After giving it considerable thought, I’ve decided to stop making weekly updates to this site, and go with monthly updates instead. The problem I’m having is that I don’t have time to devote to larger, more significant projects, when I’m constantly working to meet a weekly deadline. It seems that as soon as the weekly article is posted, I need to immediately start work on the following week’s project and article. This leaves me with very little time to do the kind of projects that I wanted to do on this site from the beginning. It’s this quantity over quality
that I need to get away from, at least for the near future.
By shifting to a monthly format, I will have the time to work on and develop larger and more detailed projects and plans. There will still be more frequent blog entries, but these are on a less formal schedule – I write one when I have something to say (like this one), or to go over some future projects. To stay informed, please subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog.

I’ve been (slowly) updating the older projects to a new page layout. This is the layout you’ve seen in recent articles. The reason, mainly, is to redo the images in two sizes: the ones that load with the page are a smaller size and optimized for a slightly lower quality, to keep page load times as short as possible. By clicking on the pictures, a larger, higher quality version will open. This allows you to see the picture in more detail, if you want to. Clicking the picture again closes it.
Another reason for the update is to try for a standard, consistent page length and appearance throughout the site. Some of the oldest projects were spread out over several shorter pages, and these have been combined into less pages. The new layout is easier for me to work with and gives more flexibility for placement of pictures and text.

I receive quite a few emails per week, and most are very complimentary of the site in general and the projects presented here. I sincerely appreciate these comments and thank the people who take the time to write the email and send it. I try to answer ever one, but some do get missed, and I apologize for this. If you haven’t received an answer, please take the time to send the email again. There are various reason why I might have missed it the first time, and some of these I have fixed (mail issues).
Every once in a while, I get an email about the ads that are on this site, basically saying that they like the projects that I “share”, but they could do without the ads. It’s not often stated, but were it not for these ads, there wouldn’t be many sites like this. The ad revenue helps to pay for the hosting cost and project materials, and without it, I would not be able to keep this site up. In reality, advertizing of every sort funds the vast majority of what we view as entertainment, from TV, to magazines, to music and the internet. The landscape would be bleak indeed if there were no ads to pay for what we freely enjoy.

Some of the emails I get are requests for furniture projects, and I’ve been asked why I haven’t done any. My answer is that I want to eventually have a furniture project section, with one or two detailed projects per year. Now that I have moved to a monthly update format, I can start to seriously think about that happening.
I have made plenty of furniture in the past, though I don’t have much of it now. Pictured below is a small table that I made more than twenty years ago. Unfortunately, it has not been treated well over that time: several moves and time in storage have taken its toll on it. The back leg on the left was broken and glued together without a splint, giving it a dog-legged appearance. The black paint on the top is not part of the original finish. In spite of the rough treatment, it has held up well.
I use it now just inside the front door, as a handy place to put the keys:

Most of the table is made from spruce, with 1/4″ plywood for the drawer bottoms. It is not particularly well made, just a fairly quickly done need-to-do-something kind of project. At the time, I wanted to try turning a knob into the drawer front on the lathe, and that worked out well.

The drawers are simple, made with rabbet joints that are glued and nailed:

And here’s a closer look at the drawer front. A square block was glued to the drawer front and it was mounted on a faceplate, being careful to centre it properly.
The apron that connects the legs has a simple detail cut in by hand.

This is the type of furniture project I would do; smaller, but fairly detailed. The materials used would be nicer and the joinery could be improved upon, but the basic techniques would be about the same.