Wood & WorkingSee the progress. Scroll from bottom of the page to the top. From cheap pine, to walnut and white oak furniture.
The build that changed what I thought was possible.
I built this hall tree for our home, with three coat-hook bays, a wooden bench seat, and three drawers below.
But the biggest thing it changed was how I saw my own work.
After finishing and installing it, I stepped back and, for the first time, really believed in my capabilities and skills.
It was the project that made me think woodworking could become more than a hobby.
More room for the things we actually use.
My wife and I needed larger, more functional nightstands, so I built a pair for our bedroom.
Each one has a drawer for the smaller things and an open shelf below for books and everyday storage.
I used white oak and finished them with Rubio Pure.
They’re furniture made to solve a real need in our home—and another step toward the finer furniture I want to keep building.
A Christmas gift for the name nobody drew.
My father-in-law loves cufflinks and has lots of them.
Our family draws names for Secret Santa each Christmas, but one year, somehow, nobody drew his name and he ended up with nothing.
I went home that week and made this cufflink box for him.
The box is sapele with walnut splines and a plexiglass lid.
Inside, half-lap joints connect the dividers, and rolled felt holds his cufflinks in their compartments.
Different sizes for a kitchen that gets used.
My wife bakes a lot and needed higher-quality cutting boards in different sizes.
I made this walnut end-grain set for her, with a larger board and smaller ones for different jobs in the kitchen.
The photos show both the full set and the thickness and grain of the largest board.
It’s another project that started with something our family needed and became something I could make.
A home for the 63,746,282 pillows on our bed.
I built this blanket chest for the foot of our bed, mostly to give my wife’s many, many pillows somewhere to go.
It predates my shift toward finer furniture and belongs to an earlier stage of my woodworking.
The goal was straightforward: make something useful for our bedroom.
I’m keeping those earlier builds here because they’re part of the story of how the work has progressed.
For the chair that survived getting married.
This C-table was made for my favorite chair—the one piece of furniture I got to keep when we got married.
The chair now lives in my home office.
I built the table from pine, back when I couldn’t be trusted with nicer hardwoods.
Eventually, I plan to rebuild it in cherry and maple.
For now, it’s an early build that still has a place in our home.
I share the process, the problems, and what I learn along the way. Watch on YouTube and follow along on Instagram.