First Look REVIEW:
Festool OF 1400 EQ Plus Router!

What do you get when you take all the great things about Festool’s OF 1010 EQ router, scale things up a little and add some other niceties, such as 1/2" collet capacity? An almost must-buy machine for the serious hobbyist or pro woodworker! [Read More]

Projects You Can Build:
Shaker Style Student Sized Desk

One of the delightful aspects of Shaker style furniture is that it’s simplicity of design makes for approachable projects, even by new woodworkers. When my brother’s youngest girl asked for a desk for her room, I decided to use this style to create a functional, yet attractive piece that would fit her needs for years to come. You can build a similar table, too! Here's how. [Read More]

Big Project . . . Big Results

Far be it for me to avoid a wood-working (and home improvement) challenge! So the summer of 2003 saw a major kitchen renovation in our home, including new cabinetry, better access to our pantry, more natural light and new high-end appliances. The good news is that results were worthy of the work!

A project like this takes a tremendous amount of planning before you even start to make the first spec of sawdust. But the reward is great in that you can save a considerable amount of money--particularly on labor--if you are able to do most of the work yourself. In the case of our kitchen, our investigation of costs in our local area to produce an end-result similar to what we want would easily exceed $50K using a kitchen contracting specialist. Including appliances, we estimate our final cost will be about 30% of that by manufacturing the cabinets in my shop and doing the majority of renovation work ourselves. That’s not chump-change in savings! [Read More]