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Inspiration for multiple handmade gifts came after turning two garden tool handles. Using salvaged cherry and maple flooring I glued up some blocks for turning on the lathe. Surprisingly, with one exception, these are the first handles I’ve ever turned.

I liked the idea of giving a gift made with love for a specific person and to keep the theme I picked up a few more kits. The ice cream scoop uses the same Cherry and Padauk combo I used on the garden fork handle. The coffee scoop and knife handle are made from Cocobolo.

My daughter seems to luck out with the neatest projects and this year I was excited to present her with something very close to what she asked for. My instructions were to make a wood plaque of the Abbey Road album cover with The Beatles above and that’s pretty much what I did, after finding a metal reproduction of the very album.

I cut out the letters first then made the picture frame and drawers. For this project I only had to purchase flocking and an 1/8″ band saw blade. I looked for little round rock buttons at music stores to use for drawer pulls but ended up using two large square Beatles pins.

This Beatles Abbey Road shelf is made from 1950 mahogany coated with Waterlox and Bartley gel varnish. The drawer interiors are coated with wine color Suede-Tex flocking fibers which really compliment my little wood projects nicely.

I was going to make the drawers big enough to hold The Beatles Mono Box Set that I got her but it is what it is. I hope you enjoy my sharing it online.

Sometimes my work is so much a part of my life I literally live with it. Here is a picture of a chunk of floor I removed from a Frank Lloyd Wright house that I kept due to it’s ill nature. Too bad a piece of the original subfloor didn’t come up with it. Tomato, accounting and subfloor??

I am starting a new project that I hope to share online soon. I’ll be making a dozen windows that match this awning window leaning against my kitchen cabinets. Say Hello to Lana our beautiful yellow Lab.

Here is a gift I made for my daughter this Christmas that I thought I would share. Constructed of Philippine mahogany with 1/4″ birch-ply backing it’s mahogan-’E’. Based on multiples of 5 1/2″ the boxes will fit in any location on the shelf; 3 across the bottom, stacked several high or one here one there.

The shelf was finished with Sikkens Cetol Log Decor then a low-lustre BL Interior Clear topcoat. The boxes were colored with Master’s Solar-Lux dye then covered with 3 coats of Sikkens Interior Clear.

The lumber was all milled to 5/8″ or less and finished with two coats before assembly with a pin nailer. Because of the ultra-low profile of the 23 gauge brads, I only used glue and many pins for the assembly. I predrilled two holes in the birch ply 16″ o.c. for mounting and wrapped each box separately with another wrapped gift in each one.

I enjoyed the result of the letters I made for pulls. Before setting to the the bandsaw, I decided a hand drawn letter looked much better than a stencil or ruler drawn letter and all three of these came out matching italic capital letters.  After finishing each with a chisel, sharp knife, sand paper and dye they really look sharp!

When I arrive at work it hasn’t been light for an hour. When I leave work during these winter months it’s been dark for almost an hour.
On this jobsite there isn’t enough electricity to power Halogen work lights and tools since the entire production is running on a single 20 Amp breaker.

Working at this Modern home is inspiring me to create some galleries of previous work for this site. From The Glass House Compound to Frank Lloyd Wright I have seen simple shapes of wood, metal, plaster, stone and glass! For what it’s worth, I have grown comfortable with the aesthetic. There is something intensely intriguing about the “philosophy” behind creations such as those by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. So much thought and it looks like that? Hahah.