The joy of creation
First I built a plywood crib, then I moved on to cabinets, trim and baseboards.
Besides the traditional “female crafts,” I’ve always been interested in making things with wood. Among them was a plywood crib for my first son, sturdy enough, but with no stiles it would never have passed expert guidelines. More successful were several hutch and buffet units that are still in use by the next two generations.
cabinet were made by a local blacksmith. (Photo credit: Anne
van Arragon)
When we started farming in the Annapolis Valley, our old house was U-shaped, with two wings heading north. During the 1990s, I had the wings removed, making the house a lot more manageable. One day, I was watching a carpenter hammering away at the new back wall at fifteen dollars an hour. Hammer, nails, saw – it was straightforward work based on logic. It occurred to me, “I can do that!”
Eventually I took a couple of woodworking courses, and invested in every tool from table saw and planer to Makita chop saw and router. I’m still happy with my buffet and hutch, the first and only china cabinet I’ve ever owned, complete with half-lap joints on the glassed-in doors and made from wide floorboards saved from the downsizing of our farmhouse, which was built around 1839. Gorgeous fine-grained wood like that came from old-growth trees, unavailable at any building supply store.
A winter of building
By the time my retirement house was under construction, I felt confident enough to tackle all the finishing work. In what would become the living area, I set up a big plywood table, table saw and pretty much every other tool I had, and spent much of the winter building. As a gardener, building wide windowsills for plants was a no-brainer. I made them out of 2” by 12” pine, resting on the 2” by 8” framing.
The living area was open concept, so I chose lower kitchen cabinets with open shelving above. My neighbourhood welder made the heavy steel support frames, and I added pine shelves to carry the stuff I use daily, like plates, bowls, mugs, canisters and an oatmeal cooker. The lower cabinets required learning to use metal slides for each drawer: a new skill. Ditto for a floor-to-ceiling bathroom cabinet.
Trim and stairs
I stuck with solid white pine everywhere: baseboards and all the window and door trim. That part was somewhat fussy, with a lot of 45-degree angles. Considering I failed Grade Nine geometry long ago, I didn’t do too badly. The pine trim goes well with the post and beam construction of my living area.
Building stairs was beyond my competence, but I did make every riser and step, spindle, handrail and newel post myself. A carpenter friend put it all together.
I hope visitors don’t look too closely at the door hinge mortises, which are uniformly messy. But I’m not a perfectionist, so it’s good enough, and I saved many thousands of dollars.
There’s such satisfaction in seeing what we can make with our hands. Some days I really understand how the Almighty felt when he looked at his creation and saw that it was good.
