When my nephew Ryan and his wife Makayla bought their farmhouse in western Michigan, a maple tree over three feet in diameter was literally pressing against the back wall of their new home. Soon, they had the old tree felled and hired a crew to mill it into thick slabs and dry them in a…
Two young friends have lofts in their rooms and they were in need of a permanent way to access them. After visiting to take some photos and measurements, we decided on seventy-five degree ladders with treads about six inches deep and eighteen inches wide. We also planned to use 1-1/4 inch thick poplar, to match…
With my MIDI controller keyboard at the center of a temporary recording studio in the basement and my Kawai synthesizer in the living room, I just wasn’t playing the piano as much as I would have liked. Linda and I talked about this on our trip to Jack Lake in Canada in the late summer,…
Katie asked me if I could make two little stools, based on the one she already had. She also pointed me to a plan for them online. As always, well almost always, I created a 3D model of the stool from the plan, along with a few corrections and “improvements.” From the SketchUp model, I…
The time had come to update the computer and its setup in my home office. A long overdue addition of RAM took my aging HP Pavilion tower from 8GB to 32GB and drastically improved its performance. Lesson learned and passed on. I was also having a little trouble seeing my dual monitor setup on their…
Nevis, one of our young neighborhood friends, asked me if I would help him build a Murphy Desk to hang on the wall in his room. Of course, I said yes immediately. Doing joint projects in the workshop is one of my favorite things to do, and passing along a bit of passion and knowledge…
I recently rearranged my digital piano setup to include a computer monitor instead of a paper music stand. (I detest trying to turn pages while I’m playing.) This move left a very nice black 24″ LED piano light unemployed. With a bit of design work in SketchUp and a few leftover pieces of white ash,…
This project is a custom dining room pedestal table for Terri and Jeff. One end of this bar top height table will attach to an existing kitchen island, while the main weight of the table will be supported by an eight inch, eight-sided center column with three legs and ball feet. Constructed from white ash,…
Linda’s kind patience in allowing me to slip several projects for other folks in front of her sewing cabinet finally paid off. Made of birch plywood and maple trim, with a sewing machine lift and eight storage drawers, the sewing cabinet was immediately pressed into service making face masks for family, friends and local healthcare…
A long time in the dreaming and designing stages, Linda’s 40 x 60 cutting table has finally made it into her sewing room. Made from birch plywood and maple, this cutting table also features room for sixteen 11 x 11 x 11 cloth storage boxes, four vertical storage areas and four locking dual wheel casters…