General Woodcraft Blog

Bill Rivero is a well known local wood lover and wood carver. Like many members of the Mystic Carver’s Club, Bill has a real talent and great love of wood carving. Bill often dares to use hardwood species that many other carvers find extremely difficult to work with. That doesn't stop Bill; if he sees a piece of wood that is beautiful and has attractive graining or figuring, he will hand carve it to the delight of friends and family.  This beautiful handcrafted incense box is made from teak with basket weave carving and abstract design for the top with a stainless steel handle.  This hand carved teak incense box shows that teak is not just for boats but can be enjoyed by everyone on land or on the sea.

Bill carves a wide range of items from hardwood tikis, hardwood boxes, framed relief pictures, candle holders, canes, walking sticks, signs, kubotans and many more unique hand carved treasures. While Bill's woodcarving style is very diversified, his basket weave handcarvings are easily recognizable due to their richness, depth, complexity and beauty.

For additional information about teak or other wood options please visit our website or click the links below:

Teak Wood

Common and Domestic Hardwoods

Exotic and Figured hardwoods

Custom Woodworking

So you’ve spent months, maybe even years, clipping and cutting out images of your dream kitchen. You’ve finally got everything together and you’re ready to embark on the adventure of a kitchen remodel. But wait… do you have a kitchen designer?

“What?” you ask. “Why do I need to use a professional kitchen designer?”

I’m so glad you asked. Remodeling your kitchen, or building one from the studs in without the use of an experienced kitchen designer is like pulling out your own tooth. You might get rid of the toothache and you may even be able to chew again, but not without serious complications and a lot of pain. Think of kitchen designers as qualified dentists with laughing gas. They not only know exactly how to accomplish your goals, they make the whole process tolerable.

Kitchen designers take the busy work out of the whole design process so that you can enjoy it.

Yes, I said enjoy a remodel. There are so many things to consider when designing your kitchen. You have to choose the layout, appliances, cabinetry and countertops. You have to make decisions about numerous minute details, from the fixtures to the floors and everything in between. The kitchen design process can be quite overwhelming. But not for kitchen designers. Professional kitchen designers are passionate about what they do. kitchen designers excel at juggling all of those trivial, yet essential aspects of kitchen design and can free you up to focus only on those elements that really matter, like cost, color and completion date.

The first thing an experienced kitchen designer will do is determine what you want in your new kitchen. Functionality will be central to the kitchen design and will provide a fertile foundation from which all other design ideas will spring. Once a functional plan begins to blossom, then the fun begins. Designers have access to product lines, specialty items and software that will allow them to present you with unique kitchen creations custom designed for you. They will explain why one feature is beneficial and another not. They will work with you to ensure that your space meets all of your family’s requirements and stays within your budget. And best of all, kitchen designers can show you a virtual rendering of your dream kitchen so that you can try before you buy.

My sister is an experienced home designer and designed and renovated her own kitchen years ago. As talented as she is at designing her own spaces, she did this without the help of a professional kitchen designer. And although the final product was truly incredible, it put an equally incredible strain on her family. The walls were exposed for months, the electric and plumbing had to be completely re-configured, which added to the total cost, and her husband became less than enamored with the whole new kitchen idea the longer it took. In the end, even though the kitchen was absolutely beautiful, the dishwasher and dish cabinet could not be opened at the same time. The remodel process became the topic of many family jokes.

If you plan on investing money in the most important room in your home, invest just a little bit more time to ensure that your new kitchen will turn out exactly how you want. 

 

You’ve probably heard the saying that the kitchen is the “heart” of a home. I couldn’t agree more. But I’ll take that one step further and add that the kitchen island is what keeps that heart pumping.

Kitchen islands are iconic. They hail back to the good old days when families spent time together, eating, cooking and just enjoying each other’s company. They are the modern day version of the kitchen table. Instead of being snuggly wrapped into the built-in café or sitting uncomfortably on metal chairs around the linoleum topped red dinette, families congregate at the island. The kitchen island has become not only the lifeblood of the kitchen, but also a multi-dimensional fixture in most homes.

The large surface of an island is the perfect place to serve a buffet style meal, a critical ingredient in over-scheduled large families. It is rare that parents and children all sit down together at the dinner table anymore. The kitchen island offers a perfect solution. One person can be eating dinner while the other works on homework. The versatility of the island makes switching shifts and priorities a snap.

Kitchen islands can be designed in virtually all shapes and sizes. They can be floating or fixed, offer open or closed storage and can be multi-tiered or flat. Kitchen islands can be adorned with funky lights and cool and helpful amenities like built in knife blocks or cutting boards. They may be the center of the kitchen, complete with cook-top, stove or sink. Or, perhaps they act as the ideal sidebar to the kitchen collection, providing a respite from the hustle and bustle in the heart of the home. Kitchen islands can be configured to accommodate under-counter seating, bar stools or even custom-built swinging chairs like you see at the bowling alley.

The kitchen island acts as a magnet, drawing people, paper and projects toward it. It might even attract a meal or two. An island can be sturdy enough to support a DIY task, subtle enough to cater to an intimate crowd and stunning enough to take your breath away. But no matter how different they are, every kitchen island has one thing in common… appeal. It welcomes us home after a long day, eager to hold our keys and ease our burdens. It beckons us to have a seat, spend time with the ones we love and indulge in the simple pleasures of home. Our kitchen islands keep the blood pumping through every area of our lives and our homes.

Paduak Hardwood Custom Crafted Jewelry Box

Local craftsman Terry Danielson created a unique, custom made wooden jewelry box for his daughter-in-law.  The beautiful handcrafted hardwood jewelry box is a work of art.  Handmade from Paduak hardwood with a maple inlay, the craftsmanship in Terry’s work is evident.  The heart shaped design was cut from a piece of Paduak hardwood, an exotic hardwood species from Africa that has good strength and a rich interlocking grain pattern.  Paduak is a gorgeous orangey brown color that will darken to browner tones naturally as it ages.

To get the maple inlay to fit
properly into the design, Terry meticulously sanded both the maple and the Paduak for a perfect fit of the two wood species.  Terry used multiple coats of Water-Lok to finish his hardwood project to a beautiful luster. Paduak hardwood is a great wood species to consider for a number of different custom woodworking projects.

Learn more about custom wood working services, Paduak hardwood and other domestic hardwoods by following any of the links below:

Padauk Hardwood

Maple Hardwood

Common and Domestic Hardwoods

Exotic and Figured hardwoods

Custom Woodworking

So you’re finally going to do it!  You really are… you’re going to re-do your kitchen… Yeah!  You’ve been gathering ideas for months (or if you’re like most people, probably years).  You keep the obligatory stack of magazines with sticky notes fluttering on page after page of gorgeous photos beside your bed (what better way to slip into kitchen dreamland).  You’re constantly flipping through pages saying to yourself… “I wish!” …. Well, the truth is, sometimes that’s all you have to do.  If you can “wish” it, you can most likely make it happen.  That’s not saying that you don’t have to be realistic, honest and open to ideas or suggestions.  Once you’ve embraced the idea that you can have your “wish” kitchen, the next step is find the right design professional to help you make it happen.

“Oh no!” you think to yourself, “I can’t afford a kitchen professional”…. The truth is you really can’t afford to not work with a kitchen design professional.  You’ll find that most kitchen designers, kitchen design centers and custom kitchen companies offer their professional design services as part of the entire kitchen “package”.   That’s not to say that you won’t be “paying” for their efforts, these services are usually incorporated into the total cost of your project.  Most designers are banking on the hope that once they’ve wowed you with their ideas, you’ll sign on the dotted line to purchase cabinetry, maybe counter tops and other services from them.  On the flip side, if you don’t feel it’s a good fit and you choose not to hire that company to design your new kitchen, unless you’ve agreed to pay a design fee, non-refundable deposit, etc… you can usually walk away with nothing out of your pocket.  But, hopefully you’ll have ideas of what you do and don’t want in your new kitchen.  The key is for you to find that design professional that’s the right fit for you and your project.

A good kitchen design professional will bring many things to your experience.  They are a wealth of design knowledge.  They’ve seen trends come and go.  They’re color analysts, babysitters (discussing framing beads while baby Emma sits on their lap), they’ll go to bat for their clients with bullish contractors, they find the perfect counter top to go with that dreamed-of baking area, they’re part time marriage counselor (often sitting between a husband and wife at the critical moments)…. But above all they will always be cognizant of how you live, how you envision using your new kitchen, and what your realistic budget is for the entire project.  A good kitchen designer will help steer you towards the products that fit within your budget, the finishes and styles that you’ve been envisioning in your new kitchen and the amenities that will create a highly functional space for the way you live.  Once you’ve found that professional, and you will….get ready for an exciting experience… one that will lead to many years of happy times and cherished memories in a beautiful new kitchen that you “wished” into reality…..