Phase one: First posting.

Though I have enjoyed reading the blogs my wife does, I never even thought about doing a blog for me. One of my hobbies that I wanted to post deals with furniture building.

There are so many things I enjoy about wood working. There is nothing more satisfying than sitting down and planning a project, putting it onto a scale drawing, then constructing it according to the plan. Here are the pictures of projects I have built.

This is our kitchen table. It was the first furniture project I built in our home. It is 4 ft. wide and just over 6 ft. long. I built it by using newel posts for the legs. I do not have a lathe and do not want a lathe. I used a sheet of plywood for the top and then used pre-finished flooring as the top. I put an edge band to hide the edge of the plywood and the flooring. I used a hardwood skirt and added crown moulding between the skirt and table top.

When the time came to glue the pre-finished flooring to the plywood, I couldn't figure out how to clamp it. I thought I would just put some weight on it. So, I got some boxes of the tile we bought. (I ended up tiling the house later in the year). I started loading the tile on top of the table top, and before I knew it, I had put 17 boxes of tile around the perimeter and also on the center. I realized that it was quite a bit of weight, so I weighed one of the boxes. It weighed 70 pounds!! Total weight: almost 1200 pounds! I am confident in the structural integrity of the table.

I finished up by painting the skirt, moulding, and legs with a semi-gloss paint that matched the chairs we bought. (Building chairs requires more tools than I have).

I have mixed emotions as I look at this picture. For Jeanette's birthday, I built her an entertainment center. I actually bought the TV first, then built the entertainment center around it. I have to say this is the most difficult peice of furniture I built. I am pretty proud of it. Then, the TV died. I went from a 36 inch screen back down to a 27 inch screen. I believe we are supposed to upgrade. Fortunately, I built it where a 42 inch flatscreen will fit in it. Hopefully, before too long, I will update the blog with good TV news.

When Jeanette and I were about to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversery, I asked her what she wanted. She told me she wanted a headboard. We had lived our entire marriage with just a bedframe. Being a typical guy, I didn't really care about it, but she wanted something to dress up the bedroom. We went down to a local furniture store to get an idea of what we liked. (When I say "we", I mean Jeanette). The head board had a couple of design features that she really liked. The crown moulding at the top and also the flutes in the posts really caught her eye. This headboard for a king size bed cost $3000.

I used the furniture store headboard as inspiration, and built a headboard out of material I had in the garage. I think I had to buy some crown moulding, an aluminum angle iron, and some paint. It cost me $30. That is one of the other things I love about building furniture. I get exactly what I want and I save a fortune.