Saturday plans.

This whole blog writing doesn't come to me easily, it's not that I'm not making things in my garge, the thing is that I don't have a habit of taking pictures of the projects I'm making at the time and those as I finish. I'm not a kind of person who tends to make plans of a day or even any to-do list for the future. Every sticka has two ends, I would say every couple has two people - it's Julia who likes planning, so I don't have to bother of such things :)
But, I promise to take photos of my next project, only after I finish it. I thought about photographing it between some steps as I am making, but the problem is I don't want to keep my camera anywhere near dusty garage (I would have to keep Julia somewhere near as well, my photographing skills aren't so good).

The next project will be a chest. The most popular type - with rounded top and assembled only with nails. I could make some sophisticated joints to keep it really sturdy, but I heard about one big advantage of nail joints - they can keep up even couple hundred years due to the fact nails don't keep whole thing tight, they are elastic and as the wood expands and shrinks they can tilt and bend - they don't crack and don't cause wood to crack.
I've already built the chest box part and I am really happy of the work. It's made of 3 cm thick oak with a bottom made of 1 cm pine plywood - it's really sturdy. Now I see, or rather hear, that the whole only-nail-joints part is really doing it's job. Through a day, the chest makes cracking noises as the wood expands and it's only because the joints just rearrange. Someone would say 3 cm oak wood is much too much for a chest (which is by the way 60x40x35 cm), it is really heavy (about 20 kg) and the wood cost me much, but I would remind him of one thing, the thing people miss these days - 'authenticity'.

A short discourse upon a style.

  It was a great month. For two first weeks I was in Tuscany, if you want to see some photos from the place please visit my girlfriend's blog (link is on the right-hand side). It is really beautiful place, the only thing is that when you just arrive and see the views you feel as if you were at home, in Poland. It's not so different. Then you begin to discover more and more differences as you have more contact with locals, their espresso-perversion, dining times, siesta, everything makes you more and more distant from the people there. It's because they act naturally and you just try to do it their way, that makes you a little overwhelmed then. But hey, the feeling is still great!

  I realised I have so much to make before my studies start. On top of that I wanted to sell something in our shop, it didn't come up well. Still patiently waiting for my first customer (Julia has already sold a set of 5 postcards, lucky she). I have much ideas to realise in my projects, so many inspirations back in Italy. When I've been seing all those big old buildings, like Sienese cathedral - really beautiful, or Florentine cathedral - that one is huge!, I wanted to memorise as much as I can to be able to incorporate their styles to my works. Although that sounds so pathetic as if I was a well-known designer or someone, I want to tell you I am not and I don't feel like. I use to think  in a very simple way about designing items. The look of the Florentine duomo is full of horizontal lines, line of cornice under it's windows lines up with cornices of side-chapels' domes, but the effect works only if you look at the cathedral from sides and from a distance. Look at a bell tower of the Sienese cathedral, count how many windows it has on every floor, then you'll see there is something odd with them.
  If you try to take designs to pieces, you learn a lot how to design your own items. How to do it from the very beggining still not using previously prepared styles and motives that would make your work unoriginal. Athough it's easy to design you own piece of art, it's far too easy to folow any of those hundreds of schemes created before. Then you must either choose one style or make your own one. Build your own brand.

  I don't have any experience to be able to learn people, but I have enough pride to show you how I see the world and how helpful it is. I hope I'm not only a theorist and will be able to show you some of my ideas incorporated to my works. And, what's more, I hope maybe someone will appreciate that.
  What do you think about the whole process of creating your own brand ? Have you found your own style, either as a person who makes things or someone who experiences art ?

All right, saw ...

  Uhh, finally. The matura is almost over. There's no doubt I will pass it, however the aim is to pass it as well as possible. The most stressful and hardest part, which is Polish oral exam, is behind me and, being immodest, passed by me at 100%. Tommorow I have English oral matura, but it's really easy, I mean really :P
  The point is that I will have very much time to do woodworking. The last month was very tight, I had to learn to the matura, pass it and rest a little. I managed not to have entered my garage until the whole exam was over.
  Refering to the name of the post, I will have a new table-saw. Finally, I will be able to get rid of my existing one, which isn't really wood-saw, but a saw intended for cutting tiles, blah! So I have much plans to do with my future one and add to the to-do list a bench for my mother (she has birthday today).
  Yesterday, I cleaned the garage and thought a little about re-planning it. I mean, I need much more storage place, I need a straight assembly table and, of course, a place to fit the saw. Not to be totally fruitless, I made a hammer. Yes, a woodworking hammer made from wood. Intended not to damage wood when used and made mainly for assembling furniture. I will add some photos in a couple of hours/days/something, but I thought it could be fun to show you how to make your own, so I will make another one, but this time I will make many photos of the whole process. That will be my first teaching-project I've ever made, it will be fun. Stay tuned :)

Random thoughts.

  It's a pity I haven't done anything wooden since nearly two weeks. The problem is the matura is getting nearer and nearer, the first exam is supposed to be on Friday, the second worst for me, Polish exam. The first is Polish oral, ahh it hurts me a lot.
  But, I've had some time for thinking. How far is my, I mean Polish, culture from American or British ? The more I see on the Internet the bigger abyss I see between the cultures. And the only way to show one what exactly do I mean is to show some examples.
  I watched some photos on Pinterest and ran into some ideas of using old tires as planters. Some people commented it was great, plenty of them liked it and even a couple repinned to their own beauty-lists. I understand the phenomenon, hardly anyone from Poland would, but I do. The point is, we are far away from those times when people used some thrash as a piece of practical art. It's because of 1989-minus-1945 years of communism in our country. There was nothing available in shops and people had to queue for days, just like Apple-fans queued for iPhones, but they had to do that just to get some ham or other piece of meat. What's more, they could only get a little of it, because there was a strange system of nearly-equal portioning of goods (even a toilet paper was portioned). The whole situation learned people to use some obtainable things in untypical ways. The culture that had grown on those reused tires, wooden figures and garage-made furniture made us very fastidious, so the photos, which I've seen on Pinterest, just made me thinking, why so many people like it.
  There is one strange problem connected to the whole phenomenon about which I am writing. I didn't even live in the times of PRL - communism in Poland, I haven't ever been to any communist country and I haven't ever met any conservative communist. The system had left so noticeable stamp on Polish mentality, that it will take a couple of decades to forget it and fully understand the fact which I am writing about.
  It's strange, it will always be for me. But on the other hand, people from the West must really like my country when they visit it. Hah, I remember a phrase from a game, that fits the situation very well:
"Some people call them junk, but I call them treasures."

Idea.

I've been thinking. I wondered, what's the point of running a blog like this one. Do people really want to see my projects ? Do you ? It's strange, because I very often think about basis of some of our habits and needs. I do sometimes think about the sense of people working in stress and hurry (I'm still in a high school).

I mean, if you thought about the simpliest basis of the fact that you work, your thoughts would start on earning money, go through supporting your family and, with a stroke of luck, they would end on easily forgetable idea of self-fulfillment.

  I think that's why I want to show you some of my projects, which are my own way to fulfill myself. But, here comes the question. Do you need to see that ? Do you want to see that ?

  I think people want to see some blogs and websites as Pinterest or the blog of mine, because they are eager to make things, I mean build them, give reins to their imagination. Sometimes people just want to make something. However, they don't know how (doggy sentence, sorry :)

  That's why I managed to change the idea of my blog a little, I will not only show you a finished project, I will guide you through the whole process of making it. Thanks to that, I would reach the basis of the whole immodesty I introduce through showing the furniture I make.

Badum...

Ok, to be honest. I built the next project before I'd finished the last one.
Funny part is I've really finished it and now it waits to be oiled and that will happen after Wednesday, because I'm waiting for Julia to make it together. It's a little table that I will use as a bedside table, it's made of beech and oak, so it's the first project made of something different than pine.

There are some flaws and shortcomings, but let's not spoil the effect. The laptop table I should have finished some time ago is almost finished as well, but it had to be tested by my father so he would tell me what to change and what to add to make it fully functional.

To sum up, I promise to enclose some photos as soon as I finish those two projects.
But then, oh, I still have plans to make some other projects, so let's write a check-list:

• something interesting - a plant press for Julia
• a simple flowerpot for my aunt
• my mother needs a plain table for some stuff accumulated near our washer
• hm, this could wait - a planter to plant some herbs in our garden
• a rack to store bottles of wine that will 'appear' in some days, wine I made on November is already ready to bottle
• Oh damn, I would forget - I HAVE TO PASS THE MATURA EXAM :)

Hello every.. Hi me!

  I've decided to create the site to be able to describe the projects I made, am making and will make in the nearest future. I'll try to expand it and describe the projects as well and clearly as I can.

  I hope you'll enjoy it.