From screens to sawdust.

For most of my working life I built websites and databases for a company you have never heard of, for a department you would never visit. Good work, honest work — but at the end of the day you could not touch any of it. Ship a feature, and it lives in a browser tab until someone closes it.

Cedar is different. Cut a lap joint right and it stays cut. Build a trellis and next spring there are sweet peas on it, and the spring after that, and the spring after that. Nobody files a ticket against a garden arbor.

So the garage filled up with tools, the tools filled up with sawdust, and the neighbors started asking where the trellises came from. When enough of them asked what I charged, my wife Susan suggested I stop mumbling and put a number on it. The money went into a jar on the workbench. The jar had a label. You can guess what the label said.

That jar is now a website. I build trellises, elevated planter beds, garden benches, and the occasional end-grain cutting board — western red cedar for the garden, walnut and maple and cherry for the kitchen. Corners get locking dados, lattice gets half-lap joints instead of nails, and everything outdoors gets a coat of Australian timber oil. Sized to your space, and priced like a neighbor is doing the math. Because one is.

Sláinte. Now let's talk about your fence line.

— Chris Strizver