Electrical panel art project

Howdy readers! (or mom, since she's probably the only one still reading [waving at mom!])

I got started on the electrical panel art project. Yep. ART project. I'm going to make a giant wall-hanging (I dare not call it a "painting" for fear of being pretentious) to cover the electrical panel, instead of the mui ugly cabinet that's there now. It'll be hinged on the left side to allow it to swing open like a giant door.

Here's my inspiration ($125 USD on Etsy):

Because the space I want to cover is about 4'x4', I'm going to change the dimensions slightly, and I'll use different colours since red just doesn't go.

The supply list (all picked up at the Big-Box DEPOT of Building and HOME supplies):

(disclaimer, I can't find my receipt, so I can't give you exact prices)

• 4'x4' sheet of birch plywood (~$10) ← it's handy because it comes already cut to that size! It's not handy because it's hard to transport home; just ask the kids who rode home with it balanced on top of their heads.
• 1x2x8 finger-jointed pine (2x~$3.00=$6.00)
• utility hinges (~$1.00 = 1.00)
• corner braces (~$2.00 for 4)
• friction catch (~$2.00)
• paint (2 tester cans @ $7.50ea =$15.00)
• nails/hammer or SuperAwesomeAirNailer♥
• square 
• tape measure/pencil
• saw
• wood filler
• sand paper

Total cost:  about $36 bucks?


Fortunately I didn't need to resize my sheet of plywood, but if it had been necessary I would've asked the nice wood-cutting dude at the store to cut it for me. He cut the 1x2's in half so I could fit them into the car since I needed two boards that were 48" and two that were 46.5". (I cut the two 46.5" boards on the chop saw at home).




So on to the build. I worked a little bass-ackwards, and rather than building a frame and attaching the plywood to it, I tacked the 1x2's on their edges to the plywood and then connected them to each other. Menh. It worked.
(please don't look at the disaster in my garage. Thank you.)

This step is probably overkill, since with a big sheet of plywood I can't see it sagging much, but I reinforced the corners with some corner braces.  Rhombus art = bad.

This is my new best friend. I used an old-school screwdriver to install one corner brace (4 screws) and my wrist was dying. WIMP. Never again. Cordless Screwdriver for the win!









And this is where I left off.

Next steps:
Apply wood filler to the edges of the plywood and sand (must find wood filler. Did we leave it at the cottage? Methinks yes) and prime it for painting. Painting is the fun part. I might rope the kidlets into helping.