Making things

Carpentry

It all started over 16 years ago when a sofa was being built at home. I had sourced the design from IKEA and employed some carpenters to replicate it on site.

Always fascinated by skills on display, I had watched fascinated. Had picked up their handsaw and realised how their skills made something so impossible look so very easy. But had kept at it with the discarded wood till I could saw through a reasonably straight line.

At the time, I also happened to visit a local hardware store to pick up some nails. There I met a fabulous gentleman who then gifted me my first piece of pinewood (story under the first image below).

With the sofa guys working on their sofa, I had sat on the sidelines, working on my own plank using their saw whenever they happened to put it down.

The head carpenter was impressed and gifted me his own personal handsaw. He showed me the trick by which he had bent every alternate tooth the other way and how this facilitated faster sawing. I used that saw for everything I did after that, for all these years. I never found another saw quite like that unassuming piece of metal with a decrepit handle.

So many stories. Will relate some of them while I show you pictures of some of my woodwork below.

Small handmade pinewood box with sliding lid and knob, painted hemp-leaf motif on the front panel — Read about **the very nice man**

Set of hand-cut wooden square coasters with a spiral burn design on the top coaster, propped against a glass cookie jar — Read about the **journey of the plank**

Full-height pinewood wardrobe with hand-painted colourful frogs on the doors — Nabina's first major carpentry project — Read about **the accidental swamp**

L-shaped pine corner bench with a painted red daisy motif — Nabina's dog is exploring underneath it — Read about **the ice cream craving**

Plumber's ashtray — cross-shaped wooden frame stained yellow, filled with cast concrete in the centre hollow — Read about **the plumber's ashtray**

Read about fonts, Ram Ray and Param

Close-up of the daisy painted on the corner bench, dramatically back-lit against a dark background — Read **about Ram Ray's blessings**

Four chunky pinewood dining chairs with tall slatted backs and natural knot-holes, photographed against a green wall — the "(s)crappy dining chairs" — Read **about the (s)crappy dining chairs**

Handmade wooden chair with a low seat — the bad bad chair — Read about **the bad bad chair**

Here are some other tidbits that went neither here nor there but were fun to make. (The last one was the compulsory Ganesha for the car. Yes that went to a lot of places though.)

(Click to enlarge)