You know how this works right?
A lumberjack goes into the woods and cuts down a tree which is then sent to a mill where it is cut up, sliced and diced and sent to a plywood manufacturing plant where it is glued up, pressed together, squared up and sent out to the lumberyard where I went to buy it and turn it back into trees!
This was for an artist that hand painted fabric and needed a way to show it. She draped the fabric over and around the plywood trees and it made a beautiful display. One of many small jobs that would fill in a day or two over the last 30 years.

Halloween is big at my house espescially when the kids were small but it got to be even more fun when they were big enough to do the scaring instead of being scared. So when my friend, who has a second house on his property, that he keeps decorated for Halloween year round, offered me a room to do whatever I wanted, I suggested a haunted library.
It’s easier to see the effects when the lights are out, but you wouldn’t be able to see the pictures at all, so it’s lights on for LJ.
The bookcase “floats” with lights and smoke all around it, with spot lights highlighting the important places, for instance the mechanical monkey that screams at you when you walk by, or the books that have a threaded rod running the entire length of the bookshelf with cams that make the books “float” off the shelf towards you. Not to mention the sexy librarian that guides you through. There was also a compressed air bomb that would go off at the touch of a button in the control room, emptying 5 gals of high pressure air in an instant and aimed right at your feet. Woodworking isn’t always about hard work, sometimes it’s just for the fun of it! Happy Halloween!

Sometimes it’s fun to incorporate different materials into your woodworking projects. For this hair salon I included brushed aluminum, black formica, cherry wood and of course mirror. What you see here is the reception desk and two stations which back up to two more stations, there was a total of 12 stations. This job was priced high because of all the detail and the customer loved the results.

A couple of years ago my partner Mark Hensley and I had this job out in Wyoming, we both live in central Florida. The job was cabinetry for the horse barn. Both the tack room for the horses equipment but also a workshop, complete with stationary tools, for any of the metal and woodworking that may be needed on site. We were at a hunt camp about 40 miles from Metesee. Try to find it on a map!
That’s Mark in the first picture and the last picture gives you an idea of where we were, in the background is the horse barn. It got down to 27 below and snowed about 18 inches over the two weeks we were there.
All the parts for the job were cut and flat packed at our shop in San Antonio Florida. We shipped everything including tools to the jobsite and built everything there. It was two weeks of madness! I wish I could put up more pictures, it was awesome!!!
The cabinetry was all prefinished birch plywood, but all the drawer fronts were from a cedar tree cut down on the property, the handles are all antlers and there were lots of them!

This was a straight forward cabinet replacement. The customer pretty much liked the layout but hated the plastic cabinets. I made a couple of design suggestions such as a deep refer upper and bookshelves behind the island, she wanted oak wood and lighting under the uppers. I always do a full 3/4” panel to cover the upper bottoms, this way I can hide hocky puck lights and wiring.

This kitchen was designed to match customers furniture of the same style. The existing furniture is made of quartersawn oak, the new cabinetry was made of Cherry. Interiors are natural birch, dovetailed drawer boxes, full extension under-mount slides, trash pullout, lazy Susan, granite tops, new tile back-splashes w/copper inlays. Water-based finishes sprayed with HVLP! About $35,000, without appliances.

European style, painted maple cabinetry. His and hers sides with different needs including electricity, vanity sitting area, laundry hamper pullouts, full extension self closing under-mount drawer slides, solid surface counters with integral sinks. Water-base white lacquer, sprayed of course with HVLP.

Here the customer wanted a painted/antiqued/distressed, brand new custom kitchen, master bath, window seat w/storage and table w/leaf to seat 6. As usual while I was designing everything, I was also working on finish samples. I presented the customer 3 different finish treatments, she immediately chose one (it was nice not to have to make more samples). I cut that sample in two and had her sign both pieces.
The finish process was this – First, the fun part, I beat all of the doors, moldings and trim with a chain and another board with screws sticking out of it. After sanding to 320 (because I use all water-base finishes) I then sprayed a white topcoat from Aquacoat. I completely finished in this manner with 3 to 4 coats of finish, sanding in between up to 400 grit.
After curing for a day or two I applied a dark brown latex paint using a chip brush to all of the details, edges, corners, anything or anywhere that would hold onto some remnants of the brown once wiped off, which I did while the paint was still wet. Once this was done to the entire job I then put one final clear coat on top in order to seal the antiquing.
The customer asked for a “one of a kind” crown molding but didn’t like the price, we found a compromise. By simply adding a riser to the top of the cabinets, which gives a larger appearance, then using a standard crown to finish it out.
Granite tops as usual, under-mount sink, wine rack and special pullouts all were nice additions to an already beautiful kitchen.

Dining table with leaf! Base is birch, solid color latex paint with chocolate glaze. Top is stained hard maple. All finishing materials are waterbased, sprayed with my HV5000.

Cherry Murphy bed, raised panel doors, water based poly top coat on water based stain, sprayed with HVLP.