I built this cradle to keep the tradition of every woodworker that ever became a grandfather. It was made for Reyanna, a little granddaughter born June 1, 1996. It's constructed of hard maple, with bird's eye accents. The credit for the design goes to Woodsmith magazine, although I changed the mechanical design substantially. It now rocks on ball bearings and comes apart for storage (between kids and to get it from one daughter to the other). The bird's eye maple accents hide the fasteners, and are simply held on with rare earth magnets. The mortise and tenon joints are pinned with walnut pins, except where the sides of the cradle are screwed to the ends.

I designed and built the following pieces in walnut for our living room. There's a coffee table, three end tables, a bench for the entry way and a flower stand. I've also made two oval mirror frames with beveled glass for the entry way and over the couch. The wood was 5/4 rough sawn to start with, and was kiln dried somewhere in the eastern part of Canada. I bought it from a friend who sells wood out of his garage. The only metal in the pieces are the four screws in slots that hold the top on. Everything else is pinned mortises and tenons. The top was glued up with biscuits, and the drawer slides are waxed maple. They slide as smooth as silk. The walnut was filled with a red mahogany stain, and then treated to three coats of varnish before being wet rubbed with 600 grit paper, then waxed and buffed.

On the left is an oak mirror of my own design that I made for my daughter, Jarene. The mirror stands about 5½ feet tall. On the right is a set of small oak tables with tapered legs that I made for my daughter, Erynn.

One of the hardest projects I've done so far is this walnut floor lamp, which I designed to fit around the leg of a small table in our little library. The lamp stands 5½ feet tall, and each arched stem tapers from 1½" to ½". The hole for the cord in each stem was the hardest part, and since there was no place to put the switch, I simply built a dimmer switch into a little walnut box and put it on the table, as you can see in the photo on the right.

Karen loves desks with lots of little drawers and hidey-holes to organize things, so I built this oak desk especially for her. She really enjoys this desk and spends hours at it organizing her recipes, planning her garden, writing, etc. The drawers all move on wooden sliders except for the file drawers which use extended metal drawer guides. I used box joints on the all the drawers.

I designed and build this desk to hold my MIDI studio, including three synthesizer modules, a keyboard, a 400 watt amplifier and monster speakers, 8 channel mixer, two tape recorders and a reverb unit. It breaks down into six pieces, just in case we ever move. I cheated on this and used oak plywood for the big pieces. It is extremely functional, with access to the back of the units (so you can plug in all those wires) made easy with sliding trays and a hinged desk top. I'm planning on re-doing the top with a leather insert.

This is a walnut entertainment unit I made for my sister-in-law to match her walnut enclosed speakers. Her television sits on top, VCR and stereo components below. The doors on the side swing out sideways, and hold about one hundred CD's and a dozen VCR tapes.