My wife and I bought a fixer upper and were in serious need of a new doorbell cover. After many months of sneaking shop time in between painting and repairs we finally have a door bell cover.

My one regret is the two blotches from glue squeeze out. I had some tear out on the top bevel other than that it was fun and a nice distraction from spackle and paint.

The project was made from soft maple and finished with general finishes warm cherry followed by a coat of seal coat shellac and then 3 coats of general finishes gel top coat. Have to say the gel top coat was nice to work with.

Silverware tray based on a project in Popular Woodworking. The accompanying article suggested it was a good project to try something new on. There isn’t a whole lot of lumber tied up in the project so if you make a mistake your not out a lot of wood.

I took the opportunity to work on my dovetailing skills (this was my second project with dovetails) and how to make grooves and rabbets with hand tools.

The project was completed using hand tools only, and finished with one coat of bush oil and two coats of whipping poly. It’s a great little project for practicing skills on and trying a new method of work. If you are interested in building a small project to work on dovetailing or any other skill you can find a sketch up model of the project for free at:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=9feccc3c4d28dec6812e3ecbeaae3980&prevstart=0