Projects: Big...

Well gentle reader, it has been a long time. We'll have to make it a point to get together more often. In the meantime, welcome back.

Hopefully I'll be showing off some exciting new products in the next few weeks, but today I want to share a project I did almost a year ago.

Typically I do a lot of smaller projects. I've done bookmarks and key rings, and due to space constraints, the largest thing I normally travel to a market with is a bench or small table. But that doesn't mean I'm constrained to small, only that big doesn't always fit in my van...

A little over a year ago I was contacted by a local who was interested in having some renovations done to their new house. A number of different projects developed, but since I only have pictures of one, I'll stick to that one. I was asked about bookcases. Easy enough, I thought. I'd made bookcases for myself and small ones to sell. She wanted them to be adjustable. Not a problem. Use a jig for drilling holes and get some shelf pegs...no biggie. She wanted them to go from the floor to the ceiling and from one wall to the other. Alright, her ceiling slopes up from the wall...it's only an angle, no problem. Getting a bit on the big side though.

After a couple consultations and some email exchanges of ideas to make sure we were on the same page, we had come to a few more particulars:

There was an electric fireplace downstairs that she wanted to fit into the shelves.
Instead of going all the way to the outside wall we would stop about a foot and a half away from the wall and put a row of shelves at a 45 degree angle to make things feel a bit more open.
The bottom row of shelves would be fixed, while the others would be movable.
The top would have a bulkhead to cover the angle of the ceiling.

Before we get to the finished photo I need to admit that I did not paint the shelves myself. The customer had hired a professional painter to do a number of surfaces in the house and he handled all of the painting very well.

That said, here's what the final product looked like. My apologies for not having a before picture.

I am not a professional contractor. I am not licensed, or even insured. I have no staff apart from myself and my wife (who does not come to the job site with me). What I am is a full time woodworker. What I do have is integrity and a desire to make customers happy.

If that sounds like something you're comfortable with and you have a project around the house you'd like to consult me on, and you live within about an hour or so of the Madoc area, feel free to email me at mapleridgecreations@gmail.com.

Of course the real question to ask is, "Was the customer satisfied?"

I went on to build two more bookcases and a coffered ceiling.