Woodworkers Treasure Chest

Hello, my name is Crispin Thomas, Creator and Owner of Sawdust-Addict.com, but I was not always this pumped up about woodworking.

As a matter of fact, even though I loved the dream of woodworking, I almost ditched this rewarding pastime out of sheer frustration, because my results were so demoralizing, and my years of determination yielded not much more than just, sawdust!

Even though I worked for many years as an Engineer in a small TV station, I was always captivated by the idea of transforming rough lumber into beautiful furniture or other functional items. However, probably like you, time was always in short supply and my workspace was never big enough!

My Worst Woodworking Nightmare

Allow me to share with you a quick story about one of my early attempts at woodworking that almost ended up ruining my marriage!

This was around 2003, my wife and I were married for about 10 years and we needed to replace the vanity in the bedroom. Of course, my wife wanted to just go out and purchase one, but I volunteered to build one!

After all, how difficult could that be!

Now while I had tried to build small items in wood before, this was going to be an item that would be used every day and should have been a kind of show piece, something we could both be proud about!

It goes without saying, she was very skeptical about my woodworking talents, and did not like the idea one bit. But I insisted.

So, I looked up some plans online, and came up with a design that I liked. I got the materials together and set aside a weekend for my grand project and got started.

The results were… well it was just terrible!

I remember saying to myself “What was I thinking?”

I had made some really poor choices in materials, and I realize now looking back, that my joinery techniques were still at “infancy” stage.

As you can imagine, this led to some, let’s call them “disputes” with my wife, and for a long time afterwards, she did not let me forget how much time and money we wasted on that experiment…

…and of course, my confidence in my own woodworking abilities was at rock bottom!