TO BEGIN AGAIN

THE ORIGIN OF OLDE WORLD WOODWORKS

3/27/98
It was August of 1981 when my brother Steve pulled open the
large door to his landlord's garage. The place was a mess with ten
years of junk stored in rotting cardboard boxes. Looking back
now, at other buildings I have rented for woodworking shops,
this first one was spotless.


We had just moved down to New Mexico where Steve and his
family had been for a year. He was buying the desert homestead
on a rent-to-own basis. My wife and I rented a trailer halfway
up Sierra Blanca, where the temperature was more like home.


We built cabinets and crafts in that garage for three years,
using cheap homeowner-type equipment at first, while investing
slowly in better grade machines and other shop necessities
...clamps, sandpaper, glue, stains, dowels, and more hand tools.
We both earned our living as carpenters and had also spent some time
working in production shops. We dreamed of a full-time family
business that might be passed down to our sons and daughters.



The dream was put on hold and the tools were split up when I
received a call from an old friend, telling me of a building boom
in the Northeast. My wife and I moved back to Pennsylvania
and not much later, Steve returned also.


Construction work kept us both busy for two years. When the
boom ended we found a barn to lease and set up Olde World Woodworks
again, this time with a third brother and an in-law. It took us
two months just to get the place ready for our tools. The
building leaked like a colander, and couldn't be heated with a
huge barrel stove. Steve and his family once again moved south
to be closer to his wife's parents. He has since built himself a
nice shop on ten acres and often sends photos of his projects.


A misunderstanding with the owner of the barn led to a search
for a better building closer to the city. I found a four-car
garage that was so full of junk we couldn't even open the doors.
The owner let us partition a room for his stuff and three months
later we moved in. We couldn't earn enough money to pay the rent
and utilities plus bring home a paycheck large enough to make the
other's spouses happy. They both quit to find 'real' jobs after
only eight months. I have been blessed with a wife who wants me
to be happy and has put up with my self-employment for twenty-three
years of intermittent income, but a zoning change in the township
forced me to leave before a new customer base could be established.
 

Determined to remain in woodworking and to quit a construction
trade where more and more the materials used were plastics and
'fake' lumber, I stored the equipment while putting together
a pair of mobile homes that had been given to me. Before the roof
was raised though, a fire destroyed the trailers. I was happy
that I hadn't brought my tools home.


A friend offered to rent me a two car garage when he asked for
a bid on a kitchen remodel. I might have been there still but for
the owners selling the property. I once again put my equipment
in storage. This time I vowed to never rent again and began an
addition on my barn.



In 1997, Rick offered the use of his basement, rent-free, when
he needed the use of a table saw. I had bid on another cabinet
job but didn't have the electrical finished in my woodshop
addition yet, I accepted and moved my equipment into his basement.


I still haven't completed my barn addition and have started
storing building materials there for a future log home to replace
this tiny cabin we live in. It now looks as cluttered as
that first garage-shop in New Mexico. Rick's mother married
my Uncle Jim, I consider him a cousin and thus family. The dream
won't die, one of these days we will have that family business
to pass down.