Gordon is a man after my own heart. He loves working with wood and was about to switch careers and become a cabinetmaker when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This is a guy who was known in the neighborhood as someone who wouldn’t hesitate to stop what he was doing to help you out if you needed something done to your house. Even when he was undergoing chemotherapy, he spent time plotting ways to help a neighbor family remodel their kitchen, enlisting the help of other neighbors in the community and even getting donations from vendors.
Most people long for an organized garage; I believe in an organized and beautiful garage, especially if you’re going to be working in it. Here, the artwork is a collage of gorgeous hardwoods, perfect for a woodworker.
This extraordinary act of kindness at such a dire, scary time in his life led his neighbors to contact us so that they could return the favor. I knew that having an incredible woodworking shop would mean a lot to Gordon and that he, like me, really appreciates the beauty of wood. Taking that as my cue, I created a wall installation made up of just about every type of wood I could find: mahogany, zebra wood, blood-wood, walnut, ash, birch-you name it. I simply cut the wood into geometric shapes and mounted them on the wall with a nail gun. It’s like one giant wood collage, no artistry needed because the wood itself is so beautiful.
Of course, I also dealt with the more practical side of things by outfit- ting the shop with all new tools and moveable carts so he could take some of his work outside or put the carts into his truck. My favorite part of the shop is the hand-carved mahogany doors. Since the space is all about the amazing things you can do with wood, it seemed appropriate that the entrance show how elegant wood- working can get. It was appropriate, too, that a guy who’d done so much for others would now have the means to do something for his own family. Oh, and One More Thing … I hope these words, pictures, and stories have shown you that, yes, there is a method to the madness that goes on at Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Honestly, sometimes it is crazy mad- ness trying to do what we do in the amount of time that we have to do it.