One of the memories from my youth is being interested in building wooden objects. This interest was influenced significantly by watching my father work in his shop with a rather complete complement of power tools. At that point, I never worked with the power tools, but I did a fair amount of tinkering with hand tools in small projects.

At several points along the way I took on building projects as the need arose, always using hand tools and an occasional hand-held power tools (saws, drills, sanders, and the like). The largest of these projects was the room I built in the basement of our old house on Illahee Road, in which I did everything except the electrical work. The room became my "hideaway" office, and leaving it behind was (for me) one of the more difficult aspects of our move to Laurel Lane in 1988.

Shortly after the move, I was awarded a one-semester sabbatical from Brevard College, and during that time I re-discovered my fascination with woodworking, thanks to a couple of projects around the house and some neat TV shows (notably "The New Yankee Workshop"). My obsession with being able consistently to saw a straight line and to achieve a truly square corner led to the purchase of a radial arm saw, which became housed in the two-car garage.

Combining woodworking in the garage with parking two cars there very quickly became a logistical challenge, and this eventually led to the purchase of a building (which led to the purchase of other power tools), and a fully-equipped shop in the back yard became the realization of a dream in the summer of 1990.