All Work and No Play?

Being a finish carpenter, you quickly realize that many people have a fascination with woodworking.  It’s a fun answer (especially for a girl) to the cocktail party get-to-know-you-in-a-sentence question, “so what do you do?”  Your new friend replies excitedly, “Really?  A carpenter?  That must be fun!”  To which I usually reply, “Yes.  It is.”  But I always feel that I’m somehow misleading them.  I’m pretty sure this person imagines an entirely different version of my day-to-day lifestyle than what I actually experience. 

Perhaps they are imagining a dusty cramped workshop, all littered with sawdust, hand planes and chisels.  Sunbeams shoot through the old leaded glass windows (it’s always sunny in the mind’s eye, isn’t it?).  A table, half built, sits in the corner, its final leg being carved carefully on a lathe.  A small jewelry box is nearly finished -- all that’s left to do is the sanding, waxing and attaching the tiny brass hinges and clasp.  That’s the workshop daydream, trumping all other potential daydreams in my experience.  If someone is fascinated by woodworking, 9 times out of 10, this “Gepetto scene” (as a former colleague aptly referred to it) is their secret fantasy.  Come to think of it, that colleauge looked an awful lot like Gepetto himself...

This is our real workshop, with enough space to park my van inside after hours.

The jobsite daydream, for those who aim a little closer to reality, may be a bit hazier.  The details aren’t filled in.  Who knows where you keep your chisels?  At best, maybe a rustic old wooden toolbox, folded in a leather sleeve. Who knows what this house looks like that you may be working on?  Is it a Craftsmen or maybe even a Victorian?  One thing is for sure -- you are crafting a home with your mad skills and you must be the happiest most fulfilled person on the entire planet!

Honestly, these are the typical reactions I’m used to, and I can’t blame anyone for feeling this way.  These are the dreams that my reality is based on.  If it weren’t for the romance and the intrigue of crafting something with the skill of your hands, standing back to admire it and seeing it finally in its finished state, there would be no love here and I would be doing something else with my time.

So it all kind of begs the question -- is this really still fun for me, in the way I originally intended for it to be?  The simple answer is “yes”.  I am fulfilled by my work.  I love what I do and I literally crave learning more (so much that I actually let out squeals of delight when someone shows me a particularly clever trick).  The more complicated answer, though, is “sometimes”.  Let’s face it: not every job can be the crème de la crème, where a healthy budget meets a beautiful design concept meets gorgeous materials meets my own two hands.  Sometimes, someone just needs you to fix their rotten threshold….for as little money as possible, by the way.  Also, even my most favorite jobs (the ones that leave me with a huge perma-grin and a spring in my step) -- even those jobs can’t capture my interest beyond the 40 hour work-week (okay, let's face it.  I’d probably be happier with only 32 hours).  There’s just nothing on this planet that has so far captured my interest in that way.  I think it’s a big key to my personality.  I love balance in my life -- between work, hobby, home, family, friends, dogs, etc. 

Les and I did have fun building this maple and walnut cutting board as a wedding gift.

So, what’s fun for me about woodworking?  Why do I stick with it?  I love the craft.  I love learning about wood and techniques.  I love using all my cool tools and learning to use new ones.  I love putting more beauty into the world.  I love putting myself into my projects.  I love seeing some of the most beautiful architectural details I could imagine come to light.  I love the camaraderie and the history of the trade.  I love the challenges and troubleshooting that each job requires.  I love the feeling that I get when I have made someone’s day just by doing my job.  I love making little blocks for my adorable nephew’s birthday or gifting a homemade cutting board as a wedding present. These are the elements of my work that make it all worthwhile, despite the fact that it's only "sometimes" fun.  All this love is what drives me to continue on this path.

It's particularly gratifying to see my nephew Kegen enjoy playing with those blocks!

Scary Stuff

When I entered into my career 5 years ago, it didn’t really seem like that big of a deal to be a female carpenter.  What felt like a big deal was leaving my very comfortable part-time job with a salary, health insurance, a 401K, paid holidays and sick days and several supportive coworkers -- from here on out, I’ll refer to this as “comfy job”.  It was predictable, pleasant, and stable.  But, I was uninspired.   It just wasn’t me and I knew it wasn’t my future.  A good friend asked me the simple question, “What would you do if you won the lottery?”  I answered, “Take a woodworking class.”

Woodworking always had an allure, but suddenly it dawned on me that there was no real reason I couldn’t pursue it as a potential career.  After several months tiptoeing around as a free apprentice for a friend-of-a-friend (i.e., please let me come watch you work so I can see if this actually as interesting in reality as it is in my head), I started working on my days off at a cabinet shop (for actual pay!) and then quit comfy job forever.  With eyes-open and fingers-crossed, I dove into the unknown world of cabinetmaking, with time-sheets and hourly pay (yes, less than I was making at comfy job), no benefits (we did get health insurance later), and a bunch of guys carrying heavy things and using scary machines.  It felt like a very big deal.

After a while, it became clear.  A professional female carpenter is highly unusual.  My coworkers jokingly told me they better watch what they talk about.  My initial hunch was that their conversations were not necessarily geared toward mixed company, because they included stories about either sex or farting (more likely both).  Practically every industry rep who came in to make a sales call did a double-take when they saw me there. Okay, it was starting to resonate…I really was an anomaly.

Even so, I quickly fit in with the guys at the shop.  Every day at 11:30, we all sat down together at one of our work-benches, which was something we had only done to celebrate birthdays at comfy job.  Side note: assuming you like your coworkers, a communal lunch is a great way to encourage camaraderie.  I have a pretty good sense of humor, as did they.  We usually joked a little and shared a bit about what was going on with our lives.  I was in and it was wonderful. 

I recalled what I was like in high school.  I had good female friends and a sister who I adored, but many of my closest friends were boys.  I get along well with men and I always have.  Don’t get me wrong -- I have always needed and appreciated all the ladies in my life.  But the gossip and drama that accompanied many of those relationships in middle school and high school led me to be selective of my female friends.  I cherish my close female friends because they are like me and I don’t have to explain myself to them constantly, the way I do with many of my male friends.  Still, the point is that I’ve always been happy with male company.  So the men who worked with me at that first cabinetmaking job all became friends of mine.   And I started learning about wood and tools -- fast.  After all, I was entering this world at the age of 25, and most of my colleagues had been in the field for at least a decade.  I had some catching up to do!

I had good shop-mates as teachers, and everyone was patient in explaining things to me -- well, mostly.  What they may not have been used to were all the questions.  I was like a 4-year-old trying to get a handle on the world.  As with most things in life, I don’t do well with “okay, here’s how you do this.”  I need to know “Why do you do it that way?”  It may have been annoying at first, but with woodworking especially, the “why” becomes much more important.  After all, there are often several different ways to accomplish the same task.  Learning to discern between them and choose judiciously -- that’s the trick.  The “why” also helps you wrap your head around the way wood moves and works.  For instance, “Always feed a piece into the jointer with the grain sloping upward, like a surfboard riding a wave.”  Why?  “Because you avoid chipping the wood.”  Why? “Because wood tends to chip with-the-grain when it’s grabbed by a rotating blade.  If that grain slopes up and into your piece, a little chunk could be chipped off.  If it slopes down and away from your piece, it’s only chipping off the portion you were taking off anyway.”  Eureka!

The other place where “why” becomes a critical question is with tools and safety.  Something as simple as, “Don’t back your piece out of the table saw” deserves an explanation: “It could kick back across the room at 120 mph and kill someone if it hits them.”  That might stick in the brain.  “Keep pressure against the table saw fence,” sounds perfectly reasonable, but hearing about the repercussions of losing control of your piece of wood evokes an acute sense of love and adoration for all ten of your precious and lovely fingers. They’ve served you well and you want to keep them...on your hands.  Safety first, the most valuable lesson of all -- and hopefully not one learned through your own naïve or stupid mistake.  And, for the record, yes it was scary to learn to use all these dangerous machines.  Presently, I’d just say I have a healthy respect for each of them.  Respect like you may have for a super sharp kitchen knife (love and respect!) or a car coming fast down the street.  You could get hurt or even killed, but that doesn’t mean your heart stays in your throat all day.  You just stay alert and keep yourself safe.

So there’s the beginning.  That’s how things started for me.  I made a scary decision and I followed through with it.  I’ve been happy with my choice -- happier still since I switched from cabinetmaking to finish carpentry.  It has been difficult at times.  Sometimes, I still feel like an outsider.  Like I’m sneaking into a men-only clubhouse.  They like me, but they know I’m not supposed to be there.  At times (okay, every day!), I’m reminded that I’m physically strained by my work.  I come home sore and tired, and I wake up sore and tired.  I’m only 31 years old.  I’m not supposed to groan when I bend down to pick up my puppy!  Occasionally, I get tired of having everyone do a double take or make some comment when they see me on a jobsite.  But mostly, I’m met with a warm reception by coworkers and contractors and I’m deeply gratified by my work.  I love what I do.  I take pride in it and I revel the chance I’ve been given to make a living doing what I love.  I'm a lucky girl.  Even if I do have calluses on my fingers and sawdust in my bra…