Fun With Mortises and Tenons

...els of craftsmanship, I haphazardly fixed the table with screws and nails. Making the mortises and tenons took forever even though I was working with power tools–a plunge router to make the mortises and a table saw to cut the tenons. Of course, a great deal of the time in the workshop was spent in idle chatter. My workshop is right on the public sidewalk and serves as a kind of conversational trap for every passing neighbor and dog walker. Kelly s...

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Saturday Tweets: Parsley Poodle Sandwich

...Y6yEREr — Root Simple (@rootsimple) July 13, 2019 Watch Netflix at work by making it look like you’re on a conference call https://t.co/0CmD0kgVLy — Root Simple (@rootsimple) July 10, 2019 I’m in a wheelchair or pushing a baby along. How do I get around this? @LADOTofficial @davideryu #shermanoaks pic.twitter.com/cbqaZP2Rxs — CiclaValley (@Ciclavalley) July 12, 2019 Let’s do this in LA starting with the section of the 2 freeway between Glendale an...

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Open Floor Plan

In a stunning bit of hypocrisy, we’re busy making the floor plan of our house a bit more open in spite of our rants and raves about the practice. Allow me to explain. Many years ago, when I installed our living room floor, I pulled up a baseboard and discovered that the wall between the living room and bedroom was of recent vintage. What we now use as a bedroom was originally a sitting room or dining room. And the two closets that share a wall be...

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A Grand Rapids End Table

...working project I tackle seems to come along with a lesson learned through making a mistake. A previous project taught me that I should take more time deciding what to make. As a woodworker, since you can make whatever you want, you might as well make something interesting and custom sized for a particular spot in your house. With this end table I took my time looking for the perfect piece to reproduce. While the Arts and Crafts thing is way out o...

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Backyard and Backwards Beekeeping

...Q&A you’ll notice that my desktop computer is installed in our closet thus making my Zoom background a pile of folded sheets. In the talk I give a brief intro to bee biology and then go over the way I keep bees here as taught to me by “backwards” beekeeping guru Kirk Anderson. Beekeeping resources I mention during the talk: Organizations/Websites HoneyLove.org: local non-profit that provides hands-on education and resources for backyard beekeepers...

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