Wood Projects

A year ago plus two weeks, Andrew and I were bringing home our first labors of love: our walnut end table and coffee table that we spent the fall building.  They are well used and beloved today.

Andrew’s coffee table is in the back.  Good thing the ride was only 5 minutes – I was totally stuck! And it was midnight.

During that project I had a hard time throwing away all of my scraps of wood.  I started a collection and then threw in Andrew’s scraps as well.  I envisioned a block set like I had when I was growing up.  The scrap wood sat in our car for about eight months in the trunk.  When we were getting ready to go to California this summer the wood then moved into a corner of our living room.  It doesn’t look like much in this picture, but I had three bulging bags of scraps; this is just a sampling.

I finally went into the wood shop and cut them into some unified shapes and dimensions.  They look beautiful don’t they?  The next big dilemma is whether to stain it and leave the wood its natural color (to start teaching our future children from a young age how to identify different types of wood, starting with walnut) or to paint them fun colors like most block sets.  Feel free to cast your vote in the comments.

While I was working on this block set, Andrew had created another project for himself. A long board.  One day he just shows up at home with wood and trucks and some plans.  He completed the whole project in about a week.

Testing out the pattern before it is even cut:

The almost finished product!  He added a cherry stain and some grip tape and it looks beautiful.  I’m particularly fond of the hole he cut in the back of the board.  It has a nice routed edge and adds a cool dimension to the board.