Woodworking Skills

I’m not going to lie, weekend projects around the house have never really been my thing. I think that is because they usually are not my thing – they’re someone else’s thing like hanging curtains for my wife or hanging photos for my wife or assembling shelves for my wife. You get the idea. I realize I should be more charitable and take great pleasure in doing those things, but, well I’m still working on it.

Anyway, last weekend the stars in the southern hemisphere must have aligned because my wife asked me to do a weekend project that actually really excited me. I have always had this dream of taking wood and building something with it. When we lived in California I jointed habitat for humanity simply because I wanted to develop some awesome carpentry skills; however, all they wanted me to do was work on their legal issues. Big disappointment and I eventually dropped out. So, when my wife asked me to build a bed for our son Daniel (and to be used by Helen’s mom when she comes to visit), I was all over it. I made my plans and headed off to the hardware store to buy some tools and lumber.

Let me just tell you, it was great. I had so much fun. The bed wasn’t super hard to make or very fancy, but it took some time and elbow grease and at the end of the day I actually had something that looks and functions like a bed. I tell you, honestly, nothing I have done professionally has brought me as much satisfaction as making this bed. I think it must be because when you build something tangible you can see where all your effort went, that you actually produced something you can point at when it’s all said and done. What can I point to as an attorney? A bunch of emails, contracts, upset people? Hum. Not quite the same. Anyway, thank you dear wife for giving me this great project. I’m up for any more building projects you need – bedside tables?

Here I am with the raw materials. I had to make two trips to the lumber yard, because the plywood wouldn’t fit in the car with all the other wood.

Actually, the only tools I had were a jigsaw, drill, and a palm sander I picked up at the store because I didn’t want to sand the whole thing by hand. Two good helper as you can see above and several others not shown in the photos here. Everyone wanted to hammer in a nail, but I was only using screws in case I need to disassemble at some point down the road. So, the kids took my hammer and some nails and went to work on their own. Let’s just say the garage is now booby trapped with small pieces of scrap wood bearing half hammered bent nails.

Starting to take shape here. My biggest concern was finishing and then finding out that mattress wouldn’t fit. But I didn’t want to bring the mattress out into the dirty garage. So I measured twice and held my breath. (Thanks Helen for taking the photos to document this adventure)

Getting more confidence now, pleased that yes in fact this will be a bed.

It’s hard to say which part of this project was the best, but certainly the staining and varnishing are right up there. What magic to see the wood transformed in to something that looks really cool, like you actually knew what you were doing. Really I just followed the instructions on the can.

Here it is, the finished product in its new home – Daniel’s bedroom. I realize most people will have stopped reading before they get to this point, but I just love looking at this photo.

And here it is, fully functional with mattress and all and me enjoying the fruit of my labors. I’m so into building now. I want to get more tools –a router, a dovetail saw, a table saw, the list goes on. Ahh, deep joy.