BOOKS

The Backyard Homestead Book of Building Projects: 76 Useful Things You Can Build to Create Customized Working Spaces and Storage Facilities, Equip the Garden, Store the Harvest, House Your Animals, and Make Practical Outdoor Furniture. (Storey Publishing)

Homesteaders, gardeners, small farmers, and outdoor living enthusiasts will love these 76 DIY projects for practical outdoor items designed to help you live more sustainably and independently. Expert woodworker Spike Carlsen offers clear, simple, fully illustrated instructions for everything from plant supports and a clothesline to a potting bench, a chicken coop, a hoop greenhouse, a cold frame, a beehive, a root cellar with storage bins, and an outdoor shower. Most of the projects are suitable for complete novices, and all use just basic tools and standard building materials.

Available in paperback and Kindle reader versions!

Woodworking FAQ: The Workshop Companion: Build Your Skills and Know-How for Making Great Projects (Storey Publishing)

Woodworking FAQ has everything you want to know, whether you’re a beginner planning your first project or an experienced crafter putting in cabinets or making furniture. This book is like a master carpenter standing at your elbow to answer questions as they arise, including: How do I make base molding fit tightly on the inside corners? How do I prevent splintering on the end of a board when I rout it? How do I taper cut a table leg? Is there any way to take the wobble out of a chair without taking the whole thing apart? With its comprehensive information, friendly question-and-answer format, and convenient lay-flat binding, Woodworking FAQ will be the most important tool in your workshop.

Published in spiral-bound, and Kindle reader versions

This book is where IKEA meets Martha Stewart. It presents fresh, new furniture projects in a refreshing easy-to-follow style. Each is approached with simplicity of construction in mind. The projects are useful, have broad appeal, and have a high “brag factor.” Most can be built in a few hours with minimal tools.

Superb photography and down-to-earth — sometimes even humorous — text guide you every step of the way. Tons of useful tips. Projects use simple off-the-shelf lumber, moldings and other components. Includes storage projects, tables, chairs, outdoor furniture, fun wine racks, and more.

Blending the practicality of IKEA with the creativity of Martha Stewart, this collection of 35+ innovative projects is presented with simplicity of construction in mind. The suggested pieces are practical, have broad appeal, and carry a high brag factor upon completion. Requiring minimal assembly time and tools, this concise, engaging, and even humorous guide offers countless tips as well as clear and instructive photography. The majority of the projects also incorporate clever construction, such as the use of bifold doors, stock cabinets, and off-the-shelf lumber, guaranteeing that the required materials are both inexpensive and easily accessible. Featuring ideas for furnishing both the interior and the exterior of the home, this handbook is ideal for weekend woodworkers.

Watch Spike create the Jigsaw Puzzle Chair, a project right from the book!

Building Unique and Useful Kids’ Furniture features 24 affordable and durable projects for every room in the house: bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, family room and playroom. These one-of-a-kind furniture pieces will give your children—and grandchildren—a unique gift they’ll appreciate for a lifetime. Kids will love these fun and playful furniture pieces—and grown-ups will appreciate the clean modern designs. Includes “Kid Friendly” projects so your favorite little helpers can work right alongside you. The 180 photos, clear illustrations and friendly text walk you through every step of the way!

Explore the  world many of us walk and hike through everyday, but know nothing about. It includes segments on bike lanes, stop lights, front porches, neighborhoods and the surfaces we walk on. But there’s lots more. Tag along with Spike as he works alongside a graffiti artist, judges a roadkill contest and walks the sewers of Paris.

Available in audiobook, hardcover, paperback, and Kindle reader versions

Watch Spike discuss “A Walk Around the Block” with Dylan Dreyer of the Today Show here.

A Splintered History of Wood: Belt-Sander Races, Blind Woodworkers, and Baseball Bats (Harper Collins)

The violins at the concert you attended last week, the baseball bats at the ball game you watched last night, the telephone poles that carried your digital messages earlier today-in a world without wood, none of these would exist. Nor would you have the roof over your head, the pencil in your pocket or the cork you popped from the pinot noir last night. Though we often take wood for granted, it’s a substance that touches us in a real and personal way every day.

A Splintered History of Wood examines this remarkable substance and the stories it has to tell. Whether it’s unlocking the secrets behind a Stradivarius violin, visiting the world’s most extraordinary woodworkers or entering a belt sander race, author Spike Carlsen carves out fifty-five stories in which wood plays the starring role. Woodworkers, history buffs, musicians, sports fans and those simply interested in the world around them, are sure to find stories that entertain and inform.

Available in hardcover, paperback and Kindle versions

CABIN LESSONS: A Nail-by-Nail Tale, Building Our Dream Cabin from 2x4s, Blisters and Love (Storey Publishing)

Most folks own a cabin, dream about building a cabin or have childhood memories of spending time at a family cabin. If you fall into any of those camps, you'll find plenty in this book to enjoy. The book chronicles the two-year journey the author and his newly-blended family take while building a cabin on Lake Superior. It covers the entire process—the hunt for land, designing small, framing the structure, working together, working with eccentric contractors, right up through the laying on of the final coat of paint. The book shares the joys, heartaches, challenges and—finally—satisfaction in building a family cabin.

BUILDING UNIQUE AND USEFUL KIDS’ FURNITURE:24 Great Do-It-Yourself Projects (Linden Publishing)

RIDICULOUSLY SIMPLE FURNITURE PROJECTS: Great Looking Furniture Anyone Can Build (Linden Publishing