Pity I don't play

This is the result of my latest project from 'tech — a little side-table with a parquetry chessboard veneered into its top. The body of the thing is pink birch, and the chessboard is kauri and black walnut with a pine surround. The brass handle was kind of a pain in the arse to inset; it's not perfectly square and the hole that had to be dug out to seat it was a bit of a trial, but it was achieved in the end.

I'm pretty pleased with it, really. Alas, I don't play chess.

Oh, that paddle-shaped thing underneath is just a little cheeseboard I turned up out of pine as a learning exercise. I'm not a wholly confidant wood-turner, but that worked out OK. Wood-turning is trickier than I had expected.

Passing the time with pencils and pens

Umbrella tree.

That chap in the background
must find his hat quite unmanageable
in anything of a breeze.

Library expansion

Behold the glory!

Having had to shift everything in the house around due to EQC repairs, I've taken the opportunity to build some new bookshelves to house some of the books that have been living in teetering piles all over the house for the last twenty years and more. These shelves won't cope with all of them, but they should make a significant dent.

I've made sets of shelves before, but then I had to do all the housing joints by hand, with a tenon saw and chisel. Now I have a router and a drop-saw, and everything is much more precise. It's a pity the timber is such shit; it's all 19mm cuttings-grade pine from Bunnings. It has the virtue of convenience of supply, and that's about it.