Maloof Inspired School of Woodworking: Once A Dream Now A Reality

Once a teacher and school administrator always one. I retired from teaching and administering schools over a year ago to become a full time woodworker. Ha! This is even better than my wildest dreams could muster. The "maloof Inspired School of Woodworking will open by the end of September with its first full class by the end of October.

For the last couple of years I have been holding my classes 100 miles from home at Highland Woodworking in Atlanta. Chris and Sharon Bagby, Ed, Terry and the entire group of woodworking tool specialists have been the best hosts anywhere. I would not have this expanded woodworking career if not for their support. They cumulatively have many talents but one of them is growing woodworkers. They originally hired me into their teaching faculty to teach a class I called Build A Maloof Inspired Rocker with Charles Brock.

Eventually I had my own students and struck a deal to use their classroom for my "Seven-Day Build Your Maloof Inspired Rocker" hands-on class. Students have continued to come from all over North America to make their "bucket list" rocker and take it home to finish. Everything was good except the packing of tools and being away from home for 8 days and 7 nights at a B&B in Atlanta. I'll miss my extended family at Highland Woodworking. They are tops!

My wife and I spent a year trying to sell our house to move to the Nashville, Tennessee area to be more "involved" grandparents and to open my school there. Well this economy changed everything. There are no buyers for a house in our price range so after 9 months of cleaning and showing we took it off the market and I found a great place in Columbus, GA that would provide me with 1500 square feet of production space for my woodworking DVD business and room for the Maloof Inspired School of Woodworking.

I have been busy getting the "Maloof Inspired School of Woodworking" ready for the last month. We have installed massive amounts of dedicated electrical circuits, heat and AC lighting, painted everything in light colors to reflect the light without creating glare, epoxied the floor, installed dust collection, air filters, workbenches and some new woodworking machines.

The next post will take you on a tour.