In 2007 we purchased 4 acres of woods off of craigslist in Northwood, OH. So the plan was to build a new house closer to work cause I was tired of the drive. Well here we are a year and a half later with the sort of finished product. A 4,200 square foot 4 bedroom 4 bath homestead of the "Nicholls" as usual she was a DIY project of the largest proportion.  I bought a bobcat and a grapple bucket and started clearing the woods after the driveway was started. I got a deal on a 2700 square foot "model house" that was built by IBS in Indiana. I registered to be a "dealer" so I got a great deal on a house. It was assembled at the factory for potential customers to tour. It was disassembled tailored 150 miles east and put on our foundation.   In typical Chad faction, it wasn't exactly what we wanted so we added on a bit.. The rest is history.

"Homemade Fifth Wheel RV"

  I started with a bare frame. The frame was made by Lippert Manufacturing in Elkhart Indiana. I was originally made to be a 2006 "Potomac Liberty RV" They went out of business in summer of 2006. The frame was on the assembly line the day they closed down the plant. It was then sold at a local auction. A local surplus dealer in Hudson, MI by the name of Tri State Surplus bought two of the unfinished frames along with other RV stuff.  I have gotten to know Ed the owner of TSS very well over the life of this project. This is NOT a kit. Or a plan. I reverse engineered the entire rig. The floor plan was locked only to the length and the fact that I needed to make it a mid bath front master bedroom. The rest came out of hours of thinking or on the fly revisions as we went. I learned a few lessons along the way but for the most part it went very well. As far as I have looked, I believe this may be the largest homebuilt rv with a slide out that has been finished.

The full story is Here

Our living room need help. It had been retrofitted with a suspended ceiling years ago and it looked bad! It was stained from cigarette smoke from the previous owners. We ended up taking the ceiling down, and putting in new joists to make it flat as the old lath and plaster was in sad shape above. We knocked out a wall where our small office used to be to make our living room larger it is now 19x23. In the process we added a new fireplace. We installed all new drywall and carpeting. The woodwork was all salvaged from an old house that we gutted before it was redone.

Made from Recycled Cedar

Our firstborn was on his way, all those trips to Babies-R-Us looking at furniture got me thinking, why cant I build one? So it began this is the very first piece of "furniture"  that I ever really attempted.  I didn't have any plans but then again it couldn't be that hard, so I just built it on the fly.  Both of my grandfathers Charles Kinsman and Blaine Nicholls had been building fine furniture before I was ever around so one could argue that it was in my blood. My father-in-law had remolded his porch and he had given me a bunch of 1x8 cedar boards, so I thought that would be a good choice for my first project. I bought a plainer and planned them smooth. All the joints were made with a craftsman doweling jig. Its basically a frame with a groove ripped for a piece of 1/4 inch beaded plywood. The drawers are not fancy, I used metal rails like RTA furniture uses. I would do it differently now, but at the time I used what I had.

Self designed and Built

 Well the Dresser Project went so well that I thought I should build a changing table. My grandfather Charles Kinsman had passed away, and I acquired a nice size supply of hardwoods to work with. I had not really worked with real wood but I was anxious to give it a try. Being that the wood belonged to my late grandfather it also gave me a good feeling thinking about our babies will have a connection with him. I decided to make the changing pad tray removable so it could be used as a buffet later.  The shelves also have pullouts so they could be pulled out to get to things in the back. I did make some mistakes on this piece. I but glued the side panels and I neglected to dowel the joints they later have split, and need to be repaired to make it right again but it has worked well.

Self designed and Built

The dresser and the changing table were done just in time for the due date.  But still no baby! I was going stir crazy and I had leftover wood so a baby cradle was in order. I had bought the wrong size changing pad for the changing table so; why not build a cradle to fit the pad? This project took 3 nights to complete. The night I was finished she went into labor, we joke that Mason was waiting for me to get his cradle done. Its basically a box with a French curve at the top that is hinged by a counter sunk bearing that I bought a tractor supply. It rocks very well I'm sure it would be good for 3000 RPMS but the wife thought it should just go back an forth, women  The bearing was probably overkill but I wanted it to rock smoothly.

1800 All built by us.

We had a new baby (mason) and a two bedroom one bathroom 1200 sf house. We knew we wanted more children so it was time to tackle a real project. What was going to be a master bedroom and bathroom turned into a two story 3 bedroom 2 bath family room and full basement 1800 square feet total.   The following photo's document the whole project. The woodwork is from 2 different house they match the existing house almost perfect. Most people cant tell the difference between the addition and the existing house. The master bedroom has a hot tub room off of it with a glass roof to see the sky. This was a major project the shell took us about 3 months. I got burned out on working on it over the winter. And I was sidetracked with other projects and hey, I had a new baby to enjoy so it took about 3 years to really complete. We decided to leave the upstairs unfinished until the kids got bigger, but as fate would have it. I got another job in Toledo and we build a new house. We ended up finishing the upstairs in order to sell the house.

This a mixed bag, of improvements that we had mad to our house before I really took a lot of photos of my projects. Here you can see pictures of the pond we had dug, the new decks we added, sun room addition, kitchen remodel and many more. You can also see my original pole barn that I added to our barn/shed that later was destroyed in a fire.

This is my 1973 Chevy Nova Hatchback

I do work on cars too. This car was acquired in 2002, it was left in a storage garage with a couple of motorcycles for a few years. The owner of the car could not pay the storage fees.  I worked with the owner of the storage garage, and my buddy Jeff and I bought the "junk" for what he owed in storage fee's . Jeff took the bikes, and I took the car. I called AAA and had them send out a locksmith to make me a key, we were able to get it started vvvrooom. She is so loud. It has a modified 350 with a nice mild cam and a Holly 650 Double Pumper Carburetor. The seats were in bad shape. I was in the junkyard when I spotted a 2002 cougar that was newly totaled. I bought the bucket seats and the rear fold down seats that fit perfectly. She is getting some rust and will need some work soon, but it still turns heads. I love going to get gas and listen to the old timers tell me about �I had a car like that�� I love to talk about it

This is a 72 Vintage trailer that we bought for $500 and totally gutted and redid. It took us 4 weekends and about 1200 dollars to redo, however I think you will be impressed at the finished job.

More Photo's are Here