An heirloom to remember me after I am gone, I built a toolbox for my son.

💡 My Inspiration 💡

I used to have a cheap toolbox similar to this when I was a kid and remember it with great fondness, getting to work alongside my father of whom I learned so much. Being more of a kids toy than a toolbox, it did not last long and was lost over the years.

🔨 Construction 🔨

Made from maple plywood, walnut, sapele, and accented with solid brass hardware. I wanted this toolbox to survive childhood and beyond. I started with the box and placed the tools inside to get my arrangement. After the layout was settled, I traced each tool on scrap wood and began fashioning the holdings one-by-one. All in all, it probably took about 30 hours over the course of a month to build this for him.

🎥 The Video 🎥

In this video he shows us all the tools, how to operate them and gives his thoughts on it.

💐 Remembering Dad 💐

I owe much of who I am today to my dad. He was a DIYer before the term became popular... as he was one out of necessity and not luxury. In my eyes, my childhood was one adventure after another. While in reality, my father was working to constantly improve the home in which our family of six lived, and to give us all a better place to grow up than he had himself. I learned carpentry, electrical, plumbing, and so on from my father and value every lesson learned from him. Even after I was married, I enjoyed doing projects with him.

Cutting tile late at night for the entryway floor

In addition to trade skills, my dad served as a emotional and personal guide to my upbringing. He was a contstant for me as I developed and remained a great friend throughout my adolescence, teenage years, and early marriage to my wife.

⛪️Being an ordained minister (not his primary job... he was a fireman 🚒), he was the one to baptize me and my (then) fiance, and later married us at our wedding.

😢 Alas, life can be cruel. On June 8, 2006 my father died in a car accident. He was 46 and left behind a wife, 4 sons, two daughters in-law, three grandchildren, and his mother.

He was on a road trip across the country, hauling a trailer, to pick up a mint 1976 Corvette--his dream car from his high school years. He had always dreamed of one and it took decades of hard work and perseverance, putting his family before himself until he could get one. Apparently his vehicle dropped off the shoulder at a locally-known-to-be bad curve and ended up flipping the vehicle down the highway.

I am happy that he was doing something great in his last moments. That he was finally getting to see the country (not having traveled much), on an adventure and was living the dream going to get his dream car, even though he never made it.

It is by his guidance, by his example, and in his memory that I have striven to live my life and raise my family. To be there for my wife and my children. To always be a part of what they do and to love them unconditionally.

See you soon, Dad.