Love, Family, and Woodworking: Beginings!

For anyone just joining us, AiramanaHeirlooms is brand new. Well, only the name is new. I've been designing things as long as I can remember. Chad has been building things as long as he can remember. We've been combining the two as long as we've been together. But this is the first time we have committed ourselves to starting a woodworking business.

This past week has been big for us. We had our first commission as AiramanaHeirlooms to build an entertainment unit for the Gibbs. As they are good friends of ours, we brought Anamaria along for a visit.

This corner is getting an upgrade

So, Chad went about taking some measurements.

I scribbled some notes.
Ana just scribbled.

When we got home and got Ana into bed, we pulled out some graph paper and started getting more specific. It has been a loooooooong time since I've done any drafting.

The first, last, and only instruction I ever had was a couple glorious weeks in 7th grade Tech Ed. I really enjoyed that class, which was a complete surprise since I don't think I had even used an orbital sander before that. The drafting and design appealed to my need for order. I was a very disorganized kid. Life gets messy. Oh, but on that half sheet of paper, ruler, pencil, straight edge, everything lined up in place, perfectly. Every time. It was very relaxing and centering for me. BUT, I seem to have forgotten more than I ever learned.

Gibbs' Entertainment Unit

Fortunately, today, on Twitter, on #woodchat, to be specific, Google's SketchUp came up, and I got hooked up with a sweet tutorial. This made all the difference. There is so much that can be done, and in trying to keep things looking simple and user-friendly, there is a lot you simply need to know. Today, I was so grateful for some of the folks I've met on Twitter. Within half an hour of posting a question, I had just the answer I needed. So, I watched a couple of the tutorials a few times and jumped right in. This is SO COOL! You can swing everything around and look at it from any angle. It was also kind of cool because it was almost like I was theoretically building it. So I was able to problem-solve some angles and measurements on my own and have a much better 3D understanding of what Chad would be doing out at the shop.

Finally, this week, we printed off some business cards. Because... People are asking us for them! And we are finally ready to do this as we are settling in with all the online social networking spots we are going to be doing for now. So, here's the front and back of it.