The first thing (or perhaps that should be things) that first interested me in furniture and cabinet making were the tools, nice new good quality ones and old good quality vintage ones, the thing that has kept me interested in this craft is simply the wood itself, below are two pictures of two pieces of Poplar, this is what is known as a secondary wood, its normally used where you can`t see it, hidden frames, structural components and painted items, rarely is it used as a "show" timber and I'm not sure why, the grain colour can be quite amazing.

A recent commision was a bedside cabinet, made in a similar style to the clients existing bedroom furniture which was probably Utility Furniture, old and very well made, my client wanted something similar and at a reasonable cost, the existing furniture was made out of veneered board, probably ply, I settled on solid Sapele throughout except for the door for which I cut veneers and booked matched them to tie in with the originals, the cost of solid sapele was comparative to vennered sheets which would have been wasteful.