My husband began his woodworking hobby early in our marriage. He was working in a high stress environment and this was a great outlet for him. It allowed him to be creative and work on something that wasn’t job related. He liked wood.

When he first began, it was simple and square. I mean everything was square. He didn’t have the woodworking tools to do much more than square pieces of furniture, a dresser for our new born daughter, a cradle and bookshelves. His first big purchase was a table saw, and then a miter box, a router and other woodworking tools to enable him to create new projects.

Soon he was being asked by neighbors to make fireplace surrounds or built in desks for their homes. What about me? For five consecutive years all I asked for was a stool. How hard could it be to make me a stool – hey, I’m short and I needed to reach the top shelves in the kitchen. I finally laid down the law and told him he couldn’t make anymore wood gifts or build projects for the neighbors (for free) until he made me a stool. 24 hours later, I had a stool.

His first big project in woodworking was finishing our basement.  It is beautiful.  Built with solid oak panels, a large built in entertainment center, a small kitchen area, doors, fireplace & bath.  He made two futon beds, an end table and coffee table.  Everything that is wood in our basement he made. 

My Craft Room

After the basement was finished, I asked him to build a craft area for me. My only request was that my cabinets be painted white.  The color drained from his face, “you want to paint Oak white?”, I did and again the results were beautiful.  I have large built in cabinets.  He also built a very cool cabinet on wheels to store my scrapbooking paper and supplies.  He finished the cabinet on wheels and my desk with a gorgeous Maple top.

Twenty years after beginning his hobby….our garage is now more of a woodworkers shop.  I’ve encouraged him to add a shop onto the garage or heat the garage, but he is content with working on his projects seasonally.  It is too cold during our winter months to woodwork.

The Lathe

Three years ago, he said “honey, I’m going to buy a Wood Lathe”.  I looked at him dumbfounded and asked “what is a Wood Lathe?”  He explained to me that a lathe is another woodworking tool he needed to turn wood.  Turn wood, oh goodness, what was he getting into?  He bought the lathe along with the tools needed to turn wood.  As with each endeavor, we learn from our mistakes.  He learned that wood could be to dry or to wet to turn.  He became easily frustrated trying to turn a bowl out of a solid piece of wood.

Finally, he discovered his niche, segmented wood turning.  He studied various websites on segmented wood turning and purchased books. He viewed online web classes from Jim Rodger’s Designs  He bought various types of wood; Oak, Maple, Cherry, Black Walnut, Bloodwood, Purple Heart, Yellow Heart among others.

Soon he was cutting out small pieces of wood and gluing them together in a circle. He used various color patterns with the colored wood.  This seemed highly time consuming, but what do I know, I’m a housewife.  He would build up the circles and glue them together in what looked like an odd piece of sculpture art.

After the vase or bowl was glued together, he began turning the pieces.  I was amazed at the results.  He had turned small pieces of wood into beautiful vases.  After the vase is has been turned, he sands them while on the lathe. Then he sprays the vases while they are turning with three to four coats of semi gloss water based wood finishing product.

I call his vases a work of art!

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