My love affair with wood began at a very early age. As a boy one of my favorite activities was climbing trees. As the years went by, I always enjoyed watching anyone working with wood. I tinkered with little projects like making games out of sticks of wood, but it wasn’t until high school at the school for the blind that I became very interested in more involved projects.
A wonderful teacher (Bob Troughton) taught us the use of power tools and directed us in completing several projects such as coffee tables and cabinets. The real confidence builder came when he started asking me to teach other class mates. During the summer I completed small projects in my dad’s garage, and after purchasing my own home worked in the tiny furnace room, about 7 feet square, sharing it with a freezer, hot water tank and the furnace, and lots of complaints from the family about the dust.
In 1988 I built my shop again not large, 12×20, but it was a castle to me. Many projects were completed in that shop for family and friends. Cabinets, furniture, baby cradles, clocks, mirrors and of course toys. I enjoy all kinds of woodworking, but nothing can take the place of the joyful glees from children playing with the toys. Wood has its own personality and it is important to get to know your wood, its qualities and characteristics. All through the years of enjoying woodworking, there was always a part missing, I could not master the band saw to be able to do fancy scroll work and follow patterns.
One day Margaret walked into my life, someone who shared the love of woodworking, with a little instruction, she became the part that had been missing. We design all of our toys, all original designs. I could not follow patterns, so originality had always been the case. The most difficult part, once getting an idea in my head, is to convey what I want to the person doing the band saw work for me. I often spend hours trying to cut out a pattern out of paper until I have precisely what I want to have cut out.
Most of the wood used is silver maple harvested, milled and lovingly crafted on Amherst Island at Geoff’s farm. After losing my shop, Geoff was very kind to build a shop for us, for which we will forever be grateful.