With the feet mortised and curved, and the column mortised, and all parts thoroughly sanded, I joined all the parts using loose tenons and glue. All three feet were glued on at the same time. A few pin nails held each of them securely in place while the glue dried. After the feet dried overnight [...]
This week marked the beginning of the kitchen remodel job. We began turning the 18 sheets of melamine into 13 cabinet boxes! We began the project on Monday morning, and so far, thanks to careful planning, everything has gone smoothly. Also, last weekend I was at my parents house and was speaking to my mother [...]
The beginning to any big project is a large pile of materials. Here you see the 18 sheets of Almond colored melamine that will be used to build all the cabinet boxes and shelves. On the top is all the moulding that will be going in the kitchen: 100 linear feet of window and door [...]
Our largest project to date is a complete kitchen remodel. We will be tearing out the existing cabinetry and tile that you see below and will be building, finishing, and installing all new custom cabinetry. We will also be replacing the old window moulding and baseboard with new and matching crown and window moulding and [...]
In stark contrast to the previous few weeks, this past week was a veritable circus! Last week I sent out a press release to three local papers talking about the way J. Alexander Fine Woodworking was joining the age-old skill of woodworking with the latest Web 2.0 tools to create a much more rich and [...]
This is an easel design that was brought to me back in July. At the time I said that I couldn’t do it because of the intricate carving work necessary. The customer then came back to me about a month ago and asked again if I could do it. Since they really, really wanted it [...]
This is going to be short because the past week was pretty quiet. We didn’t do much work on designing any furniture for our custom line because yours truly had little to no artistic creativity or inspiration, and I have found that trying to force oneself to be creative is a futile effort. Neither did [...]
We receive regular newsletter e-mails from a business consulting company in the silicon valley are called Trizle. Funny name for a consulting company, but the newsletters they send out are packed full of good, solid, timeless business advice The latest newsletter was entitled “How to Run Your Business When The Economy Sucks!”. We really liked [...]
The last week has been a bit slow for J. Alexander Fine woodworking. We are attributing it to being such a young pup in the custom furniture market and that pesky little thing, the national economy. Even so, we do have things to report from this past week’s activities. Shop Projects As mentioned last week, [...]
The custom furniture business is just plain fun. I get to make a living by doing one of my favorite things, designing and building furniture. Each project is unique, even in a small ways, from the ones that I have built before. A wide range of mental and technical skills have to be developed to [...]