I had so much fun with the tigerwood chest that I thought it would be a challenge to make another one in spalted maple. I wasn’t wrong, making raised panels, rails, and stiles out of this wood was pretty intense. However, I do think it turned out Ok.

Although my wife is an accomplished artist, she enjoys taking art classes. Her favorite teacher has seen several of my chests and suggested that people would be interested in being able to hang necklaces and similar types of jewelry. I modified my regular design to incorporate a vertical drawer and made the chest out of Brazilian Tigerwood. Pretty nifty I think.

Needless to say, our Sourwood Gallery President didn’t want to left out of the “new” reception desk deal. So to keep her happy (and of course, I was seriously put upon to return to my shop and make more sawdust), I put together another using all ambrosia maple. I was pleasantly surprised that the 8/4 ambrosia maple top was a whole lot easier to work with than the 8/4 purpleheart top of the Red House desk.

My wife and I belong to the Sourwood Gallery in Black Mountain, NC. We are also members of the Swannanoa Valley Fine Arts League (SVFAL). One of the SVFAL board members asked my wife if I could build them a reception desk for the new Red House Gallery and Art Studio facility (also located in Black Mountain, NC). The idea of a reception desk in an art gallery was intriguing at best. After coming up with a design, I contact a couple of my suppliers and waited for the wood to show up. i should have known that I was in trouble when the wood for the desk top arrived in three UPS packages and the lightest package was 66 pounds. By the time I planed, jointed, routed, sanded, and finished it, the baby weighed in a tad over 325 pounds.

Got a call from an Asheville Doctor the other day and she wanted a custom jewelry chest. Like an idiot, i said sure, what are you looking for? Would you believe 9 drawers in a 16 inch high by 24 inch cabinet…sheesh

Several years before I retired, I had the pleasure of interviewing and hiring a very talented secretary. Over several year Dottie managed to keep me on schedule and generally out of trouble. When I left the Department of the Army to take over the records management program at FEMA, I was once again lucky enough to drag her with me to become my Operations Officer. And once again, she proved an invaluable asset in keeping me on track and generally out of trouble. Over those years we also became friends and she learned of my woodworking hobby. One of the things I shared with her was a jewelry box I build for my wife some thirty years ago. When I finished my wife’s new retirement jewelry box (see project 29541) my wife told her she could have the one that I built way back when. Now you have to keep in mind that the one I built so many years ago was made when the only real tools I had was a circular saw, 1 1/2 hp router, a couple hammers and screwdrivers. So needless to say, I figured that since Dottie kept me out of trouble for so many years that I could do better. The box is approximately 18 inches wide; 12 inches deep; and 22 inches tall. The rails and stiles are white oak with black walnut panels; the top, and drawer fronts are white oak and walnut. The drawers are red oak on full extension slides. I originally planned on shipping it to her in Virginia, but figure keeping it here will give her the motivation to come visit us here in Western North Carolina So Dottie, its here and ready for you to pick it up :-)

Since moving to Old Fort, NC we have been having a ball making candles, building furniture, making wreaths, painting, and generally having a real good time as a pair of retired folks. Over the past several months we have been showing and selling some of our stuff at a monthly “Arts Mart” held in “downtown” Old Fort. One of the regulars was into making and selling cutting boards; however, last month he announced that he wasn’t going to do that anymore. Having looked at what he was making, I thought I should be able to use a lot of the shorts left over from some of my other projects. This attempt uses cherry, walnut, and white oak and raised panels for the drawer box. I finished the drawer box with Watco and finished the top with mineral oil and beeswax mixture made by Howard.

Over the last six years we have had a 27” X 3” plank of Wally World “oak” with six “brass” coat hooks next to our front door. Having moved down here for over a year, we noticed that the area under the coat rack seemed to be a magnet for everything from boxes of dog bones (for the local dogs that stop by to visit) to stuff that we still aren’t too sure how it go there. My better half suggested that a hall tree with storage chest would make the entryway look a whole lot better. Needless to say, it gave me another opportunity to see what could be done with raised panels and mixing different species of wood. Even learned how to upholster a padded seat for the storage chest. Retirement is a wonderful thing :-)

A little over a year ago, I ordered 800 BF of white oak and my best friend Andy Anderson helped me unload it from the flatbed semi that delivered it. Since it was 4/4 and in the rough, Andy (who is not really into wood working), commented that it was some really ugly wood. About two weeks ago Andy asked if i could make him a gun cabinet I figured it was appropriate to use the “ugly wood” for his cabinet. IMHO, I think it turned out OK.

When we moved to our retirement home, we brought several plants from our house in Virginia. With all the activity of moving, we grabbed a Wally World plastic shelving unit and used it as a plant stand. Well a new plant stand had been on my list of things to build, but somehow between building new kitchen cabinets and several other projects over the last several months, the plant stand kind of slid to the bottom of the to do list. A couple days before Christmas, I picked up a Christmas cactus for my wife. After handing it to her, she reminded me that there wasn’t enough room on the plant stand and that I needed to push the new plant stand higher on the to do list. I been having so much fun with building things using raised panels, I though what the hey, lets build a plant stand with attitude. So I grabbed some hickory and walnut and the rest is now history. Retirement still rocks!!

We have french doors for an entry to our house and the first thing that anyone sees when they come in is the kitchen. What has bugged my wife for several years is that our trash can was out in the open (even though it was a very nice stainless steel pop top). Since I am in the process of building all new kitchen cabinets, I figured what the heck, why not build a standalone cabinet that matches the facade of the new cabinets to be. When I suggested this to my wife, she asked if it could be made big enough to keep a recycling container as well. After I finished the cabinet, it also became the new home for our coffee maker…talk about multifunctional :-)

After we had the master bedroom closet taken out and the matching aromatic cedar Chest of Drawers and Armoire installed, we discovered that we had also eliminated the place we kept the laundry hamper. It is somewhat tough to hide the dirty clothes when company comes to visit without a close at hand closet. What a shame, another project that required me to spend time in my workshop :-(. Kept the same theme of double and triple raised panels and matched my wife’s “jewelery furniture” using walnut and pine. Still have to add the aromatic cedar to the inside, but at least now we can hide the laundry until washing day comes along.

When we decided to lose our Ikea and closet maid closet furnishing we figured that the pair of aromatic cedar chests would be a good starting point. After finishing the chests (see our previous project) we figured out that it might be useful to have some way of hanging our clothes. Well since I already had a bunch of cedar we got this rather nifty idea to match the chest of drawers with a pair of armories. Well almost two weeks later (the advantage of being retired) we stood them up and now the closet is gone and the new bedroom furniture is complete.

When we bought our retirement home, the master bedroom closet was a mixture of Ikea style cabinets and wire shelving that resembled what you would put together after a really fun night and blinding hangover. Needless to say after we settled into retirement mode, my lovely bride suggested that we needed some relief from the attack of the killer closet. I found a good supply of aromatic cedar and figured what the hey, if cedar can keep the bugs at bay, why not a couple solid cedar chest of drawers. I must admit I started going nuts trying to figure out how I was going to glue up a bunch of 4-6 inch boards to get the full 24 inch panel for the sides. It figures that I would get a brain cramp in the middle of the night and tinkered with a standard raised panel design and added a center stile to achieve the necessary width for sides. I can tell you one thing, retirement rocks!!

12 Oct 2010: I had so much fun with this, that I went ahead and made another one so we can have a “his” and “hers”

When we built the addition to our house in NC, the intent was to have it serve as my wife’s art studio (upstairs) and a place for our exercise equipment and computers (downstairs). When it came to flooring for the addition, I went with purple heart, figuring that it could take a beating and still look good. Well as with all well thought out plans, we changed our minds about 50 times. We decided that the downstairs would become the library and dining room. That decision meant that all of our computer gear for networking was basically sitting on the floor (with the associated worm farm). I had another brain cramp and used some leftover purple heart flooring and eastern white pine to put together a cabinet that could be used to hide the equipment and match (hopefully) the existing decor.

When we bought our retirement home in 2005, we knew that it would be a while before we were able to move from Northern Virginia. So we kind of compromised on some furniture issues and used a folding plastic table and a Wally World desk for our computers. Now that we have been retired and are full time residents in North Carolina, my lovely bride of 31 years suggest that it was time to put my new wood shop to good use and build some “real” computer desks. I had a large supply of white oak and cherry and thought that they might make a nice combination. When I finished the desks, my wife suggest that a bookcase would be a nice addition and so out came some more oak and cherry, but this time I added some purple heart for some contrast. Needless to say my next act is to tackle the worm farm under the new desks.

Follow-up: Worm farm tamed (last picture)

Over the past couple decades, my lovely bride of over 30 years has collected a fair amount of jewelry and it doesn’t quite fit into the jewelry box I built for her in the early 80’s. We talked it over and decided to put up some shaker pins that would let her hang a lot of it and leave the small items in the jewelry box. So we trundled off to Lowe’s only to discover they were out of shaker pins and weren’t sure when they would get any in.
Well one thing led to another and I decided what the heck, I will just build her another one. I looked around in our bedroom and the only place I could find to put a new jewelry box was on top of the built in vanity leading to the master bath. However, it turns out that the top of the vanity is only eight inches wide and that just didn’t seem like a very stable platform. From that discovery, came “The Jewelry Box” or as my wife calls it “Jewelry Furniture”.

When we were finishing up our new addition I thought that I could utilize some of the space in roof that surrounds my wife’s art studio. Well after retiring, my original plan got lost in some unused portion of my brain. After some time, I stumbled on some residual brain cells that apparently still functioned. At the end of the day, we were able to set up drawers on both sides of her studio. I also discovered that bottom mount drawer slides are a royal pain.

Back in the early 1980’s my wife would get migraine headaches that would last for several days. Once she got rid of a headache, her shopping gene would kick in. After one particular bout, we went out to let the shopping gene run its course. On this particular trip, my wife found this mantel in the front yard of a neighborhood house. At the time it was painted a rather ugly yellow and I thought to myself that it would probably be better as firewood. However, thinking that it would be most unwise to express my thoughts I kept mum on the subject. After hauling the 7 foot tall mantel to our rented duplex, I tried to get the ugly paint off and discovered that there was at least eight or nine layers of paint. This discovery led to nearly three weeks of stripping and cleaning (I was a very happy camper during the period of time :-) ). After many rags, quetips and gallons of stripper, we discovered that under all of the paint was a 1862 vintage oak mantel. To make a long story even longer, we moved to our first house and the mantel followed and was used to surround a wood stove insert. A couple years later we moved the mantel to our new house (with no fireplace) and it stayed in the living room for the next 27 years. When we retired last October, we moved to our house in North Carolina and of course the mantel came with us. With all of the space we had in the new addition (see previous project) we decided to put the mantel to good use and built a library around it and installed a vent free log set to complete its new home.

The wife and I finally retired and relocated from VA to our house in NC. What a change! We did find that we missed our VA hot tub, but being on a well it seemed impractical to set up a hot tub and have to put 500 + gallons in it every 60 days. The wife does have sinus problems so the hot tub really helped, so I needed to figure out a good alternative. While pondering this, I had another brain cramp and poof!... Wet Sauna. Now all I had to do was figure out where to put it in the house. I looked at the patio that was off our master bedroom and realized that in nearly five years we had never used it except to clean out the leaves. The end result is a fully enclosed addition with space for the cats bowl and box and a aromatic cedar wet sauna. Had the local insulation guys come in and foam the walls and ceiling with R-30; covered the foam with reflective foil insulation; then covered the whole inside with aromatic cedar; built the benches out of cypress and nailed it all up with stainless steel fasteners. God I love being retired and having the latitude to build stuff. The work shop is next :-)