done, done and i'm on to the next one

now that i've finally finished jonah's step stool it's time to move on to the next project. up next is a slight variation on a sitting bench that was in Fine Woodworking a few month backs. this bench will be solid cherry hardwood some of which is almost 2" thick. the intent is to place it at the foot of our bed as a nice place to sit and lace up a pair of shoes or lay an extra blanket.

yesterday, i skipped out of work a little early to grab the rest of the lumber that i need to get started.

here you can see all of the lumber laid out ready for the first cuts. if you're thinking to yourself that this looks like a lot of lumber for one sitting bench, you're right. i'm going to try something new with this little bench. my intention is to build two benches at the same time, one to keep and one to sell. now, i have no intention of "getting rich" from furniture. this is merely an experiment to see how it goes.

i hope to spend the day in the studio tomorrow getting started on these. hopefully i can knock them out quickly!

6 Month Step Stool

not too long after jonah's first bath, i realized that kneeling at the edge of the tub was not going to be the most effective way for me to stay close by while he was playing in the tub. so, i designed this little step stool to serve two functions. first, erin and i can use it to sit beside the tub while jonah plays and splashes around. then, once he gets a little bigger, jonah can use it as a step to get up to his sink.

now, if you do the math, from jonah's first tub bath until now... 6 months. i'm pretty sure that that might just be a woodworking record. that's 3 months per step. God help me if i ever decide to build a ladder!

i'd like to send a huge shout out to my buddy adam king for his help perfecting the finish for this piece. adam is a studio furniture craftsman based in souther illinois. if you're in the market for a unique piece of furniture, adam is your man!

ps.

i'm hoping to have some professional photos taken of a few of my pieces to get a bit of a portfolio started. i'll update them as soon as i can.

new favorite commercial

not because i'm a subaru fan, but because i've done this more times than i care to admit!

saying goodbye

today i have to say goodbye to my dear friend Toby.

the winter of 2000/2001 was a great time for me. Erin and i were engaged that winter and that was also when we first met our Toby. he was a shy but loving pup and was smart as a whip. one look at that little guy and i was hooked.

some of my fondest memories of Toby are from that first year. the house we had at the time had one small bathroom upstairs. Toby, never wanting to be too far away, found that he could squeeze himself behind the toilet so as to stay close but not get stepped on. i'm pretty sure that his heart broke a little when he outgrew that small space and found himself banished to the hallway instead.

i think that Toby was more excited than i was when i finally got around to hanging my dartboard that first fall. he found himself strangely attracted to those shiny flying darts and would muster every bit of energy he had to jump up in an effort to grab them. finally he realized that he was way to small and too slow to actually snag one out of the air so he adopted a new strategy; bark at the dart then jump on me. it was cute when he was a twenty pound pup. to this day, i couldn't shoot darts if he was in the room.

as he grew older, Toby became a little more introverted. he still loved trips to TCBY for frozen yogurt and summers at the lake but was easily spooked by anything that rolled and even got a little skittish on our walks if a mailbox looked suspicious. toby was just a bit of a home-body, and that was perfectly fine with me. he was the best nap buddy a guy could ask for. he loved to curl up next to me on the couch and i defy anyone to lay with that warm fuzzy boy and not fall asleep!

these last few weeks have brought us some pretty bad news. Toby has an extremely aggressive form of cancer in his mouth and his vet warned that we wouldn't have much more time with our Big Daddy. (which is Erin's favorite term of affection for him) we are torn between loosing him sooner than necessary and making him suffer longer for our selfish reasons.

until a few days ago, i couldn't understand how people could get so emotional over the loss of a pet. now i get it. today erin and i made the impossible decision to have Toby put down. i'm sad. i'm sad that our boy is leaving us much earlier than we ever thought he would. i'm sad for our other dog, Charlie Brown. Charlie won't know what to do without his Toby. i'm sad for Jonah that he'll only really know Toby through pictures and stories. mostly, i'm sad to loose my friend.

i must admit, Toby's anxiety did get the best of me on occasion. he and i weren't always on the same wavelength. but, if i had it all to do over again, i couldn't ask for a better dog than Toby.

goodbye my old friend. i'll miss you dearly.

9-24 highs

alright, the weekly update idea is not exactly happening the way i wanted it to but that's ok with me. here are some hi-lights from the past few weeks:

-jonah has started to reach out for things. tuesday, when i got home from work, he reached out for me for the first time. nearly made me cry.

-i found a "to good to be true" deal on a refurbished MacBook Pro. if you're in the market for a new mac, i highly recommend checking out the refurb store first.

-i realized that the briefcase that my grandma bought me when i was in high school was no longer pulling it's weight as a computer bag so I found Timbuk2. they are based in san francisco and make bags to order. i went with an all black messenger bag with a bright orange interior.

-finally, i got a little time in my studio (which is how i now refer to my workshop thanks to my buddy adam) this past monday night. i didn't do much other than clean up but man was that therapeutic.