2018

Euge's Espresso Tamper Stand (Dec 18, 2018 )

Made an espresso tamper stand for my dad for Christmas.

Kay's Kitchen Island (Dec 1, 2018 )

Melissa's Grandmother Kay wrote me a letter asking me to make her a kitchen island. She had some dimensions and requirements, and I happily obliged to make it for her. The legs are red oak from The By Way, the rest of the base is white oak from our property as well. I bought oak 1x2s from Home Depot to finish the bottom shelf since I didn't want to deal with planing/prepping all those small sticks. The top is a butcher block top that I bought from Lowes which was also reasonably priced and saved me a bunch of labor. The drawer is quite large and my first attempt at using drawer hardware. I had a lot of trouble getting the damn drawer box to fit in after following the ridiculous instructions. I turned the knobs and I remember having a hard time getting two knobs to match well enough. I think she was pretty happy with the end result, even though it might have not matched her aesthetic.

Mouse House (Nov 20, 2018 )

Melissa wanted to make Lucia a doll house for her 3rd birthday/christmas. We ended up making this little house out of birch plywood. I borrowed my co-worker's Festool Domino which I used for joining the case together. That was fun, and the learning curve was surprisingly high. Kayleigh also randomly helped me out ini the shop to plane and install some of the roof trim one day.

Emi's Pickler Arch (Nov 4, 2018 )

Melissa wanted to buy one of these for Emilia and the going price on Etsy was outrageous. I decided to make one for her birthday. A highlight of this project was getting to use my brother's giant edge sander and his router skills to make one part and duplicate it. I remember when I finally glued this together, I screwed up and flipped one of the sides causing it to rock slightly. I was so mad, but you can't really notice.

Emi’s Bookshelf (Oct 17, 2018 )

Just like her sister, I wanted to make Emilia a bookshelf to act as a centerpiece to her bedroom. I made this one out of walnut plywood and experimented with some funky joinery where I doweled at a 45 degree angle across a rabbeted corner. Initially, I tried to miter the corners of the case. This failed miserably and looked terrible. This was my first and only time so far bailing out of a glue-up to try a different approach.

Outfeed Table (Sep 16, 2018 )

I decided to re-purpose an old Ikea desk-top and build a base out of southern yellow pine. Drawbored mortise and tenon construction.

CFC Wall Cabinet (Aug 14, 2018 )

I started this cabinet when taking a class at the Center for Furniture Making in Rockport, ME. It was an amazing two week experience where I focused solely on building this little cabinet. It was a ton of work and has some very fun features. I had a lot of fun packing a set of tools in my dad's Pelican Case where I got to buy some kaisen foam and get everything to fit perfectly. The front doors have a continuous grain match with the drawer, which has a thin veneer applied on the front to make it work. The case is made out of oak that was ripped and re-glued to contain only very straight and clear grain, and avoid the cathedral-like grain that is present in a lot of oak furniture. The hardware is Brusso brass, and was very expensive and finicky to install. This is probably the longest project that I've let sit without completion. I finished it almost two years after I brought it home from Maine on our flight. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I finally decided to finish it.

Desrosiers Corner Wall Shelf (Jul 6, 2018 )

Andrew liked my design for a wall shelf and asked if we could make one for their house. It was fun to drive Andrew nuts and do everything the old-fashioned, hand-tool way.

Compost box (Jun 14, 2018 )

A small dovetailed box to fit a stainless steel food prep tray that they use for keeping food scraps for compost. The deal was that Michael would eventually come over and help me re-stack my lumber behind the (at that point) newly built shop.