cheese block
    • paprika
    • garlic powder
    • cumin

    Steps

    1. Rinse the frozen broccoli. Soaking in vinegar for a few minutes optional.
    2. Bring a medium pot to boil.
    3. Boil the broccoli florets for 3-5 minutes—we don’t want to overdo it here.
    4. Blanch in a bath of ice/cold water.
    5. Cover a sheet pan with parchment paper.
    6. Grate a layer of cheese onto the pan.
    7. Spread the now-cold broccoli in a single layer all over the cheese with enough space to flatten down the florets.
    8. Smash the broccoli as flat as you can using a jar or heavy glass.
    9. Give the florets another sprinkling of cheese.
    10. Dust the bunch with whatever spices you like.
    11. Bake at 420ºf / 215ºc for 25-30 minutes.
    12. Remove from the oven and break the florets apart as they cool.
    13. Enjoy!

  • Hella Easy Overnight Oats

    As Dad, my job in the mornings is to prepare brekkie for the little one as well as their lunchbox for school. This leaves me little time to get my own breakfast going, which is why I like to keep our fridge stocked with overnight oats.

    I can bang out a week’s worth of oat meals at the start of the week and dip into them whenever I’m feeling peckish.

    The chia seeds are such a cheat code for loading up on fiber and omega-3’s to start the day. When we eat them we usually add a generous scoop of peanut butter and a handful of fruit—blueberries or bananas usually.

    While this recipe already replaces cow’s milk with nut milks, you can make this extra lactose-free by dropping the yogurt from the recipe.

    For jars, we’ve recycled our Santa Cruz Organics peanut butter jars to use for our oats, but mason jars or any other container works just fine. I like the uniformity. You can tell we eat a lot of peanut butter.

    Ingredients (per jar)

    • 1/2 cup of rolled oats
    • 1 tbsp chia seeds
    • 1 tbsp or more of yogurt
    • 3/4 cup of milk or milk alternative.
    • Water to top off

    Steps to make overnight oats

    1. Add the oats, chia seeds, and yogurt to a jar
    2. Add the milk and/or water until the dry goods are covered
    3. Cap the jar and shake well
    4. Store in the fridge overnight. You can eat them after 20-30 minutes if you’re craving it now.

    Optional mix-ins

    I like to add these right before eating so they don’t get soggy/stale/overripe.

    • 1-2 tsbp of granola
    • 1 tbsp of peanut butter or other nut butter
    • 1/2 banana, sliced
    • Handful of blueberries

  • Homemade Organic Chickpea Blueberry Pancakes

    What toddler doesn’t love a good blueberry pancake? This dad loves them too, which is why I make them almost every weekend.

    However, our toddler is on the low end of the growth chart, so we’ve been looking for ways to increase the nutritional content of this deliciously carb-heavy dish.

    Enter the chickpea. Chickpea flour is our way of piggybacking a lot more protein into the batter. A single cup of chickpea flour has around 20g of extra protein.

    Long story short—our toddler loved them!

    Recipe

    Cookware

    We’ve updated our kitchen to use all stainless steel or glass in order to eliminate as much plastics and non-stick surface exposure as possible.

    • Large mixing bowl
    • Measuring cup
    • Fish turner or spatula
    • Stainless steel pan

    Ingredients

    Wherever we can, we will use organic supplies. For animal products, we will look for pasture-raised and/or 100% grasssfed.

    • 2 cups whole wheat flour / organic
    • 1 cup chickpea flour / organic
    • 2 tsp baking soda
    • 1 cup Greek yoghurt / a2 organic
    • 1.5 cup milk / 100% pasture, organic, whole
    • 2 tsp vanilla extract / organic
    • 3 tbsp brown sugar / organic
    • 6 tbsp melted butter / organic, unsalted
    • 2 eggs / pasture, organic

    Steps

    1. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl with a well scooped out in the center. This is a great step for your little sous-chef to help with.
    2. Melt the butter in your pan, transfer to well in bowl. Keep the pan on low heat for later.
    3. Add milk, yoghurt, vanilla extract. Stir together
    4. Beat the eggs in a separate container, then pour into the bowl mix
    5. Fold it all up until well-combined, but not super smooth. You want a little clumpiness, but no bundles of dry flour.
    6. With a spoon and silicone spatula, scoop out a wad of batter onto the pan at the 12 o’clock position. Use the spatula to flatten the batter a bit if it doesn’t spread out evenly.
    7. Repeat around the pans edge, spacing the batter discs out so they have room to expand.
    8. While the batter is still fresh, add your blueberries, pressing them into the batter. Great if you can get it completely into the batter so that the blueberry juice doesn’t run out onto the pan when you flip it.
    9. Flip when the bottom is a golden brown. Use the fish turner to take a peek—you can usually tell it’s ready to go when air bubble holes start appearing in the top of the batter. Be patient and only flip once!
    10. Remove when both sides are nicely browned, but not burnt.
    11. Repeat 6-10 until you’ve used up all of your batter and blueberries.