This is how it starts

Do you know what happens when you start a blog to help you remember the things you did in the garden, and it actually does what you thought it might and you have a place to keep track of things like what certain plants are called, when that special tree or bamboo went into the ground, or what the summer of XXXX was like in the garden?

Well in my case you start thinking about other things that you spend a lot of time doing that might be good to document in some interesting way. For instance, building things.

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Although I do spend a huge amount of time working outside and building things that are a part of or will be used in the garden, I also do lots of projects for the house -- I love creating and fixing things! Since I've now built up a respectable "portfolio" of these types of projects, I've decided to write about them all in one place.

So here it is, my blog about the things I build for the house and garden.

My goal is to not only post about the new things I create, but to go back and show you some of my previous creations. I don't plan on doing step-by-step instructions, as I'd rather inspire you than give you recipes, but I hope to point out the main steps of each project, including thoughts about what I did the "wrong" way, what was really difficult, and how I could have improved things.

Like my garden blog, there will be lots of photos.

Unlike my garden blog, I will not be posting every day. I think about gardening and plants every day so it's easy to write about that daily, but I usually only build something every couple of months or so. To start with I'll try to post once a week to get caught up on older projects, but posts may become less-frequent once I've exhausted all of those and only have new projects to talk about.


Now, about the name: Cut, Join, Finish. In my opinion, those are the three main steps in every building project: you force your materials to be the right shape and size, you stick them together in some way, then you make it pretty and possibly protect it at the same time. Cut, join, finish.

I'm hoping I'll be able to show you that it's not so difficult taking on these types of projects, and that I'll inspire you to build something yourself!

Some of the projects that I've done in the past, I'm working on now, or are planned for the next year:

• television stand (pictured above)
• bed with storage and headboard
• kitchen table
• credenza
• nightstands
• ottoman with storage
• chair rebuild
• potting table design

All of those coming in the next few weeks and months, so stay tuned!


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