I'll keep mine short. My grandfather was a carpenter out of necessity, had to find some sort of work to support his family. Passed it on to my father who also worked with his hands out of necessity in order to put himself through college. I grew up learning from him. When I was young he was the manager of a local millwork operation and he drug me to work with him in the summers while I was out of school. I learned to use the tools in the shop at an early age. Learning how to work with my hands backfired on me since I dropped out of college to get married...I just knew I could make a living without a formal education. We divorced 6 months later and I never made it back to college.

Fast forward 14 years....I remarried a woman with 2 young daughters. I've put a shop together mostly because I wanted to build them things they would cherish and use...like my father did for my sister and me. That's where I am today...I build things for the builders I sell lumber to so I can justify the expense of the equipment I have in my shop so I can periodically turn out piece by piece for my daughters and wife.

What's your story?

Nearly the same, have several of my great grandfather tools hanging on the wall. He built 1726 pianos in his lifetime. Shop was retooled during WWII and made caskets for the govt during the war, retooled again after that. Dad/Grandad made their fortune on a new product called "Formica". They cast about for a while until they landed a contract with a hamburger joint called McDonalds in the 60's. They sold some furiture. Never had more than 7 folks working for them at one time. I've been gluing up countertops since I was
10. Have been part of just about every aspect of furniture building since, home renovations mostly custom kitchens and offices. Got lost for a while in the computer industry after taking several CAD classes but have since found my way back to woodworking . Hey we all do something stupid when we are young don't we? I did make enough cash in the I.S. biz to outfit the shop pretty well. Been working as a tradesman in custom home building industry in Southern Wisconsin recently. Pretty big market for the Chicago weekend escapes around here. I've done some pretty cool high tech home offices and builtin hide the bigscreen TV entertainment centers doing SC work for a home theatre outfit. I would really like to get in to stairs. Most of what you see around here are factory built, nothing hand crafted anymore. I geally get inspired by Tom Plamanns work. If you haven't seen his website take a look. http://www.plamann.com/sys-tmpl/door/ proof that not all American hero's occupations have the word "ball" in them somewhere. I do prefer to work alone as I have a tendancy to rub people the wrong way and my shop indicates that... 40 miles from anywhere pretty much. Not a lot of walkup business.