Wv Uncommon Place

Influenced by my parents. My Mom and Pop rebuilt the house around us.  Repairs or improvements were expensive, so my parents were DIY animals.  Pop learned to hang sheetrock, Mom learned to tape seams.  We grew up watching a florist and a bookkeeper tear pipes from the walls to reinvent our home.  No project was out of reach.  Way before Youtube, they just dove in and figured it out.  By 14 I was helping a neighbor renovate HIS home. My Start in woodworking: A birthday gift when I was about 10 changed my life.  Opened it, confused to find a block of wood.  Now, we were not wealthy…but a block of wood? Really?? Another gift followed, the wooden box of an Exacto carving set.  I carved that block of balsa into a treasured keepsake. My right hand has been trying to murder my left hand ever since. The early lesson was that work provided what you could imagine, instead of what you could buy. The problem solving and tool skills served me well through a 35-year commercial photography career in Manhattan, building out