The things you can make out of ordinary slabs of wood are pretty remarkable. You could make an abstract coffee table out of an unhinged door, a magnetic knife board out of a piece of bark, or use a 5×5 piece of wood as a canvas for a beautiful portrait.
Plus, there’s something very satisfying about making something out of wood with your own two hands. So much so, that occasionally someone’s love for wood becomes poetic:
“It’s difficult to name a favorite wood. They are all so noble, each with its own special characteristics,” said Nick Offerman, an avid carpenter and the actor who plays Ron Swanson on NBC’s Parks & Recreations, on a Reddit AMA. “Oak is mighty and dense, for the hull of your square-rigged sailing ship, but also, when quarter-sawn, its medullary rays can make your library table sing with erudition. Maple and birch are creamy and many colored, like a delicious bowl of only Lucky Charms marshmallows. Cedar and Redwood are lightweight but extremely high in tensile strength, rendering them perfect for boatbuilding in the smaller classes of watercraft. Walnut is my gold standard for depth of figure, strength, beauty, and workability. Ash and hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.”
On Reddit, the popular social sharing site, not only do artful descriptions of wood exist but there are also many beautiful, physical creations of pine, oak, and ash as well. Case in point, one Reddit user, mebeonreddit, created something stunning out of just glue and a few scraps of wood…
First, he laid out a few of scraps of leftover pine and Tasmanian oak in an interesting, mismatched arrangement.
Then he busted out the glue…
…and began clamping and gluing slabs together.
He then flips some wood on its side and gives his project a bit more depth.
What is he making? A Sculpture? A tiny maze for mice?
His intensions for this project start to seem a little clearer…
Especially now that it’s sanded down and ready to stain…
It’s a really cool shelf! Aw — I want one of these!
If you think this is as cool as I do, SHARE it with all your friends and family so that more people know that you can make something beautiful out of everyday items!