Today I clean up
Yesterday, I took the table from the garage and into the house dining area of the new kitchen. I was pretty thrilled and I am glad I was. Why am I glad? It never left me, that the thrill of delivering a new piece, no matter where, is just an amazing morale booster that cannot be replicated by making that big sale, depositing mere money into a pension pot or competing in any sports event you care to name, and the experience of it is self-evident through the years to come. The nine or so pieces I made last year for the living room still give me the satisfaction of knowing I designed them and made them.
The table came together very neatly and the concepts in the design were elements I had never seen elsewhere, so, yes, my contribution to the design world of furniture making replete with fox-wedged tenons to the diagonal laminated bracings, etc had the clean lines I wanted. I started to clean up the garage ready for the next obvious thing and that is the chair design I need to go with the dining table. The juices are flowing through my brain and I feel a little fidgety.
If you fancy making an unending line of furniture pieces for your home you might want to follow us on our various sites for a season. woodworkingmasterclasses.com was our first endeavour at training online and now, with 12 years in the saddle teaching a session at least once a week we’ve developed a powerful influence in the world of hand tool woodworking for new and seasoned woodworkers worldwide. Commonwoodworking.com is our sister site for training new woodworkers the basic concepts, tool use and maintenance and much more. Here, you’ll always find the support you need to gain confidence. The exercises are based on those methods I was taught and trained by as an apprentice half a century ago that never changed but then I added many more new concepts from my experience teaching thousand of new woodworkers in my hands-on classes and workshops. I’m still true to the cause and rest completely in being uninfluenced by outsiders so there is never any sponsorships from any source and certainly no advertising either.
I have swept and put tools back. Still, a little way to go, but nearly there. I should mention here that making the furniture for the house goes under the name Sellers’ home. It’s pretty radical to take a house, gut each room and then make every stick and stem of wooden furniture to enjoy as a family. Here’s the link for you to dive in and see what we do.
I’m curious, is this the shop at the Sellers home, or the shop that you film at?
This is the studio workshop where I work every day making, designing, writing and filming. It’s similar in size and shape as my home garage workshop where it would be impossible to film the same way and quality we do in the garage studio. My home garage workshop is set up the same way. I should emphasize though that I only allow myself the exact garage space you see in the studio picture to work in either way.
I love it.
Then moving the new dining table was not from downstairs up but across town? It is big so transporting it across town wouldn’t be so easy; but then, if you were to sell such a piece it’d have to be transported somehow. How many people did the job?
I did it on my own with one nudge because the wind used the upended table like a sail on a boat for about two seconds. Joseph caught it with me. After that, I took it from the garage at the house, through the garage doors, along a pathway to the back door and then lowered it through the doors into the dining room. Oh, I also loaded it onto my trailer at the studio to get it to the house and into that garage there. It’s mostly a matter of leverage and balance.
It’s the studio where we film and make.
I love it, Paul. I’ll be coming back to WWMC just as soon as I’m able. Your videos and ethos bring me peace in knowing what I’m supposed to do. Thank you for always sharing!
I love seeing the workbench in all its glory. Ever since I made the plywood workbench I dream of a layout like yours. Getting closer every day.
What I particularly appreciate in your furniture is that you don’t seem to share the extravagant obsession with straight grain selection for oblong parts that so many others have. It really is refreshing to see some interesting grain patters on a table leg.
Your post really resonates with me, Paul. After I finish a project, I give my entire shop a good going over…deep cleaning versus the occasional sweeping of shavings I do daily. The time cleaning fills my mind with thoughts of the processes and techniques of the most recent project so to enjoy the making of it all over again and to make mental notes to avoid mistakes in the future.
Once the shop is cleaned, it’s on to the next project. Oh, the joys of woodworking!
Celebration time!
Hope that dining table is going to be a project video soon. I’m now torn between building your Craftsman style trestle dining table or this one. I love them both!
I’m curious how you source the lumber for these type of projects. Do you get raw lumber or do you use lumber that’s been semi-dimensioned. I know from watching your YouTube channel that you’re fond of using recycled lumber or even dumpster diving. Did you do any of that for this project?
I ask as I’m always looking for less expensive ways to track down lumber since the cost is astronomical these day.
Keep up the great work, it’s always a pleasure to read and watch your work.
Hello Kell, I’m not really a fan of recycling per see, in fact, I mostly use new wood for a variety of good reasons. I use some recycled wood simply because some of it is good wood and sometimes, not always, it comes out the same price as new wood or maybe a little more sometimes but it might be convenient. The secondhand wood I tend to buy is secondhand furniture that most likely would not or could not be used anymore for whatever reason. I haven’t really found the cost of wood to be prohibitively high and neither have I found that you cannot get good wood. I consider what I make has a lifespan of at least a hundred years so spending £250 on say a dining table is quite economical. Most solid oak tables commercially made for sale will cost considerably more, twice as much and more, than the £250 but the quality will not be there whereas making your own makes the whole project well worth the money.
Looks great in it’s new home! Curious to know what you used for the wood finish? It does have a nice final finish sheen.