BILL'S HOME WORKSHOP

WELCOME TO MY HOME WORKSHOP

Woodworking, Home Repair, & Home Remodeling

This is a non-commercial site. Any references I make to tools or services have no financial incentive, except for Amazon.com and Rockler.com, where I get small referral fees if you go to those sites from my site and buy something.

HERE'S THE STORY

I love to work with my hands. I love to build furniture and accessories for our home, to fix things that are broken (if I can), to remodel rooms, to improve our living and working space, love to take something that isn't too great and make it better.

I always have. As a kid and later as a teenager, I helped my Dad, a salesman but also a super Mr. Fix-It, remodel and repair our old house. That was shortly after WW II when iron and steel were scarce due to the rationing program that supported the War Effort, and my first chore was straightening the nails that my Dad pulled out of one part of the house so he could re-use them to fix something in another part.

Beyond that, I made balsa wood airplane and car models, built 027 gauge model railroad cars and structures for my Lionel train set, and even entered the General Motors automobile design competition (I didn't win). As a young adult I became enchanted with the more realistic HO gauge trains, so I sold my 027 gauge stuff and constructed from scratch -- not kits -- a lot of the smaller gauge model train structures and cars, using balsa wood and card stock. One of the beauties of model railroading is that you work in many different crafts and learn a variety of techniques, which I think has helped me in woodworking and remodeling.

Bill Sharp at Half Moon Bay, Roatan Island, Honduras

In the late 60s and early 70s, while working at night as a rock 'n roll musician, I spent 5 years remodeling my old house in the Shadyside section of Pittsburgh. Built in 1908, it had solid brick exterior walls (3 bricks thick -- no studs or insulation on the outside walls) and plaster over wood lath on the interior walls. The remodeling was a lot of work, and I had finished everything but the bathrooms and kitchen when in 1972 I sold the house and moved to California!

Today I still live in southern California, and my favorite hobby is still woodworking. So this web site is about woodworking and home maintenance, about tools and my garage workshop. One page is a bookstore where you can order books on woodworking, tools, and just about anything else over the web. Another page includes tidbits about me and my family so you'll know who I am. And hey, if something here catches your eye and you feel like discussing it, e-mail me.

About the photo (above): It doesn't have anything to do with woodworking. It's simply my wife's favorite photo of me. It was taken at an outdoor restaurant at Half Moon Bay on the island of Roatan, one of the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras, a wonderful paradise where we vacationed a few years ago. In case you're wondering, yes, I am just about always as relaxed as I appear to be here, even when not on vacation. I figure my wife -- a world class worrier -- worries enough for both of us and it would be silly to duplicate her expert efforts.

I'm glad you found my web site. Thanks for visiting. I'll always be working on it, putting in updates and fresh ideas, so while most of the links will be active, some might not be.

I'm a member of the Woodworker's Website Association, aka Woodworker's Central. Click on the logo or the name to check it out! Lots of good woodworking info here, plus a search engine so you can look for plans and magazine articles, and greatest of all, the best woodworking Question & Answer Forum on the net.