Boy do I feel old... in about 4th grade I entered a stool I had made in a hobby show (and won a blue ribbon), since it had hand-cut dadoes. In 7th grade I had already made the bird houses the others were doing, so I got to learn the lathe. Through much of my life, I owned handyman special homes that I fixed up as I lived in them. When my son got out of college, my wife said it would be nice to build something that wasn't attached to the house, that we left behind each time we moved. So start with coffee table, end tables for my son. His nightstand from college looked horrible, so we built one from walnut. That made the bed look horrible, so we built one from walnut. That made the chest of drawers... you get the pattern. Then people saw the work, and said "can you build xxx for me." Quite a few years of doing that on nights and weekends, then four years ago I retired early to do it full time. Lets, see, that makes my stool about 55 years old.