Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Little Helper Tower

The ordering period is now complete. Thank you to everyone who placed an order!

  • Platform adjusts securely and easily within seconds to heights of 7”, 11”, 15” and 19”
  • The overall tower is 18″ square and 40″ tall (to the top of the arches.)
  • Edges are rounded and everything is sanded smooth to help keep kids safe as they climb in the tower
  • Built from beautiful unfinished pine boards ready for you to paint and/or polyurethane
  • Sturdy base helps to prevent tip-overs
  • This is a onetime offer! Orders must be placed by 10/31/2014. Payment is required up front.
  • Orders will be filled on a first come, first served basis.
  • Two models are available. For the model with hinges, you can pull the platform out and fold the tower flat for storage. The model without hinges still has the adjustable platform but it cannot be folded flat.
    • Permanent, non-hinged version – $80
    • Fold flat, hinged version – $120
  • To order or ask questions, please send an email to [email protected] or contact Tyla.
  • You will be contacted when your tower is available for pick up at our home in Woodinville. No shipping.

If you want to view the plans to see specific dimensions or even build one yourself, they are available for free online here: Ana White’s Little Helper Tower. 

Note: Adorable child not included. You must provide your own.

Frequently Asked Questions

If I pay extra, will you stain/paint it for me if I pay you? Sorry, no. Finishing all these would take more time than I’m willing to commit to. You can use them unfinished. It just means that spills might leave a stain.

Can you make a modification to the design if I pay you? Again, sorry, but no. I’m all set up to crank these out according to the existing plans and making changes will add quite a bit of time.

benmartens October 21, 2014 Woodworking

Christmas Lights

We grew up in the middle of the woods and pretty much no one ever saw our house except us and our guests. We put up a few lights to enjoy ourselves, but as far as a public display goes, there was no point. Ever since I moved into more populated areas, I’ve wanted to get into Christmas lights, but I’ve been hemming and hawing over exactly what I want to do. This past weekend, I finally took the plunge.

Tim and Chelsea have alternating red and white bulbs on their house and I really like that look. Unfortunately it’s hard/impossible to find this in a strand of lights off the shelf. It’s also quite difficult to find interchangeable LED bulbs to make my own alternating strand.

I gave up looking for the cheaper consumer grade products to fill my needs and splurged on the professional grade stuff. You buy the cord with empty sockets and then buy individual bulbs to screw into them. Theoretically, these should stand up to the elements better and if/when they do need maintenance, I can replace just the piece that is broken. It also lets me do whatever light pattern I want.

We’re starting small with the theory that we can build more each year. The lights will follow our garage peak and then follow the gutter line around to the cedar tree on the corner of the house. I wonder how long I need to wait before I’m that weird guy who puts up his lights too early?

benmartens October 21, 2014 Commentary

Child’s Helping Tower

After seeing this helping tower on Amazon, I thought it would be perfect for Elijah. He loves to see what we’re doing up on the counter or what I’m working on at the workbench in the garage. But $200!? That seemed a bit crazy and I figured I could build it myself. I was going to start designing some plans, but then a quick search landed me at Ana White’s awesome website. She has very nice plans for a tower that’s very similar to the one at Amazon. A quick trip to Home Depot for some wood and I was off and running.

The build went pretty quickly. The only part that was a little tricky was that I decided to add hinges so it would fold flat for easy moving/storage. I had to do a couple assembly/disassembly cycles to get the pieces all cut right so it would open up square and not bind. After that it was time for sanding and a few coats of polyurethane.

This was my first build using a new brad nailer and it was a huge help. I told Tyla it almost feels like cheating! That feeling was diminished by my lack of skill as I continually shot nails out the sides of my pieces, but I’ll get better with practice.

Elijah LOVES his tower. He immediately figured out how to climb up and the highest setting for the platform is perfect for him. As he grows, the platform is easy to remove and insert at a lower rung.

Remember that $200 tower on Amazon? My bill was $21 for wood, $18 for hinges and then a little sandpaper and polyurethane that I already had laying around. $39. BAZINGA!

P.S. I don’t know if you can see it in the photos, but Elijah had just come in from playing in the dirt and I missed a spot right on the bridge of his nose. Ha!

benmartens October 20, 2014 Woodworking

Woodworking Catalog

A while back I wrote a post wondering why there were no good sites with woodworking plans that were nicely categorized and reviewed. Most of my requirements in that post have been met at http://ana-white.com

There are over 1000 plans on the site and they are all free. Each one that I’ve looked at has had very detailed diagrams, cut lists, etc and none of them have been too terribly complicated. You’re not going to find heirloom quality pieces here for the most part, but there is are a lot of great ideas for around the house.

I’ve burned a lot of time flipping through the projects and getting ideas. Stay tuned for a post about one project I’ve already built using plans from this site!

benmartens October 17, 2014 Woodworking

Bing Street View

This summer, I spotted the Bing street view vehicle a couple of times in our area. One of the times, I was out on a walk with Elijah.

The car also drove past our house in the middle of our yard project so the side yard looks oh so beautiful.

But Tim wins for the picture they took driving past his house.

benmartens October 16, 2014 Commentary

Fantasy Football – Week 6

The Seahawks faltered again this week. In five games, they have yet to regain their dominance from last season. Forget about the Super Bowl repeat. Let’s make it through the first round of the playoffs. Here are some of the big changes I see from last season:

  • Opposing teams are getting too many yards of the catch. Last year, guys might catch a short pass but they’d be immediately met by the Legion of Boom to pay for their catch.
  • Where are the turnovers and the sacks? So many opposing red zone drives ended in interceptions last year that it was almost expected. This year the team is almost last in the league in sacks and turnovers.
  • People attending the games say it’s still loud, but have there been ANY false starts by the opposition in Seattle yet?
  • On the flip side, the Seahawks have a flood of pre-snap penalties.
  • The secondary is starting to look like Swiss cheese. They’re pulling up players from the practice squad just to field a complete team.
  • Last year, the Seahawks made a big improvement in their third down defense and it was a major factor in their championship run. This year they are 6th worst in the league.

Ok, enough moaning about a team that still has a 4-2 record. There was big news in our league: Tim lost! Jim finally beat him, but Tim still has sole possession of first place. Jim and Luke are tied for second, I’m in fourth and then everyone else is tied at 2-4 for fifth place. Our longest league winning and losing streaks were broken this week too.

Now on to the weekly awards.

  • Highest Team Score
    • This Week:  Austin had 137.67
    • Season: In Week 5, Jim had 160.52
    • All-Time: In 2013, Tim had 195.50
  • Lowest Team Score
    • This Week:  Andy had 78.04
    • Season: In Week 3, Luke had 55.04
    • All-Time: In 2011, Luke had 47.01
  • Biggest Blowout
    • This Week:  Austin beat Andy by 59.63
    • Season: In week 5, Tim beat Dad by 81.60
    • All-Time: In 2010, Luke beat Andy by 113.02
  • Closest Win
    • This Week:  Luke beat Logan by 18.17
    • Season: In Week 2, Austin beat Ben by 1.7
    • All-Time: In 2012, Jim beat Ben by 0.12
  • Highest Scoring Player
    • This Week:  Joe Flacco had 42.24 as a free agent!
    • Season: Previous record was in Week 3, Andrew Luck had 40.30 for Ben
    • All-Time: In 2013, Peyton Manning scored 60.28 for Andy
  • Longest Winning Streaks:
    • Active:  Jim has a 3 game winning streak
    • Season: Tim had a 5 game winning streak
    • All-Time: In 2011, Micah had an 8 game winning streak
  • Longest Losing Streaks:
    • Active:  Dad and Andy have 2 game losing streaks
    • Season: Austin had a 3 game losing streak
    • All-Time: In 2011, Kyle had a 14 game losing streak

Tony Romo was pretty happy for most of the game as he led his team to the win, but I had to chuckle at this screen grab. He’s got his hand in the air making a pistol motion presumably for an audible, but he already stamped his foot for the ball. What followed was reminiscent of Peyton Manning’s missed snap in the Super Bowl. Without plays like this and the blocked punt, the game would have been a blowout.

benmartens October 15, 2014 Fantasy Sports

Gift Cards

I’ve been getting a few Visa/AmEx/Mastercard gift cards for various things like rebates. They’re nice in that you can use them anywhere, but it’s a struggle for me to remember how much money is left and it’s not always easy to pay use the remainder of the gift card and then put the rest on another card. That’s when I realized that I could just take these gift cards, buy Amazon gift cards for the exact same amount, and then I don’t have to worry about it. At future checkouts, Amazon automatically pulls from my gift card balance first. Since we spend a ton of money there anyway, it works out really well.

benmartens October 14, 2014 Commentary

Jersey Comparison

A while back we checked out some of the knockoff jerseys that are widely available. They were close but disappointing. Thanks to Tyla’s parents, I now have an officially licensed jersey and it’s awesome! So what are the big differences? Well this photo shows the major problem I had:

The real jersey on the left has greens that match throughout the jersey. On the right, the green on the shoulders doesn’t match the green around the lettering. It seems small but it looks a bit silly in person and it’s obvious you’’ have a fake. Looking closer at it, you can also see that the stitching is fraying after a single wash.

Save your money and get the real thing.

benmartens October 13, 2014 Commentary

Netflix for Legos

The fun part of Legos for me was usually putting them together. Grabbing random pieces and building from your imagination is fun, but building an actual kit was always special. There’s a great service that I just learned about called Pley. You set up a queue from about 250 different Lego sets and for $15/month, they will send you one of the kits. When you’re done, box it back up and send it back. Then they send you the next one. And yes germophobes, they are cleaned and sanitized before they go out again.

benmartens October 10, 2014 Links

Choosing Slower Delivery

It’s no secret that I love Amazon Prime. For relatively urgent items, the free 2-day shipping is good enough to save me a trip to the store. But for some items, I’m really not in a rush at all and I can wait a week. Amazon used to offer a $1 credit for Amazon movies, but since I never buy Amazon digital movies, I didn’t care. They have switched and are now offering a $1 credit towards books or ebooks. Now THAT’s a deal I’ll use! The downside is that these credits expire after about three months. Still, I expect to opt for the slower shipping quite a bit more often now.

benmartens October 9, 2014 Commentary