I took those great, creative plans Steve posted yesterday and built this version of his “Bird Saloon.” I have a couple of friends that I go back and forth with on Facebook and our wives always kid that we’re like a bunch of old guys chatting as some bar…thus the explanation for the “Facebook Cafe” thing. (In the next couple of days I’ll add the “SALOON” lettering…thanks for the tips, Steve.) Also, the reason you don’t see a hinge is that there isn’t one attached yet; I had all the materials already in the shop except for an appropriate exterior hinge so the top is being held in place with duct tape.

Thanks again Steve, not only for the inspiration and instruction but the enjoyable YouTube video as well. For anybody who missed it I’m reposting the link below; you won’t be disappointed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBPKWxChLNE

I built this for my friend’s son, using some of his old broken baseball bats for knobs. The unit is constructed from ash, which as you might know is the same wood used to make baseball bats. With that kind of weight it hangs on a plywood French cleat. The red Louisville Slugger at the top sits in a recess I carved with with a chisel. As you can see, the young man put it to good use quickly.

Rather than relegate the pallet on which my SawStop table saw arrived to the burn pile, I turned it into a couple of bird houses. Here’s one of them. (The roof and floor are actually made of cedar.) The wine bottle is there to demonstrate the size of the house (as well as to reward its builder, ha ha.)

I started off with rectangles, but now I’m incorporating curves and thus my band saw into the projects. One of my friends recently lost her 14 year-old grandson, and I offered to make these for other friends if they would kindly make a donation to the young man’s memorial fund. The response was overwhelming, with over thirty people requested wine balancers. Just a few more to go…

On Good Friday I decided to forgo making wine balancers and instead focused on making a cross for my Pastor friend John and his wife Joan. I was pretty much done and ready to put a finish on it when it suddenly struck me that this perfect little cross was in fact a little TOO perfect. My goal hadn’t been to create some aesthetic relic whose only purpose was to be admired with the eyes, but something that people would be unafraid to touch; to pick up and hold in their hands; to caress and feel…the strength of its dense white oak, the sporadic dings and notches, the worn tired edges of its beams, and maybe—somewhere in all that: the comfort of its message. Because that—to me—is what the Cross is really all about.

No matter what your faith, a Happy Easter to all my Lumberjock friends.

As Zen and Christian as it gets: something useful comes out of the rejected. On Father’s Day weekend I asked my son (who is with me every other weekend) what he would like to do and he said “Dad, let’s build something.” I had some leftover pressure treated lumber from an old deck project so we made some legs and then picked up some cedar from the big box store and this is what we ended up with. I could care less if the thing fell apart a day after we built it; the time we spent together in the shop was priceless to me. My fourteen year-old daughter even helped. With any luck it will be in one of their gardens long after Dad is gone, and they will sit on it with their kids and remember building it.

My wife has been asking me to build her one of these for a while, so I banged it out on Memorial Day weekend and then spent some free evenings in June putting on the finish. Since it’s made of pine we decided to paint the case and shellac the lid and doors, and here’s the finished product. It now resides happily in our kitchen, faithfully housing the potatoes, onions, garlic, etc. that eventually find their way to our stove and oven.

I built this stool from red oak I bought at the local HD store. The design is mine, a kind of a “seat of my pants” approach. It’s a gift for the son of a friend, a friend who is an accomplished woodworker and has been sort of a mentor and inspiration to me. I wish I could deliver it personally but they live on the West Coast so tomorrow I’ll make a trip to my local Conecticut shipping store and mail it off. I also built another stool, the seat/stool combination featured in Popular Woodworking a couple of months ago. That one’s going to Maine.

Thanks for all the inspiration, fellow woodworkers. One of the highlights of my day is checking out the projects and blogs on this site.

Art

This is my first project posted on LC, a toy box I built for my best friend’s daughter. It comes as a modification of a blanket chest many here on LC have constructed. Yes, I know it’s considered “sacrilegeous” to paint wood projects but since I’m somewhat of a novice I built the box out of poplar and thus figured painting was the best route of finishing.

This project was important for me on several levels: It exponentially improved my woodworking skills. It brought me closer to my son, who I have with me on the weekends, and it expanded his interest in woodworking. And perhaps most importantly, it gave me a way to honor the life of a little girl whose parents were once told they could never conceive a child. At fifty, my friend became a dad, and two years later I presented his daughter with a gift that should outlast her old man and old uncle. In short, this project was a blessing. Now I know how you guys and gals feel. It’s great to be part of that. Thanks, fellow lumberjocks!

Art

P.S. I added the safety support after the photos were taken. Also, the Pooh stickers are removable, so once she’s outgrown it she’ll have a nice blanket chest.