Things that are made out of wood have such a unique beauty, don’t they? There’s something magical about the color and the unique pattern that each and every piece have. Even mass-produced wooden products are all different from one another due to the grain’s pattern, each product is one of a kind and there’s nothing exactly like that anywhere else. This is exciting to me and adds value to things that are made out of wood, in my opinion.
I’ve always loved to build things.
One of my first memories is from my grandfather’s yard where, one day, I decided to take apart the stones from the pathway and build a castle from them. Well, you could probably see where this is going. A love for wood and a love for building and creating things with my hands. Eventually I’d find a way to mix these two passions into one.
Around the age of 10 I had the great idea of building a model airplane (out of wood of course), starting with its propeller. Why start with the propeller, you ask? Who knows, that was my 10-year-old logic. I took my dad’s tools (while he wasn’t home) and started to saw, carve and sand a piece of wood into a propeller shape. All those hours of watching my dad work with his tools did not go to waste. When my dad came back, he was more pleasantly surprised by what I managed to achieve than he was angry that I worked without permission with dangerous tools. The fact that the day ended with a compliment, rather than a telling off, gave me motivation and spurred me on with trying new projects.
If anyone’s wondering what happened to the airplane project, well, children are not known for their great attention span and the propeller is all that ever came to be from it. That being said, I still have that propeller with me as a keepsake.
*My first ever wood working project
Years had passed by, and I kept developing more and more building projects. With time each project became more and more practical- shelves, cabinets, lamps and more. I find it challenging and interesting to plan and build something that would be both useful in day to day life and would also look good so that people pause to look at your creation (even for a moment).
But if you’d like to know when was it that I decided to take my hobby to a more professional direction, then I’d have to say it was when my dad found some electrical woodworking tool and gave it to me, saying I’ll find something to do with it. He wasn’t wrong. It was a tool for carving into wood (rotary tool) with which I started to carve into all sorts of planks and design them into shapes and interesting embellishments.
The first project was a bookcase with a built-in picture. I carved a “window” into the wood, put a picture there and covered it with glass. Later, I made a cabinet for a computer in order to hold all the accessories and cables that come with a computer (like printer and papers) in order to make everything neat and organized.
After each project, I looked for ways where and how it is possible to improve and develop my skills. How can I make it better/prettier/ more interesting? At a certain point came the first project that my wife and I said: “wow, we could actually sell this!”. And we did (spoiler alert- this project was the Pianist, and since then, there are a lot of clients who enjoy it).
But how eventually did it become a business? I think I should tell that in more details in a different post.
Meanwhile, I’d like to wish you good luck with whatever you do, and never give up on what you like.
Yours, PracticallyWood.