The first woodworking seminar of the Winter 2009 season will be this Thursday starting at 6:30pm at the Woodsmith Store, in Clive, IA. Admission price is only $8 for a regular ticket, which includes a $5 Sawbuck$ coupon good for anything in the Woodsmith Store.

If you’ve picked up a copy of Workbench magazine recently, you may have noticed that they are focusing much more on home improvement for the D-I-Y enthusiast. The magazine now bills itself as the source for “Practical Ideas for Your Home,” and offers features such stylish home makeovers, home storage solutions, and easy weekend projects plus, how-to tips for around the house and lots of tool and product close-ups.

But before the switch to home improvement, Workbench senior design editor Jim Downing, designed a space-saving home shop that will be the focus of this week’s woodworking seminar: Tips for Setting Up a Great Home Shop. During the seminar, Jim with talk about how to create a functional, hardworking shop in just 50 square feet of space. His design features pre-assembled cabinets and five different workstations, plus a lot of storage ideas.

Here are the bonus downloads for this seminar:

Space-Saving Home Shop, Part 1
Space-Saving Home Shop, Part_2
Space-Saving Home Shop, Part_3

There’s a lot on slate for the next few months at the Woodsmith Store. Woodworking and painting seminars continue on Thursdays and Tuesdays respectively. We also have a full schedule of “Hands-On” seminars due in February, March,  and April. Space is limited for these seminars and pre-registration and a deposit is required. Stop out to the store for more sign-up information.

If woodworking is your thing, then you’ll be happy to know that the editors of Woodsmith, ShopNotes, and Workbench magazines will be back once again. The first woodworking seminar of 2009 will be on Thursday, January 29th. Jim Downing, Senior Design Editor for Workbench Magazine will present his popular seminar on setting up shop. Bring your pencils and scratch pads for this one, there’s a lot of good information for everyone to take advantage of.

For those of you who are interested in faux finishing and painting, you’ll want to attend the first seminar on Tuesday, January 27th. The seminar, Beginner’s Guide to Painting Like a Pro, Part 1 is hosted by Heidi Schoeneck, a faux finishing and painting professional and owner of Classic Faux Effects.

As you can see from the photo of the workbench above, the fall seminars were a big success. We managed to build a heavy-duty workbench using plans from Woodsmith magazine. All that’s left now is to add a finish to the workbench and it will be ready to use at the end of January. Hope you can join us then.

January Club Meeting, Tuesday, January 13, 2009 in the Seminar Room at the Woodsmith Store

Des Moines Woodworkers Association

Jim Downing, Senior Design Editor, Workbench Magazine

Heidi Schoeneck, Faux Finishing and Painting Professional, Classic Faux Effects

You can reach Heidi at classicfauxeffects@yahoo.com,  or 515-770-5989.