Welcome one, welcome all. Today I will discuss something we should all be concerned with. Liberty! How many of us truly believe we are free? Are you in debt? Then guess what... You're not free. Think about it. If you pay a mortgage and you fail to make one single payment, you risk losing your entire house, despite the fact that you've been faithful on every payment up to maybe even the last one. What about credit cards? Do you know that monthly payment you make really doesn't even touch the principal? You're just paying rent for the privilege of borrowing the initial loan. Student loans are no different. Here's what I'm getting at, so long as you are in debt, you are not truly free. I realized this about five years ago.
So, I decided I wanted out of the rat race. I decided I needed to do something that would change my future. I assessed my skills and found DIY to be my place. So, as many of you know, I invented a stain that is doing quite well on the market. And though I am not completely free, I am in a much better position than I was. So how do you attain financial freedom? Here's what I've learned, there are tons of peeps out there with advice, but the reality is, (and it took me 3 long years to figure this out) there are just two things you do to get to freedom. Right now, many of us are on the inverse of those 2 things. We borrow money, so we work jobs to pay back the debt, plus interest. What if you could start something? Maybe even your own business. Here's what that looks like, (I'm trying not to be to much of an MBA here so please bare with me) find out what your passion is and see if you can sell it. Just start there. I don't care what it is, maybe it's photography. Maybe its art. Maybe its chemistry experiments. Whatever it is, get out there and do it. Next, see if you can sell it. Try Friends, Family, Fools (Doctors, Dentists, Lawyers), and of course, Facebook yard sales and Craigslist. Get back to me on what happened, or just come back here next week and I'll tell you what to do next. Until then, enjoy these box beams that we did. Aren't they lovely?
Materials
- Weatherwood Reclamation Stain
- Red Cedar
- Router or pay to have this done
- Paint Sprayer or Brush
- Wood Glue
Directions
1. First, you need to get your wood prepared to be fitted into a box. We had a local mill router out the groove on the inside edges of the wood. Take three pieces of wood, two pieces will be routered on one side and the third will have both sides routered. This allows the wood to slide together into a box shape where you cannot see the edges.
2. You will want to stain the red cedar with Weatherwood Reclamation stain. We strain the stain and then put the stain through our gravity sprayer and applied it to the wood in even coats. We apply a heavy coat of stain and let the wood air dry.
3. Depending on the red cedar you have, the color result will be anything from brown to dark gray to gray and brown mixture. That's because the tannin in cedar varies so much. Once the wood is dry, you can fit your pieces together into the shape of a box and glue them in place. You can see the whole process in the video above, from wood to box, to stained box.
When the wood is rough or wire brushed, that texture totally hides any seams between the three pieces of wood. You can see box beams stained with Reclamation installed in this home. This cedar was rough while the cedar in the video was wire brushed to add texture. It makes the home look very expensive, but that's because real wood beams are expensive. And are even more so when the wood is authentic weathered wood.
