This cradle was made in 1897 by my great great grandfather in Pentz, Nova Scotia. Its first occupant was his daughter, my great grandmother. Since then her siblings and many of her descendants have slept in it, including myself.
Two and a half weeks before my wife’s due date we picked up the cradle. It had been refinished in the ‘60s and the shellac finish was showing its age so I decided to refinish it and also to fix the loose joints where the legs connect to the uprights. Eight days before my wife’s due date I had the stand taken apart and stripped and ready to put back together, and the cradle itself about 1/3 stripped. On that day, March 10, our second son was born. For his first few days at home he slept in the portable crib that we have. My father and I spent the following weekend stripping the rest of the cradle and putting three coats of garnet shellac on it. I also made a bottom for it out of 1/4” birch plywood that just sits on the three existing slats. It was finished 6 days after our son was born, which, according to the original “schedule” means I finished it 2 days early. :-)

These were from plans in the December issue of Wood magazine. I made ten of them as Christmas gifts (and one wedding gift). I also made three of the wine balancers in the third picture. I used various combinations of red oak (ebonized and not), cherry, quilted maple, and Peruvian walnut. Because I had so many parts to make, I made templates to use with my router, and did multiple pieces at a time by stacking them together with double sided tape. The templates worked out fairly well, but I had to be careful which way I was routing the curves, especially on the maple. As long as I avoided going “uphill” to the grain it didn’t tear out. I have a template bit with bearings on both top and bottom, so that let me change direction without having to move the template to the other side of the workpiece. I think I probably didn’t save myself much time over using an oscillating spindle sander though, except for the fact that I don’t have one.
The first picture shows cherry/maple and oak/cherry. The cherry hasn’t seen much sun yet, so I’m hoping it will eventually darken up a bit and contrast more with the maple. I shellacked and sanded the maple parts to try and bring out the figure a bit. I used garnet shellac but I think next time I’ll get some dye to add to it. It didn’t highlight the figure as much as I’d hoped.
The second picture shows walnut/oak and oak/oak. I ebonized the oak frames by rubbing vinegar with steel wool dissolved in it onto them before attaching the feet and supports. I was initially hoping for a real dark black, but after just one application they were a nice dark brown and I decided to leave them that way.
The third picture shows one of the balancers I made with scraps of maple and thin strips of walnut. The upturned wine rack is to show the design I made with my initials and stamped on the bottom. I cut the design onto a big pencil eraser and used a dye stamp pad to stamp it onto the wood before finishing. I’ve ordered a small branding iron of the same design to use for future projects.
Not shown are the walnut/maple and walnut/cherry wine racks.
They’re all finished with three coats of Vermont Natural Coatings Polywhey finish.
Oh, and in addition to making good worksurface coverings (a tip I saw in a recent issue of This Old House magazine) old roller blinds make passable photo backdrops. Although I could use a wider one I guess.

This vanity was part of a complete remodel of our upstairs bath, which has stretched on longer than I care to admit. As you can see by the hole in the wall, I’ve still got to make the matching medicine cabinet.
The vanity is made of cherry with birch plywood for the panels. The veneer on one side of the birch plywood just happened to be bookmatched so I decided to use those seams on the front panels. The top drawer is fake, which is why there’s no handle on it.
The countertop is actually made from a plain birch countertop from Ikea.
The whole thing was finished with about 5 coats of Waterlox.

When I brought home my “new” 70’s Sears bandsaw a couple years ago I set it up that very night and hacked a perfectly good chunk of firewood up to make this box. I had never used a bandsaw before, had the wrong type of blade for this (too many TPI, so it burned the inside pretty good), and the bottom wheel was wobbly due to a sticky bearing that had worn down the shaft (definitely something to watch for on those saws, but not too hard to repair). I think it came out pretty good for a first try. One of these days I’ll try another bandsaw box.

I built this to keep our son from crawling up (and more importantly, from falling back down) the stairs. I wanted to avoid putting any holes in the wall or the newel post, and this is what I came up with. The box on the left end slips over the side of the newel, and has a dado for the gate to slide down into. The diagonal piece on the right just rests on the diagonal skirting and against the molding for the doorway. It too has a dado for the gate to slide down into.
We adults just stepped over it, and it worked pretty well for 5-6 months, until a little while after this picture was taken. It looks like he’s vaulting over it there, but I think he’s actually about to fall on his butt. It wasn’t long after that that he started climbing over it though, and I took it down.

A couple months ago we looked at a preschool for our son and they had a bunch of these clips. I made one on the bandsaw that evening and my son enjoys playing with it. It’s about 5” long and made from a 3/4” poplar scrap. Just tonight I whipped up a couple more from scraps of pine for his friends, but I still need to scrounge up some more rubber bands. I think the ones that come on broccoli are about the right size, but all the ones in the junk drawer say “Asparagus” on them and are too big!
A slice of bicycle innertube might be about the right size…

I built this stool with (and for) my son so he can reach the bathroom sink. I thought a regular two step stool would get in the way so I poked around online looking for folding stools. I found a picture of one where the bottom step swings up and under the top step, and then scribbled down some notes and diagrams and came up with this. My son is 2 1/2, and he helped by holding boards and dowels as I cut them (with hand tools only of course! He made it very clear that I was not to make any loud noises while he was in the basement!). He also enjoyed sanding and especially pounding the dowels into the holes. I finished it with some garnet shellac to give it a little color and 3 coats of Polycrylic. After it was done I decided it needed to be a little more stable so I added a couple little “feet” in the front to give it a wider base. The feet are scraps of oak glued into slots in the front parts of the legs.

We ordered a new queen mattress (replacing a full) and all I had ready to put under it by the time it was delivered a few weeks later were the poplar support rails and slats. So for several months we had a very low bed. What a relief when it was finally done a couple weeks ago!
Mortise and tenon for the head and foot board, the slats are in grooves with spacers glued between them so they almost look like I cut 38 little mortises ;-), and the side rails and center support rail are held on with bed rail hardware from Rockler.
The legs, slats in the headboard, and the bottom horizontal board in the headboard (the one hidden by the mattress) all were from reclaimed red oak from a staircase railing that my in-laws replaced in their house. The finish is five coats of beige shellac followed by a coat of wax.
Oh, and if you look at my buddy icon you’ll see my son doing his part to help build the bed!

I made this for my wife for her birthday. I “borrowed” the design for the bench from similar ones I saw for sale on etsy.com. The bench is made of maple, and the lotus flower inlay is cherry, as are the pegs. It’s 24” long, 7 1/4” wide, and 7 1/4” tall.
This was my first try at inlaying anything, and I’m fairly pleased with the outcome. I made a few small goofs cutting out the recess for the inlay, but they don’t show up until you look fairly closely.
The bench is finished with a coat of garnet shellac and three coats of Polycrylic.