It's not the New Yankee Workshop, but it is quality craftsmanship.

When not plannig the wedding, and cooking three meals a day, Amanda gives me a little bit of free time (not much but enough to sneak over to my buddy Roger's house to get a little daily lesson in woodworking. Refinishing to be specific. In three weeks I have completed three projects. I wouldn't call my work quality yet, and by no means is it up there with Roger's but hey, he's been doing this since 1966.

Anyway, my three projects consisted of a small oak plant stand, a taller knotty pine plant stand(both came out of my brothers house when he bought it) and a small stool that Amanda says she used when she was too short to reach the faucet (which is a statement of question itself because she is still - as my dad put it when he first met her "short.") So not only is Amanda happy with the outcome of the appearance of the stool, but brushing her teeth is a whole lot easier in the mornings again.

Above you can see the finished products. I am quite happy with the way they turned out. I expected Roger, a former proffessor of metal casting and safety to hand down grades on each of my projects. Much to my suprise, I never received any. I guess when you retire, you do so in every sense of the word. He did note,however, that the little stool I refinished is "quite the honey." That must be an antiquing term, and I think it s a better grade than "a lemon." On that note, I will take it upon myself to safely say that I passed my first course in refinishing.

To note, since I have no place to display my work at this transient time in my life I have decided to give the small stool to Amanda (hopefully, she will let our kids use it once in a while), the small oak stand to Donna, so that she can use it as a drink stand next to her beautiful new chair in Platteville, and the large knotty pine stand to my mother in hopes that after she sees my fine quality craftsmanship (the knotty pine stand is everyones favorite so far) she will allow me to get my hands on great grandpa's smoking stand in hopes of refinishig it and turning it into a beautiul conversation piece for years to come.

Oh, before I forget, Amanda wanted me to put another one of our engagment pictures on the blog. That's what that picture is all about.

Waiting for the varnish to dry,

Tom