Older Woodworking Projects

Hope Chest

I made this hope chest for my wife back in the early 80's when we were first dating. It was one of my very first woodworking projects, and I made it with cedar boards her dad had brought home as firewood from the mill. The only tools I had to work with at the time was a small block plane, a hand saw, a hand drill, and an electric sander I borrowed from my best friends dad. Over 30 years later we still have this hope chest in our bedroom, though it now holds memories from our past instead of hopes for the future. :)

Bedside Tables

When we moved into our mobile home back in 1991, we needed a pair of bed side tables for our phone, clock, etc. I didn't spend a lot of time on these, but they still work very well for us.

Side Tables

After we moved into our new house, we needed some new end tables for the living room. I built four of these little tables from scrap material we had leftover from building our house cabinets. Fairly crude, but they work well for us.

Bookshelf

I built this bookshelf when we lived in our mobile home so we would have a place to store our books. I made it extra deep (about 14") to accommodate our large photo albums. Of course, we now store our photo albums in the living room end tables so the extra depth doesn't serve much purpose. I have since added a fourth shelf so we can store more books in the book case.

Christine's Entertainment Center

My daughter didn't have much room in her bedroom, so I built this small entertainment center for her. It had shelves for her books, drawers for her movies and CD's, and room for her TV and VCR on top.

Christine's Book Case

My daughter eventually outgrew the little entertainment center I had built her, so I built her this large book case so she would have room to store her books, movies, and CD's. There is also plenty of room on top for her TV, stereo, and knicknacks.

Computer Desk Version 2

I have built a few computer desks over the years as my space and technology changes. This is the second desk originally designed for two computers. For a time my wife used half of it for a digital piano.

Computer Desk Version 3

When we moved into our new house, I built this new computer desk and wall cabinets. This is the desk I am currently using to run Mountain Software.

Bedroom Corner Shelf

I built this corner shelf for our bedroom so we would have a place for our TV and stereo system. Since it sits in the corner of the room it takes up very little space, despite having lots of storage. The two center shelves can be moved up or down as needed. The electronics have all been replaced since this photo, and my wife's piggy collection has grown even larger. :)

Entertainment Center 1

Like my computer desk, I have built new entertainment centers as space and technology changes. I built this one in the living room of our first apartment, using nothing more than a handsaw. Obviously, the accuracy was not the greatest since I built and finished it on a carpeted floor, but it still served us well for many years. It was huge and weighed a lot, but it had a lot of storage space. The two vertical doors below the TV were actually pull out drawers for our CD and movie collection.

Entertainment Center 2

We finally got tired of that little 19 inch TV, so I had to build a new entertainment center to make room for the new 42 inch plasma. We no longer needed the generic storage space the old center had, so this one takes up less space while providing more drawers for CD's, Movies, and other items.

Dining Table

My in-laws had a very tiny kitchen before we remodeled it. They didn't use or need a regular sized dining table, so I built them this little solid oak table so they would have a little more room in the kitchen. It's approximately three feet wide by four feet long. It works perfectly in their new kitchen also.

Peggy's Music Book Shelf

Before we moved our old mobile home off the property, I dismantled our 13 year old redwood deck and tried to save as much of the lumber as I could. About three years later my wife needed a small bookshelf to hold her piano music books. So I used some of the salvaged lumber to build this for her.

Garage Cabinets

I used the leftover cedar from the ceilings in our house to make the door panels for these cabinets. They turned out rather nice for garage cabinets, and provide a lot of storage. Since this picture was taken I relocated the ladder and lower cabinets to the back of the garage and built carts for some of my power tools.

Router Table

For many years I had my router mounted in a wing of my portable work table. It worked well, but I often had to take down my router setup to perform other operations on the table. So, I built this dedicated router table. It has locking wheels so I can move it around the shop, and a drawer on the bottom to store my router bits, guides, and other accessories. I have a very simple pivoting fence for the top that works well.