I recently used some of the wood that I milled back in the summer of 2018 to make a coffee table. The design of the table was inspired by a coffee table by George Nakashima.

Nakashima’s table is more beautiful – he was a true master! His was in walnut but mine is in maple.

I have a few thoughts on the process and product:

• this project was hard, physical work but was actually rather simple in that 4 pieces of wood were being connected together to form a piece of furniture;
• the hard work came from the width of the board. I don’t have power tools that can process a 20″ wide board, so I planed it by hand;
• there were moments when I struggled with my preconception that I needed to have strict measurements to guide the build. It was deeply liberating to embrace the freedom of live-edge furniture making like this. I was able to make decisions and judgements based on how I feel about the scale, dimensions and shape;
• I used no glue in the project. Joinery was entirely done with threaded brass inserts;
• I finished the piece with 6 coats of boiled linseed oil;
• The table’s primary utility, for now, is to host my 10 year old daughter’s lego building activities.

Here’s a close-up of the bridle joint:

Here, I finished some rough planing in the garage:

Here, a set of handplanes were used to make the surface smooth and flat:

This fall, we demolished the old tub and shower door, replacing it with a new cast iron tub, shower curtain and subway tile. Then, in December, we removed the vanity, vinyl floor and fixtures. We replaced them with cabinets that I built, new tile floor and a quartz countertop.

The cabinet doors and face frames were build with maple that was harvested from our neighborhood 2 years ago.

The Layout

The first thing that we did was define the layout using Sketchup:

Before

There are a few problems with the old bathroom:

• there are stains on the fixtures
• the colors are awful and the walls have been discolored by condensation drips
• there is mold and grub around the tub, especially along the shower door
• the floor is vinyl and cracked
• the tub is 28″ deep and really cramped
• the closet shelves are made of oriented strand board and could be improved
• the shower doors do not slide without serious effort

During

After

• 

• 

• 

This is a big topic, but I have a few tips for students and parents on how to think about selecting and paying for a college education.

Be Ambitious

Work hard, be yourself, get involved in your school, get good grades and go to the best school that you can get into and afford.

Be Realistic

As an exercise, remove all emotions from the decision. When you are done with college, you will get your first real job. You will be responsible to pay all of your bills including student loans. Here is an interesting article on budgeting with a $40k salary. Here is an excel budget that I made. It uses percentages of income instead of hard values. Here is a student loan calculator.

Enumerate Your Values

Know what you are looking for in a school. Here are some factors to consider: size of campus; size of student body; concentrations/majors available; internship opportunities; cost; flexibility of learning; opportunity to study abroad; city vs country; reputation; athletics; activities.

Other Tips

• Debt payments are difficult to understand – especially when it is your first try at it. Currently, loan rates are at 4.53%, so that means that for each $10k that you borrow, the first $453 per year that you pay does not reduct the “principal” or the amount that you owe. This article shows the problem with student debt. The discussion started with this tweet:
  
• Parents: the Fidelity Rewards Visa credit card will deposit 2% of spending into a Fidelity College Savings 529 account. This will really add up over time.
• If you Google “<college name> common data set” you will get standardized information about your college. Each college provides the data on their website.
• Consider whether you will get a Master’s degree. They only take 18 months. Assuming the reach school net cost of $30k per year and a state school net cost of $10k, look at this math:
  4 years at reach school = $120k total net cost
  4 years at state school plus 18 months at reach school = $85k total net cost
• Most adults who went to college have some student loan debt, but high school students don’t have the life experience to understand what is a lot and what the implications are. How much student loan debt is too much? (72% of borrowers have less than $25K in student loans)
• President Obama made it mandatory for colleges to offer a net price calculator on their website. It’s easy to find it if you google it – example
• Interview some college graduates. Here’s some good questions:
  Where did you go to college?
  What was your college major?
  What do you do for work now?
  What do you value most about your college experience?
• How to find and apply for scholarships
  

These are amazing cookies. For the most part, the process is similar to other cookies, but the browned butter caramel is special here. I’m not listing all steps because most of the steps are really mundane.

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Brown 2 ½ sticks of butter until nutty and golden brown (this takes a while. Don’t rush it.)
3. Put 1pound, 1 ½ oz (by weight) of flour (or 3 ½ cups) in a large mixing bowl and mix in 1 teaspoon of baking soda.
4. Make a caramel:
   -Put the melted butter in a bowl and add 1 stick of non-melted butter
   -Add 1 cup granulated sugar to the butter
   -Add 1 ½   cups of dark brown sugar; or if light brown sugar do the same but add a little molasses
   -Add 2 teaspoons of salt
   -Add 4 teaspoons of vanilla extract
   -Stir to combine for 30 seconds
   -Add 2 egg yolks plus 2 whole eggs
   -Mix in 2 additional sessions [for each session, stir for 30 seconds and rest for 2 minutes] until a caramel is formed.

5. Stir in the flour and 2 cups of chocolate chips.
6. Note: do not multi-task while baking the cookies – they will burn. They should take 10-14 minutes per batch. Only use the middle rack and don’t do two batches at a time because the bottom batch will burn on the bottom.

IMAGES: