Renaissance Man

Renaissance man

–noun [Origin: 1905–10]

1. a cultured man of the Renaissance who was knowledgeable, educated, or proficient in a wide range of fields.


2. (sometimes lowercase) a present-day man who has acquired profound knowledge or proficiency in more than one field.

The photo above is of a Renaissance Man, or more specifically, my Renaissance Man. He indeed has acquired "profound knowledge or proficiency in more than one field." This guy can teach history (to teenagers no less), write books (see here, here, and the recently published here), remodel a kitchen with his own two hands, fix cars...and now we can add "build furniture" to the list!

For several months, we've been talking about getting a bookcase for Ella's room, but we never we're able to find a suitable one. Renaissance Man is all about QUALITY with economy and we just couldn't find a bookshelf to fit the bill. So, one day in late April, he came home with a truckload of wood and said he was going to build one himself! Ella loved heading out the the garage to "help" him (ie. play with sawdust and his tools) and got to make some decisions about what the finished product would look like. However, we made the decision on the color since she told us she wanted it to be painted several different colors. (Mama did NOT think that would look good in her room and so vetoed that one.) Instead, we went with a "crackle" finish that looks pretty cool.

After about six weeks of working on it in his limited spare time, the bookshelf is finally finished.! We moved it into the girls' room this weekend and loaded it up with toys and books. The room looks much cleaner (no more tripping over books) and pretty cute too. We sure are blessed to have this Renaissance Man in our lives (for many reasons -- not just his carpentry skills!)