Greetings from the wood shop.
For my first blog I thought it made sense to perhaps share a little about my story. I grew up in Mississauga Ontario a suburb of Toronto. Being good with your hands does run in my family. My Father is an engineer and is extremely handy and did all sorts of projects around the house. He also does some wood working as well, and has built some beautiful pieces of furniture around the house. My brother is also very good with his hands. He is a mechanic by trade, and has a passion for certainly making cars louder and much much faster. Growing up there was always a car in various states with pieces all over the garage.
You would assume based on the story so far that I would have been handy and doing woodworking for years. This is actually not the case. I didn't discover woodworking until my late 30s. I graduated from the University of Toronto with an Arts Degree. I then started my career with various different roles in Sales, and eventually went back to school for HR. Once I completed my post grad program I started working in HR and eventually made my way up to an HR Manager.
You're probably wondering where woodworking comes into the equation. Well, as the world was faced with the looming pandemic and we entered into the first wave of lockdowns, I thought to myself what can I do to keep busy during this period? Not that I wasn't busy enough with being an HR Manager during a pandemic, and father to a 3 year old at the time. But I am a person who always needs to keep busy. Like on weekends or vacations I don't do well with sitting down and relaxing. It's just who I am. I think it drives my wife crazy at times, but I think she accepted that, and is my number one supporter and partner in crime when it comes to sharing ideas and info on social media.
Back to woodworking, I started with thinking it would be nice to have some patio furniture for us to use with the upcoming summer as it was around March of 2020. I had done some research and learned the best wood to use to build this would be Cedar. I found what appeared to be a relatively simple design. I then priced stuff out. I then talked with my wife and we agreed it would be way cheaper to build it then to buy it. Little did I know. In the end I will concede that it was cheaper, but perhaps not as drastic as I thought it would be. This is something I have learned about DIY, it often is cheaper but not as drastic as you might think. Especially, when you're say using Cedar to build some furniture.
I then ordered all the supplies, and had a week off work, so I was ready to start. I started with some second hand tools from my late father-in-law who was a general contractor. I had a mitre saw that had really seen better days, I had bought a Kreg pocket hole jig, and was following the instructions. By the time the week was done I had built a love seat and two chairs. I really had a sense of accomplishment. The best way to describe it is, in my career because I am dealing with people and working on procedures and strategy it can be difficult to see something tangible that you accomplished at weeks end. Now I know this really isn't the case, as more often then not there is work and progress you can see at the end of a week. However. with doing woodworking I had something I could touch feel, even sit on at the end of the week.
I then had to do some sanding and finishing the next few weeks and we had some patio furniture. For those hard core wood workers you're probably saying FINISHING? WHAT? on CEDAR? I was a total newbie at this point and I had a vision for how I saw the patio set looking. I had even talked stuff over with my Dad and he advised me saying "you don't need to finish cedar, and if you do then you will need to refinish it again year after year." Kudos to my Dad who knew better to let me learn the lesson rather than tell me what I should do.
For those who are new to woodworking Cedar is an amazing outdoor wood, it naturally resists rot keeps its colour somewhat, it will turn grey over time, but still looks amazing. It doesn't need any stain or polyurethane to stand up to outdoor environments. If I was doing things again I would do the build with no finish and let the natural look of the wood stand out on its own.
Once the summer hit we were able to use the patio furniture on the summer nights, and have enjoyed some great BBQ's.
Now I was hooked and was already starting to plan my next project.
Thanks for reading and if you have ideas about a blog post or would like to hear my thoughts on anything feel free to let me know.