TWO–DOG WORKS

WOOD ART

Custom designs, hand crafted

I began playing with wood in my father's small shop. He never made furniture or other items in wood, but he had acquired a variety of tools for the seemingly endless additions to our Carmel Valley, adobe ranch house. In later years, I borrowed his old table saw and began crafting things I needed: a mahogany navigation table for my wooded (of course) motorsailer, a couch for a pregnant wife, side tables, a captain's bed for my young son, and even a wooden briefcase for my then new career as a technology writer/editor. Over time, I built my own extensive collection of woodworking tools and set up small shops in garages and sheds, as I moved from place to place.

In 2005, my father passed away. My distraught mother asked that I pick out an urn from those offered at the mortuary. I did so, but the choices all seemed outrageously expensive and dull for a man who was a highly regarded photographer and gardener.

Retiring to my small garage-turned-woodshop, I used thin oak panels for the box and shaped a chunk of surplus plum wood for the top. It has now become the official family urn. (My father's ashes were eventually scattered off the Monterey coast.)

In our old craftsman house, an ugly, free-standing firebox squatted in the corner of the family room. I replaced it with a functional storage cabinet/desk/bookshelf. The piece was built with almost no screws or nails; wooden biscuits and glue joined most of the parts.

A dresser made of a variety of woods. Originally, the drawers were installed in a tall captain's bed I made for my son. But as he got older, he wanted a standard bed.