The 40-year-old stereotype

Hello Everyone,

One of the journalists and political commentators I follow on social media made a remark the other day, about how he was in his late 30s and becoming a Civil War Guy. It wasn't so much just that he was taking an interest in learning about the conflict, he expanded on it so say that guys in their late 30s and early 40s become either a Civil War Guy, a WWII Guy, or starts doing some kind of woodworking.

As a guy in my early 40s, I took great umbrage to this gross generalization. But also, let me share with you some photos of my recent woodworking projects.

My particular project started with a problem. I only have a couple of chairs in my apartment, and one of them was doing a poor job of holding itself together. Let's be honest, there's not a lot of other jobs for a chair, so this was an issue. I didn't want to throw the thing out, as it was part of a set that had belonged to my grandmother. So I thought, I'm moderately handy, I can fix that.

These kinds of projects either become a hassle and never get finished, on in my case, take a long time, but eventually get done. Like any good beginner, I had my dad help me, and in all we disassembled, stripped, sanded, fixed the broke spindles, reassembled, and oiled the beauty you see in the pictures.

I enjoy the hassle enough that I am working on the other chair in the set, and I'm eyeing an old rocking chair in the attic of the shed as my next project.

Stay safe,

Wesley

Photos

Below are the pictures showing the progression of the chair, from its original state in white, to being disassembled and stripped, then sanded and reassembled. Then finished.

I've also included a few artsy shots of a Robin's egg and some flowers I saw on my morning walk.