I met with the home owner and in 20 minutes we came up with a built in Book case slash storage unit in the siting room area of their bedroom. i went to the shop and made some case work and brought it to the site

It seemed like a strange idea to build something like this at first but once her and her husband saw it coming together. They started to feel good about it. There contractor was moving right along so I needed to keep going

We made raised panel doors for it at the shop and also milled some poplar which is a wood that takes paint really well and brought them back to the house. we used euro hinges and tied the whole thing into the room with crown moulding and base mouldings.

All in all the customer was happy with what we came up with as far as hiding an air conditioning pipe. She much preferred it over the standard closet the architect had drawn in the plans. The contractor was also really happy and now he’s a steady customer of mine and even refers me to other clients.

I ended up making a couple of raised panels for the side of it since you walk right past it every time you enter or exist the room. While I was at it I removed the metal baseboard heat covers and made some out of wood to match both the base moulding and the general feel of the room.

So anyway that’s some of the work we do you can see larger photos of the work in progress along with other projects we’ve done in this link to our  woodworkers gallery . feel free to call us anytime you need a real finish carpenter or cabinet maker for your project.

Last Wednesday was the first time I had been there in roughly 3 years. I was happy to see some of the same members that had been the re three years earlier. Its an interesting mix of woodworking hobbiests and professional  people. Its a club of 175 members at this point and their  common goal is to create wooden items some for fun and others for profit.

This months meeting was a round robin format where professional people got up on the stage and were asked random questions from the group members in the audience. (The seats were all full). When a question was asked the microphone was passed to the person with the most experience in the field pertaining to the question. this weeks topics were on wood finishing of furniture and quite a bit of conversation was dedicated to woodworking tools. One of the members Peter Profetta was the panel expert on power tools. He worked at Woodworkers Warehouse ( a now defunct company) when he joined the club but now works at a company called Ace tool where he spends his work day fixing and performing maintenance on there customers power tools. His advice f the night? Buy a Milwaukee cordless drill as they are now using the same motors in there tools as festool ( a high end woodworking tool manufacturer based in Germany).

Many of the other Q and A discussions were about which glue to use when ( You would be amazed at the many options and reasons for choosing one over the other).  How to apply wood finishes like polyurethane, lacquer, or danish oils was discussed.

They discussed there local toys for tots drive where wood is donated and toys are made and picked up by the United States Marine Corp. for delivery to children over seas. This club is a rare, true, non profit organization. they even have an accountant whose a tax prep guy by day and a woodworking enthusiast by night. He apparently is there treasurer.

I’m really glad I went and paid my $35 for a yearly membership. I was a woodworker amongst woodworkers and it felt good.

William OConnell

William@woodworkers.us

One thing was still working, albeit barely was the shop I had built for custom cabinetry, mouldings, woodwork, and refinishing. At 1600 square feet it is a model of efficiency for just about any size job we take on. All of the tools are paid for ( and there are many) and the space is working. What once was a small part of our business has now become a place where other general contractors, and interior decorators call to have work done for their clients. I’m glad I built it.  Our overhead is minimal so we can compete with anyone on Long Island and NYC.