Generally speaking, the bulk of our projects are large and take many months to complete. This year was no exception but that was compounded by the building of our new house. When I tackle a small project it is with the understanding that it must fit around our busy schedule and most of our clients are OK with that.
Many months ago I started a special coffee table for a client a long ways distant. They assured me they were in no hurry, and in fact wanted to wait until the good summer weather to pick it up which meant their project was instantly down the list from the big ones. It was a custom sculpted coffee table for their house that featured many faces in the trunk of a small tree. I had actually started the project well over a year previous to their call as a personal piece but it got bumped when a big project came in and then sat in the corner gathering dust. With my friends' order I began work on the piece once more and almost finished it before it was pushed into the corner once more because of pending large projects. I worked on it from time to time but save for less than an hour's work to finalize the project it sat, gathering dust once more.
My clients are driving out next weekend (on holidays) to pick up the piece at last. Today we gave it a thorough cleaning and added the mounting posts for the glass top which I also designed and ordered his afternoon. A little touchup and tweaking was in order as well. As we worked on the piece it made me smile for it has been a favorite since I started it more than two years ago. Even though the piece has been so long in it's creation I believe it was worth the wait. I hope my friends agree.
-grampa dan