A Creative Outlet

Woodworking

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A bar cabinet for my good friend Kelli Jo. Built to match her antique Broyhill Brasilia furniture. Looks pretty cool on the inside, but if you want to see that, you have to get Kelli Jo invite you over for a drink.

A bookcase that holds many (but somehow not all) of my books.

Bed frame, headboard, nightstands, phone/watch chargers, and foot-of-bed chest. One of these contains a secret compartment, but I’m not saying which, because then it would just be a regular compartment.

A cabinet custom-built to hide an air conditioner built into a wall. The part that covers the air conditioner opens up to let cold air out when needed.

A backyard tiki bar that folds down and can fit in the back of a 2018 Subaru Crosstrek, and presumably, other vehicles.

A bookcase for my parents’ den. Wood cut, slotted, and sanded in Los Angeles, stained and polyurethaned in Park City, and assembled in Omaha. I believe this is called “globalization.”

A transforming Franklin Chair I designed and built out of scrap wood after seeing a similar one in the scene of National Treasure where it flashes back to 1974 and young Benjamin Franklin Gates first hears the clue “the secret lies with Charlotte” from his grandfather, Christopher Plummer, who tells him the clue has been passed down through the Gates family for generations starting with Thomas Gates, who Plummer refers to as his “grandfather’s grandfather,” but then in NT2:BoS, Thomas is referred to as Ben’s “great-great Grandfather,” which is weird because Ben’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather would be Ben’s  great-great-great-great-grandfather, not his great-great Grandfather, and while Thomas Gates was born in 1821 and there could technically be that many generations in between (provided the 19th century Gates boys were causing teen pregnancies), it is still kind of an inconsistency, albeit the only one in the entire National Treasure franchise (not counting the short-lived Disney+ series, which I do not consider canon). Anyway, the chair turns into a stepladder.

A custom cube shelf to divide a studio apartment.

Shelving for records. It was the first time I built something that I could pack flat and assemble on-site. Which was necessary because I had to take it all up two flights of narrow stairs in the Hollywood Hills.

Dome. Sits at 34°44’49.7″N 117°45’42.8″W. Hopefully. Last time we visited someone had started a small fire inside, and they may have come back to finish the job.

About the author

Ben Deeb
Ben Deeb

Ben just wants to dig holes, both figurative and literal. Learn more at BenDeeb.com

By Ben Deeb
A Creative Outlet

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