Finally done! (sort of.)

So, yesterday was the final day of installation, and the piece does look nice, now that it's finally in place. It was a little weird, getting it all wrapped up like that, but there it is.

I still have a few small kinks to work out, though. I made wooden pins to hold the bifold doors in the track, and they're a bit undersized, so the doors rattle a little bit, which is a drag. And I need to patch up the crapet around the base of the thing. Some of it was cut by me, some of it was cut around the old built in. It's a minor detail, but it's still something to attend to.

Then last night I got an email. They love it, it's beautiful, but they want to make some minor (well, I hope they're minor) adjstments. Apprently the drawers can't open when the closet doors are open, and while the original idea was to get enough vertical room for two tiers of clothes, the pitched ceiling means that the clothes are too close to the door.

So, it's gone from done, to almost done. More when it's really done...

Paying my dues

So, I got rolling on my current project about a month ago. It's a built in job, with a cabinet, chest of drawers, and a tall enough closet to house 2 rods, for hanging 2 tiers of shirts.

I underestimated the scope of the job, and underbid it accordingly. Apparently everyone else saw this but me. Go figure... live and learn.

Anyway, I'll post pictures and notes on the project soon. On coming out of it, my two favorite tools have been my Japanese chisels, and a set of edge trimming accessories for my Festool routers. The chisels impressed me more than I had reason to hope for. I used one chisel to chop out dovetails on a full set of drawers, and it's still incredibly sharp. And the edge trimming stuff was an unsung hero for a lot of little details. Definite time savers...

As I exit the project (there's a little more to do, but not that much) I'm in a good place. I'm bummed that I underbid the job, but it was definitely a learning experience. I'm glad that I learned as much as I did about my tools. And I'm feeling pretty encouraged. It's the first real paying job since we opened up the new shop, and it's good to be working.

And, since I'm in a better place, I sat down last night and wrote a couple of short sections for a book that I've been meaning to write for a couple of years now, dealing with the reconciliation of going to a school that focused on traditional craftsmanship, while working in woodworking retail stores, selling widgets, gizmos, and a little bit of my soul. We'll see how it plays out, but I think I'm off to a good start. (again...?)

Lastly, I hear from my webmaster person that I've been getting more attention than I realized. I'm not web savvy, I just write this stuff and send it out into the void. But I guess some of you have been reading, which is very cool. Thanks for tuning in, I hope I'm turning out enough good work to keep you interested and entertained. Hopefully as my business gets more stabilized, the blog will, too.