I'm a guy. Not a particularly
enlightening sentence (and much shorter than I allow most of my students to
construct) but true nonetheless. As a
guy, I come with typical guy attitudes and stereotypes. One of those is guys should be good with
tools, have lots of tools, and be able to talk about tools. This does not discount women. I have met women who met all three
criteria. I am not inept with tools, and
I have quite a few of them, and I have completed a project or two. However, there will not be a reality show
featuring me completing wonderful and complex projects in a quick half
hour. The problem is, sometimes, I wish
I could.
I wish I had more time, energy and talent to build wonderful
pieces of furniture. I hate going to
stores and seeing the crappy, particle board furniture that is ubiquitous. I want to build beautiful solid wood
pieces. I'm talking about a new
headboard, a new TV stand, wood paneling for the pool room (someday), a coffee
table with a train layout in the bottom.
The problem is a lack of pure talent, space, energy, and money. The last
being rather important because good wood is rather expensive--and the lack of
talent could only lead to beginner mistakes and more purchases of lumber.
At to this that well made, ornate furniture would probably
require some carving or filigree (thank you spell checker) and that requires
talent.
Someday, I may take this up, starting small of course (bird
house, deck) and work my way up to coffee table, or end table. However, until that time, I guess I will have
to shop at better places.
I think that my brother is the stereotype of what a guy has to be nowadays.
ReplyDeletehe is a mechanical engineer and his hobby is making furniture, he like to make furniture since he was a kid. But when he was a kid, he used to make more weapons than furniture, once he made a crossbow, and the most bizarre of all things he did was a guillotine for flies. Yes, a guillotine for flies, and it worked very well!
I'm not this kind of person. I grew on a generation where all of my friends played games on PC, video game or Lego. I'm not complaying about it, it's cool, I like it, but sometimes I'd like to know how to make another things like furniture!
maybe someday I will do something about it too