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My 16x20 shop sits just 50 paces away from my door and overlooks my backyard.
I became interested in woodworking when I was just 12 or 13 years old. My first shop was set up in the attic of my dad's garage when I was 17. It was unbearably hot in the summer, and cold in the winter. I didn't have many tools, nor did I have much time between working part time jobs and attending college, so I didn't spend too much time up there. Nevertheless, woodworking became one of my greatest passions very early on.
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For a brief time, I thought I wanted to be a professional woodworker. However, after taking a few jobs building cabinets and other furniture items, I quickly realized how difficult it would be to make a living doing this by myself, and the stress of meeting deadlines and searching for my next customer would take all the fun out of woodworking. From then on, I've been happy to call myself a hobbyist, and almost never took an order for work or tried to sell things I made.
When I was in college I happened to see Curtis Buchanan making a Windsor high chair on an episode of Roy Underhill’s The Woodwright’s Shop. I was immediately intrigued and went to look him up online. As it turns out, Curtis and I live within 30 minutes of one another. I gave him a call and told him I would like to take his class and learn to build a chair, but at that time he had a long waiting list. Curtis is such a nice man, though, and when I told him I just lived down the road he said something along the lines of, “Well why don’t you just drop by on a Saturday now and then and I’ll show you a few things.”
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I took him up on his offer and went to visit Curtis within a week or so of our call. He helped me put a hollow grind on my drawknife, showed me how to use a froe and riving brake to control a split, he let me take a handful of spindle blanks to practice with, and he even gave me my first spokeshave and an article on how to tune it up. I was beside myself with excitement. Not only was I standing in this amazing shop, but here was the man known far and wide for his chairs taking his time to show me things and even giving me tools to help me get started.
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I visited Curtis a few times back then (2006), but unfortunately I was very busy with work and school, and woodworking sort of took a backseat in my life for the next decade or so. In May of 2016 I completed my dissertation and was finally finished with college for the very last time. I had spent several years with very little free time, and now had more than I knew what to do with! By that point I lived across the street from my parents. I had not spent much time woodworking in several years, but I got the itch again and decided it was time I built my own shop.
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I didn’t have a lot of money, or space, so I sat out to build a relatively small shop in my backyard. I worked on it in the evenings and on weekends and had the building framed and under roof shortly thereafter. I refused to move in any of my tools, though, until I had a chance to finish the inside the way I wanted. I knew if I moved my tools in I would be tempted to stop working on the shop, and I wanted to make the inside as nice as possible so I would want to spend time there. Finally, in November of 2016, I decided it was time to move in my workbench and tools.
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I spent the next couple of years making different things. I made a few violins even though I can’t play. I made a few tables, some spice boxes, a couple of versions of toolboxes and chests, and a bunch of other random projects along the way. I kept thinking about getting back to learning to make Windsor chairs. In 2020 I was thinking about the time I saw Curtis on The Woodwright’s Shop and was trying to find that episode on YouTube. That is when I ran across Curtis’s YouTube channel and got hooked watching his videos.
I ordered a set of plans for a few of his chairs and got busy splitting, shaving, turning, and carving. I went with the Democratic Side Chair first as it can be completed without several of the more specialized tools that I didn’t have. I started picking up some of the other tools I needed and ordering wood rivings from one of Curtis’s former apprentices, Elia Bizzarri. By the end of 2020 I had made a handful of chairs and was completely hooked. I ordered more plans and in 2021 I ended up making another ten or twelve chairs. At this point, I have all the chairs I need for my house, I’ve given some away to my family, I had made one as a retirement gift for one of my coworkers, and I was running out of things to do with them. I didn’t want to stop making them, though, so my mind wandered again to selling them.
All of the original hesitation of selling my work flashed back, and the more I thought about it the less I wanted to do it. So when the thought of auctioning the chairs to benefit local students came to mind I felt like I had struck gold. We could use the proceeds to benefit students who need it, I could keep making chairs without stressing about selling my work, and the folks who buy the chairs will end up with a nice piece of furniture for a decent price and can feel good about helping others. I can’t find a downside to the idea, so here we are!
Funny enough, the first time I met Curtis, I mentioned that I was working as a finish carpenter until I completed a history degree and could become a high school teacher. When I said that, he chuckled and said, “You might just be destined to be a chairmaker.” He went on to tell me that his own story sounded very similar at one point in his life prior to his chairmaking days. I reconnected with Curtis last year after ordering several sets of his plans and asking him some questions about turning and finishes over email. He invited me to drop in and visit his shop again. When I did, he asked me, “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” I reminded him of the time he told me I might have a chairmaking future ahead of me, and he gave me the same chuckle he did back then.
I want to sincerely thank Curtis Buchanan and Elia Bizzarri. They are two of the most genuinely kind hearted people I know. I have said for years now that woodworkers are by and large a generous lot, we like to talk to people about what we do and how we do it, so it isn’t uncommon for a woodworker to be willing to offer advice or assistance. Curtis and Elia, though, are on a whole other level. They have both been extremely helpful to me as I have been trying to learn to make these chairs, and I am certain I am but one of hundreds for which they have done the same. If you are interested in woodworking or if you are looking to buy something made by a master craftsman, I certainly recommend you check out their sites.
The Democratic Side Chair was my first attempt at a Windsor chair in 2020