A home for the "highway five"

The "highway five" are a group of bunnies that were adopted by C.W. while she was in Utah volunteering at Best Friends animal shelter. After completing the work on C.W.'s home she asked me to build this for her new family members.

I used a tuff-shed that was already on the property and made a few additions and alterations to accommodate the "5". I insulated and finished the interior walls, taped, textured, ran outlets and lights and installed a few space heaters for winter warmth. No more cold nights on the highway for these five bunnies.

Retaining walls and steps

Beautiful redwood walls and steps. Clear all heart.
This was absolutely the most gorgeous street, in the most upscale neighborhood that I have ever worked on. The owner of this home is CEO of the second largest telecommunication company in the world. It felt like Disneyland with all the beautiful architecture around town. I could drive up and down the street, drooling over the homes.
Steps leading to the new spa.
Wish I could have finished them so I could get pictures of them cleaned without the tannin. It was in the painters contract to finish them.

My kind of garage...

There were three of us to build this 40' x 100' roof. By the end of the next day the trusses were rolled, blocked, sheeted, fascia boards hung and stacked with shingles. 20' walls didn't make it any easier but, that's how we roll!

Redwood pool deck in Sacramento

 Before...
...and after!!!  Built with my friend Tim, owner of Tim Tolman Construction.

Homes sweet homes

Here are some homes I helped build or worked on with the partners of Designsmith Construction.  Lowell Smith designs beautiful homes.

Gift for my best friend's son

My friend's son had his 1st birthday last summer and we love homemade gift giving. I thought a treasure box would be a nice gift. Their entire home is decorated with roman art and this was my inspiration. It reminds me of the Tree of Life.



I burned in a few Latin phrases and his birthday in roman numerals and threw in some very old coins from that region of the world to jump-start his saving and treasure collecting.

A game of chess?

We all need to take a break from work and have some fun once in a while. One of the ways I like to do it is by playing chess with my sons or daughters. Another way I escape the hustle and bustle is I go out to the garage and tinker or see what I can come up with using left-over wood from other projects. This is what I came up with in an evening. An alder chess set. I don't have a lathe, so square pieces cut with my scroll saw and band saw had to do. It looks pretty good but I say "each piece is like a pearl, not one is just like another".