Afternoon everyone.....
Some of you already know that I am a cabinet and furniture maker. I have been in business for nearly 28 years now and have been in this art for for over 35.
I have been taught and trained by a pair of extremely skilled and highly detailed individuals. The first company that I worked for was a cabinet maker by the name of Joe Tedesco. Aside from learning the art of building cabinets, he also taught me that using only quality materials equals the true quality of your craft.
After four years working for him I left to work for an absolutely elite furniture craftsman by the name of Benjamin Stroud. When I first walked into his shop I honesty thought this guy was a joke. There were only three power tools in the entire shop, a tablesaw, a thickness planer, and a three headed shaper/router. He was totally old school, and had some of the finest hand tools you’d ever seen in a lifetime.
This is where my skills were taken to the next level. Just to hit a few of the fine skills learned from him they were: hand cut dovetails, blind corner mortise and tenon joints, hand planed finished surface (sandpaper was never used by him, everything surface was finish planed) YES believe it.
During my time working there, we did several jobs for some very high end clientele, such as Paul Simon, Billy Joel and more...... when I delivered and installed the work for Billy Joel, his then wife Christy Brinkley was pregnant with their first child.
My time was short with Benjamin at just under two years. He decided to retire after 50 years in business. He moved back to Germany to be with his grandchildren.
He told me that I had what it takes to be a master craftsman which from him was an honor. I didn’t believe him at the time, but shortly after that went into business with a partner.
That was a mistake.......
This post and my mind cannot handle what exactly happened anymore. But the quickest way to explain it is I got stuck holding the bag of 120K worth of debt at the age of 22. I refused to file bankruptcy and destroy my future credit and life so I sold off everything including my collection, tools, and took out a loan for 50K to pay it off.
I am by no means looking for any sympathy, I just thought you’d like a brief history on my career and how it’s evolved over the years.
Today I am going to share some of my past work with you. Some of you may have seen a few of these already. Honestly I’m not quite sure what I’ve posted pictures of already.
Hope you enjoy.....
This is a solid cherry semi circular staircase that I built from scratch. I am literally standing outside the front door taking this picture to try and get as much of the stairs in as possible. The staircase actually goes up another six feet but would not fit in the picture. The wrought iron spindles were hand done by a metal smith friend of mine. To give you an idea of the true size of the staircase, the handrail was delivered on a flatbed tow truck and is nearly 35’ in total length.
This is a master bath that I did. All of The raised panels and molding were made by me and hand planed to fit. The top picture is the “Hers” side. A separated dual vanity with a make up center in between. The chair in the picture was an antique the owner supplied and was given to me to match the color of the furniture chosen. The “His” side in the second photo is just a single vanity to match.
This one is for the stackers out there....
This is one of the dozen or so treasure chests that I have been commissioned to build. The one you are viewing is natural cherry wood inside and black walnut on the exterior. The top is done by hand in a steam unit to make the radius. The handles and gasp are wrought iron for an authentic look and the straps are true black leather. This chest can hold over 2,000 ounces of silver.
