How Did You Know How To Build It? How Long Have You Been Doing This?

In addition to any inherited talents described above, I have liked woodwork since I was a kid. When I was 6, my friend Kenny and I would go to Wade’s work shop. Wade was a friend of Kenny’s dad who made furniture. He helped Kenny and I build things with the wood scraps from his furniture making. I still remember the first model house I built. It had a lookout tower, an important architectural amenity to a kid who’s second favorite thing was playing war. Ever since my time in Wade’s work shop I have enjoyed building things.

Over the years I have built a variety of different pieces: closet interiors, tables, shelves, a cradle, the Armoire, cutting boards, etc. On each of these projects I have found a woodworking Rabbi (some shop owner) who is gracious enough to coach me through the tough parts of the project, rent me some space and let me use his tools. Jack Gavin (pictured) the President and Proprietor of St. John’s Woodworking, was my Rabbi on the Armoire (and cradle) projects. These projects and the associated coaching sessions have taught me how to work with wood.

Workshop Wisdom: Know what you don’t know and ask! During all my projects I have come across tricky tasks that were new or required some figuring out. Once a tricky task was identified the coaching process began. On the Armoire it originally worked like this:

1. Stare at the problem for a while and figure out a couple options.
2. Try one of the options.
3. Store newly created scrap wood.
4. Ask Jack how to do it right.

After a few times with this original process I shortened it to:

1. Ask Jack.

Yes, I had some experience and new a lot of the basics. But, I had forgotten a lot in the 11 years since I built the cradle for my son. Also, this was the biggest project I had ever undertaken. It only took a few unplanned trips back to Rosenzweig Lumber to convince me that asking for help before I turned on the power tools made sense. Which reminds me of another bit of Workshop Wisdom: Mistakes happen, buy enough extra wood. It took only a couple more trips to the lumber yard to convince me that even after I got the right coaching from Jack, and practiced using the new tools, mistakes still happened. I learned it was better to buy enough lumber on the first trip.