Welcome to my Carpentry page

Master Bedroom Bookshelf

Whenever I build a bookshelf, my wife fills it with books and then buys more books, thus necessitating another new shelf—this is the great circle of life. This particular project has been in the planning stages for almost a year, but I finally got around to it and we love the way it turned out. The shelf is a true 1” thick piece of maple (not a phony 3/4”), stained ‘Gunstock’, with an oil-based seal finish as smooth as glass. Final measurement is roughly 9 1/2 feet. Brackets from Amazon. Freshly painted accent wall to make it all pop. (Notice in one picture I got to make use of the extendable 8 ft. workbench I built over the summer.)

November 2022

Laptop Shelf

Somehow or other I acquired two free laptops over the last year (I think this tends to happen when you get into the IT field) but had nowhere to put them. Like, literally nowhere. So I built a little, hidden shelf under my desk to slide them away out of view. Now, I forget they are there and when I need them they have no charge. Problem solved?

October 2022

Workbench / Game Table

Storage was tight in our basement, I didn’t have an indoor workbench to tinker on, and (most importantly) there was nowhere in the house to set up my homemade boardgame (King of the Mountain) without clearing off the entire dining room table. The only sensible solution was to build an extensible workbench/craft table with additional storage capacity and multi-function work surfaces. Basic carpentry took a week, but all the finishing and fine details took another two months.

This bad boy is only two by four feet (W x L), but it can extend lengthwise up to eight feet or widthwise up to four feet, or both at once. Color-coded ‘props’ support the fold-out surfaces to make them strong enough to stand on. The lower area contains: four sliding drawers of various sizes for tuck-away storage; two cubbies custom-sized for special bins; a larger, four-square-foot, handmade, felt-lined game-box that houses my 30-lb. behemoth of a boardgame; and a knee-high storage shelf that can fit in two large Rubbermaid bins (or the equivalent thereof.) All wooden surfaces are stained and sealed and the whole table is on casters with brakes so I can anchor it in place while working.

July 2022

Bottlecap Coffee Table

Years ago, my awesome friend gave me this awesome coffee table… and he helped me drink a bunch of beer, too. Hard work, I know, but we were willing to make that sacrifice for the sake of our art. I don’t have a count, but I think the majority of the 774 caps are unique. The picture is a sea monster curling up out of the ocean with a sunset sky in the background. If you look closely, you can see: a floundering canoe that the monster is about to devour; sharks in the ocean; flocks of geese in the sky; a blazing sun, stars, a blue moon (and even a planet); palms trees on the shore; numerous unfortunate animals inside the belly of the beast (including an entire happy family); rusty anchors at the bottom of the ocean; sunken skulls on the seafloor; and lots more! The table is topped with a custom piece of plexiglass held in place by brass screws. Sadly, there is no room for this spirituous masterpiece of modern art in our humble abode, so it is currently stored in a crawlspace. Too bad, so sad.

circa 2010

Front Door Sign

We have always had a Bible passage on the wall above our front door, but it was a peeling sticker and the plaster underneath was cracking—the whole thing needed a refresh! For Karen’s Christmas present, I got a cool piece of wood (called Ziricote) and painted the same verse, mimicking the style of the old one so I wouldn’t get in trouble for ‘changing everything.’ This was painstaking and nerve-racking, but it was worth the time and trouble (including repainting the entire wall after I patched the plaster crack.)

December 2021

Magic Sword

I made my nephew a magic sword for his 7th birthday. I used a piece of wood I had designed a much different sword on 20+ years ago, but never had the wherewithal to finish. So I redesigned it, and added a special touch: 7 magnetic medallions that can snap into the hilt of the sword (one on each side) to imbue it with magic powers.

November 2021

Book Nooks

Since we have more books than we have bookshelves, we are constantly looking for novel places to put them all. We thought about putting new shelves up, but shelves stick out into the room and take up space. So, we thought, why not cut holes into the wall and build in-set shelves? (Otherwise known as book nooks.) I ended up making three nooks altogether, and boy, did they fill up fast (and not always with books; go figure.)

April/May 2021

Porch Light

We have had this simple light fixture from IKEA in our basement (still in the box) for about two years. Finally got around to installing it. Every time I finish a project, I think, why didn’t I do this sooner?

May 2021

Treasure Chest

Karen and I picked this old steamer trunk up at a resale shop a few years, and made grand plans for it. Then it sat in our basement for two years. When we finally got around to cleaning it up, it was a lot more work than we bargained for. When we bought it (for 35$) we thought, What a deal! We’re practically saving money! Well, 50+ hours of power-sanding, ad hoc carpentry, shopping online for obscure replacement parts, and custom-making new inner-linings with experimental fabric (not to mention another 150$ in supplies), the trunk is at long-last ready for its marvelous destiny of being shoved in a corner upstairs and filled with magical miscellanea. It may not have been the amazing bargain we thought we were getting, but it is definitely a treasure to us, now.

July 2020

‘Bookcase in the Air’

The ‘problem?’ Too many books! The solution? Build more bookshelves wherever you can possibly squeeze them in! This was a fun project, and now we have an extra 17.5 feet of bookshelves, which means approximately 150 less books on our living room floor :)

March 2020

Reading Rocks!

Okay, this one is not technically carpentry… nor is it one of my own projects. My amazing and talented wife created these bookmarks for all the kids in her classroom! Don’t you wish she was your teacher, too?

And then, because she is equal parts brilliant and crazy, she painted all these little rock-people for each kid, too! Why? Ha! Because Reading Rocks!

Pencil Dispenser

I made this for Karen for a Christmas present. It is based off an idea from a catalog. I thought she might hang it in her classroom, but she thought it might get ruined at school. It is hanging in our house, instead, but if you ever visit, and you need a pencil, do not take a pencil from the Pencil Dispenser. The Pencil Dispenser is for display purposes only! (I mean, it works—it does dispense pencils—but just look at how lovingly those pencils are arranged! You wouldn’t want us to have to redo all that, would you?)

December 2019

Dancin’ Sal

I made Dancin’ Sal in shop class in junior high (c. 1996), which is to say I cut out his shape on the scroll saw, spent about 10 minutes halfheartedly ‘painting’ him, then gave up. He lived in a box in my parents’ basement for the next 23 years, unfinished, his dancin’ soul crying out in anguish. Finally—triumphantly!—In 2019, Dancin’ Sal found his way out of storage and back into my life, and I gave him the paint job he always deserved! Now, Sal can dance that funky monkey dance like he was born to!

October 2019

Crawlspace Closet

We are short on storage space, and we have these uninhabitable attic/crawlspace areas on our second floor, which were previously unfinished and full of dust and possibly ghosts. The solution? Clean them out, turn them into beautiful closets, then jam them full of stuff you rarely use and probably don’t really need in the first place.

November-December 2019

Garage Workshop

Sooner or later, a man just has to roll up his sleeves, clean out the garage, and build a nine-foot workbench.

July 2019

Halloween 2018

Soap Shelves

You may be wondering, what are soap shelves? Well, you know all those dozens and dozens of extra soap dispensers you have stockpiled in case of the zombie apocalypse? You need somewhere to put them all so you can see the pretty labels, don’t you? Of course, you do! So you build soap shelves.

August 2019

Medicine Cabinet & Toiletries Cabinet

We do not have a lot of storage space in our bathroom, so every inch counts! Our old cabinets were, well, old, and showing their age in unflattering ways. The solution? Make new ones!

April 2019

Spice Racks

We were running low on room for spices above our oven (and then we got about 30 new spice jars for wedding presents) so I made some spice racks and mounted them along the stairway to the basement.

October 2018

Halloween 2017

Here are our Jack’o’lanterns from Halloween 2017. (I think this counts as carpentry!)

Silverware Tray

We got new silverware after our wedding, but there was a problem—none of it fit in our old silverware tray! The knives were a little too long, so we had to wedge them in the drawer at a funny angle, and life became a living nightmare. The solution? Build your own silverware tray to the exact specifications required! Now the long nightmare is over, and life is a dream come true.

March 2018

Laundry Basin Plumbing

The old plumbing for our laundry basin leaked, had a bizarre hodgepodge of random parts (which caused a lot of corrosion) and was a real eyesore. The solution? Shiny new copper pipes and a brand-new faucet! Now, doing laundry is… well, not fun, but better. Definitely better.

April 2018

Basement Bookshelves

This is the first big project I tackled after Karen and I got married. We both have a lot of books, but we were short on shelf-space. The solution? Build fifty linear feet of brand-new bookshelves, of course!

September 2017