Now that the Hearth Stool plans are done and we have sent almost 100 material packs out the door, it’s come full circle. I set out to design the Hearth Stool as a classroom tool. Each component of the design uses the joinery and shaping techniques used in building a Windsor/stick style chair in a small project that can be tackled in a 3-day class. I’m excited that some teachers have already reached out to use it for their class. Zack Fealk is one of them who will be an option in the future. You should check out his work.
Teaching is not part of my business model, so you will not find a class with me easily. I have small children and don’t intend to miss those years by being on the road more than necessary, and our shop is a busy place, which makes shutting it down to teach difficult. That may change in the future, but for now, that is the season I find myself in.
I have, however, decided to teach the Hearth Stool this year. It will be a 3-day class of 3 students focused on skill building. It will be here at my shop, and the tuition for the class will be free.
How to get into the class
My paid subscribers made it possible for me to pull away from the shop this past year and work on the stool project. For this, I am very grateful. So this class will only be available to paid subscribers of any tier. I will select the three students through a lottery drawing you can enter at the button below the paywall in this post. The class will be November 12th-14th, 2025, at my shop in Timberville, VA.
Some people don’t read the posts right away, and I’ll be busy here the next week getting my only sister married off. So to give people time to verify their schedules and enter, I will do the drawing and announce the winners in a post on September 20th. When you fill out the entry form, please read the description with details, and please use the same email you use for your paid subscription. I will cross-reference the entries to my paid subscriber list, and those that don’t match will be culled out.
What’s next?
Looking forward to what’s next, I have a handful of plans for blogging the rest of this year and for 2026. These are not in any particular order, but will give you an idea of the writing I’m planning for the paid subscribers over the next year or so.
Project Builds: continuing on with stools, I plan to design a post and rung stool with the same design intentions as the hearth stool. One that will teach rake and splay in a post and rung format to prepare you for making a chair. I will follow the same model of making plans and a series of build posts, and then likely a class next fall. I hope to continue these project builds as a longer series, compiling them in some useful way in the future.
Steam Bending: We have built industrial-style steam chambers here at the shop to begin steaming chair parts that will be available on our website. Things such as steambent arm bows for stick chairs, etc.. I plan on writing a plethora of posts on steam bending throughout this journey to help cut through the noise and lay out some of the basic principles. These posts will be sprinkled in throughout the year.
Hickory Bark: We will be setting up the Boggs bark machine for the 2026 bark season. I will be writing along the way as we get the machine set up and work with land owners to secure the hickory timber we will be needing. We are hoping to round out the 2026 bark season with a short-notice bark harvest party of some sort here at the shop.
Anyway, enter for the class below