creche

Now that the pain and stress of my first real woodworking commission has faded into a dull memory, I figured it was time to post this as a bonefide project.

For the backstory, Refer to the blog series

for the cliff notes:

This was roughly designed, by the customer, (he also gave me a bill of materials, worked out by the folks at one of the big box stores) to hold his expensive imported statues of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. He wanted something custom made, that would protect these statues, and would last.

My job was to build a box out of pressure treated lumber. The challenge to myself was to make a piece of custom woodworking that I would be proud of, would please the customer, and hopefully lead to a future sale or two.

I quoted based on what I thought would take about a days worth of work (active working time). (I also knew about the max he’d spend, so regardless if it took me two or two-hundred hours, if I wanted the job, the money was in working smart and quickly (and saving on materials). I spent three days working on full-scale drawings, planning cut lists to maximize the materials and save money there, which actually saved me boatloads of frustration later on. In spite of not heeding some important notes to myself (in marker they’d be obvious, Things went fairly smoothly. No mission critical errors…

I found myself making adaptations on the fly, because of said carelessness…. but in the end, everything fell together perfectly – meaning the top was a nice snug fit, weather tight. and the only thing I had to re-do was the plexiglass front window. (because I broke the first two pieces. What a frustrating way to start off your birthday weekend!) Thankfully he paid extra to cover that, though he didn’t have to. Fortunately for both of us (ok, me) I saved him about 30% on the materials by being smart with design and the cutting diagrams. (helped me make some profit on the job, but lets not calculate my hourly wage… and lets ignore that I pretty much put all the money into a dado set just to do the job. – time for tools, not a bad thing, right?

However if a neighbor or anyone else wants one, I’m sure it’d take me 1/4 to 1/3 the time to whip one out.

I don’t wish to ever make something out of P.T. again. But at least I know how to dress it up and make look like something more than the humble (albeit toxic, and quite heavy) building material it is.

Did you know that P.T. Sawdust smells like licorice? I wish I didn’t and hope you never find out.

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/