I second the use of shellac. I’ve been using shellac on a maple cabinet project I’m working on right now.

Maple is a proper bitch to sand because it’s so hard. I wouldn’t recommend sanding higher than 180 at most of else you risk glazing the wood, which makes it hard for your finish to work. Also any alcohol finish is going to dry extremely quickly and be very finicky to work with… Particularly on a very large continuous surface like a desk. It’s not impossible, but absolutely, definitely, practice first. Figure out your brushes, your mixture, your technique all ahead of time. When you hit that desk there’s no turning back and it’s go time.

I tried over a dozen different oil and gel based stains for the project, and shellac was far and away the best looking, due to maple’s exceptionally tight grain, and high tendency to blotch.

Good luck! I really enjoy working with maple, but boy is it a challenging medium.

Dang, yeah it looks like it. Best of luck to you.

oh god, that’s awful!! :( No barefeet… or doggies, I guess.

Please send me an update as you move along and/when you’re done! I’d love to see it develop!

My first reaction is like you, put in a rain barrel. Then maybe you could put in one of those perforated hoses, and you can just stick a 1/4 turn valve in the base of the rain barrel and you could just manage the valve when you want to water it?

Woof, that’s a pretty intense decision! A house nearby us wanted to put a 2nd floor on the home. When they investigated the footings, the found they were vastly insufficient (read: nonexistant) to support the weight of a 2nd story. When they opened up the walls shortly there after because of carpenter bees, they realized damn near the entire house’s frame had been infested with carpenter bees and termites. The place was barely holding itself up…

So they tore the entire thing, foundation and all, down. They got the new foundation in place, and then COVID hit, and lumber prices went ABSOLUTELY INSANE. It’s been 3 years since they took it down, and they still only have a foundation, and are living out of a (at this point very well insulated) garage.

I hope your project goes dramatically better than that.

Alright, like… every part of this is awesome. WaybackMachine proxy, photo scanning your shed… this is GREAT! I would like to recommend using something like OnShape instead of blender, though. I’ve never found blender to be super helpful when trying to put together diagrams and such. I used SketchUp for a bit, but found it too restrictive.

Lastly, another web-tool I’ve found to be ENORMOUSLY helpful with optimizing building materials purchases/usage is opticutter. It was hugely helpful for my most recent cabinet building project