Wooden Gift

And, our friend Richard,is a woodworker, and brought us this wonderful wooden truck.  It is intricate, and beautiful.

My Brother's Woodworking

I can't believe that I have hardly posted in the past few months, and now in just 2 days I have posted 3 times. I guess once I get started I can't hush up.
I wanted to share some more of my brothers tables. A few months ago he made me a laptop desk very similar to these, and I guess he liked it too because he has made himself these two. The darker one is walnut and he made it first for a laptop table for himself, and then he made the second from cherry and just finished it in the past few days. He wanted it to hold an old singer sewing machine that he had gotten for himself and uses occasionally, although he is not a quilter. The legs were a little short so he added some ebony wood and it looked nice so he also made an ebony knob and added some little round insets on each side that he made from oak and dyed ebony. Between the three of them, they are similar but a little different from each other and I love all 3. I'm really proud of his skill, he just started a few years ago and is self taught and does really beautiful work. He does almost everything himself except cut down the tree, when he starts it is a big heavy rough board and he goes from there. I think he is quite something.

My Brother Made Me a Laptop Desk!

I finally received my new desk that was made from all either recycled or discarded lumber. My brother is very proud of the fact that my new desk is 'green', and so am I. I hope I'm getting this all right. The legs were made from an old door. He isn't positive of the type of wood, but it is very very heavy, and some of his woodworking friends think it may be Brazilian cherry. The top is 1 inch thick mahogany (was a 1 1/2 inch board) and he rescued it from the bottom of a woodpile that belonged to an old woodworker. The drawer front is birdseye maple, and it is from an old lamp table he thinks is probably from about the 5o's. The first picture is part of what he wrote on the back of the drawer. The hardware he rescued from a dumpster that he frequents, it belongs to a lumber yard, and he has gotten many treasures from it. The other day he had gotten 7 or 8 of these drawer pulls still in the packages, and solid brass. It looks nice in the pictures, but they don't do it justice, it is beautiful.

The thread stand he and my other brother made for me. I had only requested a scrap of lumber with some nails, but they nicened it up for me with my brothers woodworking tools. The metal dowels were rods that he cut and then smoothed with a grinder. The only mishap, was my younger brother nicked a piece of his little finger on one of the tools.
It was a nice weekend, as my youngest brother Martin, came with the table and stand (it was like Christmas in July, but presents only for me) and stayed for a couple of days and visited and did jobs for me that my husband has been unable to do, and we got to meet my oldest brother Vincent, for lunch yesterday and I got to thank him in person. I definitely hit the jackpot with my brothers, they are wonderful.