This is the very first thing I had ever made, it is a desk made out of solid Cherry. It is finished with just a Natural Watco Oil and you can see how Red the wood has turned on its own. I got very lucky in that there was hardly any sap wood in the bunch of lumber I got, I even made the drawer guide out of cherry. Neither one of my sons ever wanted to use the desk for their school work so dad got it back and I use it everyday.

Well this project took me 10 months to build but I finally got it finished for my wife in time for christmas 2006.
The picture didn’t come out to well but you can get the idea. It is made out of red Oak as usual, the 2 back pieces are made from sanded birch plywood which was a heck of a lot cheaper than finished Oak would have been. There is a low voltage light inside the top to display what’s on the shelves and in the bottom there are 2 shelves for storage.

One of the first pieces that I made was a night stand for my wife, luckily it ended up on my side of the bed which is cool by me. This is a combination of 3 or 4 different night stands that I saw and took a little bit from each of them and put it into my own design so to speak. This is finished in a natural oil finish by Watco. It has an open space on the bottom where I have some books and one drawer for smaller things.

I saw this piece on the cover of a woodsmith magazine, I always hated the cheesey looking wooden key with hooks for our car keys that we had hanging in the kitchen so this became a winter time project for me. As usual Red Oak was my choice because all of our cabinets and the kitchen table is oak anyway, but I just love Red Oak.
From the pictures you’ll see that there isn’t really four small drawers, it is one large false drawer front that drops done and is held in place by a roll joint. It offers quite a fair amount of storage space for things like our sunglasses, a flashlight, small emergency radio. The top it6self also works as a shelf for displaying trinkets and seasonal items for the holidays.

I make these trivets to give away as gifts, they don’t cost much to make and you can change the look by using different woods and different kinds of cuts along the side view, they use a standard 6X6 ceramic tile so you can change the tiles color or design at anytime for the mood of the room.

After our son surprised us last fall that he and his girlfriend were going to have a baby and I got over the shock that I wasn’t quite 50 yet either, which to me seems like the magic grandfather number. I decided to build the crib myself, again I used Red Oak my favorite material. I bought the plan from Rockler because this crib can be made into a toddler bed then into a full sized bed just by making a few extra new pieces. If I had the time I would’ve designed my own but this one was really nice looking and the plans were great. The only thing I didn’t understand was the graphite paper because I had never used it before.
My son and future daughter in-law really love the crib and it works great.

I can’t remember which woodworking magazine I saw this mallet in but I figured it sure beat the heck out of paying for one. the outside of the mallet is black walnut and the handle is white oak.

I made these end tables for the secretary in my Dr’s office. It was the first paying job I ever did for anyone