

Back before 2016, I was actually pretty useless with my hands. I’d always make this joke that if I tried to hang a picture in my house, my neighbor’s house would be on fire. As I was moving away from the post-Kelby world, I could definitely see the aspects of social media burnout happening. I needed to find some sort of outlet that wasn’t being a photographer or a person who did Photoshop tutorials. While I was always interested in photography, it just started to feel like it was for everybody else other than me. I wanted something of my own.
My good friend Kim Patti gave me a trial-by-fire school of woodworking to build my first kung fu dummy from scratch. Being with him and working on the project just felt invigorating. I was finally learning how to use my hands for something other than moving a mouse. My photographer friend became a mentor, someone who, to this day, I love very much.
So I bought a cheap workbench and a used router on Craigslist. For some reason, I got interested in learning woodworking to build different types of furniture. As a big lover of coffee, I thought to myself, “how cool would it be to build a coffee station where I could explore making coffee and woodworking at the same time?”
I puttered around off and on, trying random projects. The idea was whether I could learn the individual skills I needed on smaller projects to get ready to build a bigger one. So off to the garage I went, building crooked thing after crooked thing.
When COVID hit, I wound up spending 90% of my time in bed with long COVID. To this day, I am not the same. I tire very quickly and have to take naps during the day. But the one thing I remember was that while I lay in bed, I found James Hoffmann on YouTube. He has an amazing series of videos on the science behind coffee and the process of making the perfect cup. I finally found the time to sit down, do something different, and just explore videos by him and Lance Hedrick. Not long after, I found myself selling all of the excess photo gear I’d bought over 10 years and parlaying it into woodworking gear and coffee gear.
I eventually ended up buying a Ascaso Steel Duo coffee machine and a Baratza grinder. When I was anxious to open them, the thought of the coffee bar came back into my head. I thought, “This is an amazing machine. Why don’t I finally set out to learn the rest of the skills I need to finally build a coffee bar?” This time, I wanted to explore building it out of hardwood. I imagined Black Walnut with some Purpleheart and Maple. But I didn’t know how.
Back to Facebook Marketplace I went to sell more gear and buy more tools. In between writing books, photography assignments, teaching, and working on my doctorate, I would spend time in the garage building simple projects and developing the skills to finally tackle the coffee bar.
If I were honest, I don’t think I needed to learn many more skills. What I needed was the confidence and the permission to try. Through a steady diet of 3×3 Custom , 731 Woodworks, Katz Moses, and Bent’s Woodworking Woodworking, I finally started saying to myself, “I can try this.” Even if I mess up in the process, the problem-solving would be really interesting.
I finally bit down, and over the semester break, I got back into the garage and got started. Two days ago, I finally finished phase one of the bench. I want to add some cabinets with windows in the front and a tamp station, but for now, the project is finished enough to bring into the house and finally set up the machine.
As I look at it, I can see all the little mistakes—where I could’ve or should’ve done something differently. But it’s mine. I built it by myself with all the tips and tricks I learned through my own self-study, Kim, Patti, and the legion of videos on YouTube. I’ll set the machine up soon, but for now, I’m just going to putter around and see about fixing the little things I want to adjust.
It’s taken years to get here, but it’s been a really cool journey. One that, I’m ashamed to admit, I’m more proud of than a lot of the stuff I’ve done professionally.
That first cup of coffee is going to be great…