A Table for my Granny!
From approximately 2001 until 2011 I worked primarily as a finish carpenter installing doors, windows and kitchens. While installing some windows for a customer one day I began to talk to them and discovered that the homeowner’s grandparents had lived near my grandparents. I remembered the old house that his grandparents had lived in, but it had since burned down and the second hole of the public golf course was now approximately where the house had been.
While there I called my grandmother who at this time was in her mid 70’s and told her who I was with and she started telling me of different memories she had of him when he was a child. She also started telling me about when his grandparents built their house and how they hired a furniture builder to come in and build all of the furniture in their house. She specifically remembered one particular piece of furniture. It was an end table that had magazine racks on either side. Then I heard my grandmother say something I had never heard her say. She told me how much she coveted that table so many years ago. This may not seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but if you have grown up as a conservative christian in eastern Kentucky, then you would know that this is a big deal. I finished up my conversation and began to describe the table that my Grandmother remembered. The man asked me to wait a minute and he disappeared. After a minute or so, he returned carrying a table. It was the exact one my grandmother had just described. He then explained to me that he was allowed to take one piece of furniture from his grandparents house that he wanted after they had passed and this was the one he had chosen. I tried to purchase it from him but to no avail, so I did the next best thing. I took as many pictures and measurements as I could and decided I would build one just like it.