Despite all the furniture I’ve built in my workshop, I never got around to truly organizing it. I built a workbench and hung some tools on the existing pegboard, but I’ve had a huge pile of hardware laying around for years. I could pick up bags and boxes of miscellaneous hardware and tell immediately that it was what I took with me after moving from one apartment in DC to another, or from DC to Greenville.
My in-laws were enamored with these rocking chair footrests at Mast General Store:
They dropped a lot of hints that they wanted them for Christmas, but I didn't feel like paying $43 a piece for these tiny things. Plus, the store only had them in stained oak, and my in-laws have white rocking chairs. So I decided to make my own.
Last Christmas my wife and I took the Handmade Pledge and were largely successful. She made ornaments, stuffed animals, and tote bags to give away, and we tried to buy handmade products whenever possible. I made seven of these wine bottle holders for Christmas gifts:
They seem to defy gravity.
I’ve been meaning to build a coffee table for years. I wanted it to look like something store-bought, since it was going to be in the middle of our living room. I’ve come close to building it a few times over the past few years, but never could pull the trigger on it. I’ve actually gone to buy the wood and walked out empty handed because of a lack of confidence. Last weekend I finally got around to building it. This was the design:
It’s more complex than it looks, since almost all the boards have to be routed in some way. Sometimes it’s hard to remember the exact order in which everything has to be cut, sanded, glued, and assembled when everything is scattered around a messy garage.
I wanted to use some scrap wood from around the garage for something useful, so I made a box to hold our firewood on the front porch. Ironically, I ended up buying new wood for almost the entire thing. It was fun to build, though, since I got to play with my new router.
I’ve decided that the difference between an amateur-looking piece and a professional-looking piece is ten minutes worth of routing around the edges.
