When we have parties at our house, the counter between the kitchen and the eating area is usually covered with food. The stove makes a big chunk of that space unusable. One day I had the bright idea of building a cover for it using some of the scrap 3/4″ oak plywood leftover from the desk project. I bought a 1×8″ piece of oak and set off building the box.
I wanted to crank this out pretty quickly and new that it would only get used a few times per year, so I kept it really simple. The joints on the corners are simple butt joints held together with pocket screws. The top fits down inside the box and rests on support rails.
Storage was a key feature since we won’t be using this 99.9% of the time. We decided it would fit well in the drawer below the oven, but to fit there, it needed to be cut in half. So I built the cover as a single piece and then ran it through the table saw as the last step. That’s where it went a little wrong. I got some tear-out on the plywood. I improvised and cut a thin strip of oak to overlap the gap. It covers up the tear-out and also will make sure food doesn’t fall through the gap. It’s not ideal but it looks fine.
I finish it all with a cherry stain and then four coats of spray lacquer. It got it’s first use at the Super Bowl party and worked very well.
If you’re interested in this idea but don’t want to build one, you can buy them online.
In 
A little over a month after moving to WordPress, I’m giving it a resounding two thumbs up. This is a huge upgrade over my ancient fork of the Community Server codebase. Here are a few things that I really enjoy:
Tyla and I both weigh ourselves every morning and write down our weight. While the day to day change isn’t always something to get worked up about, it’s important to understand your trend as it stretches out to weeks and months.
Time Management
Few things in my life had made me more conscious of how I spend my time than having a child. These three buckets are a great place to start. I’m still trying to work out how things like paying bills, making dinner and cleaning up fit into this but I suppose that could fit into building a good family environment. And of course, as a Christian, my faith is the most important thing to me. That should weave it’s way through all aspects of my life but also deserves it’s own bucket of dedicated time.
It has already been useful to think of my time in terms of these buckets. Instead of thinking “is this a worthwhile activity”, it’s better to think “is this the most rewarding/important thing I can do right now?” I do try to set aside one evening a week to just veg out and watch a movie or something, but most nights, I need to take advantage of my limited non-work time to fill up the other buckets!