Storefront Open This Weekend – With Nancy Hiller!

The Lost Art Press storefront will be open this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with our usual mix of free woodworking instruction, discounted blemished books and tours of the building.

We also will host Nancy Hiller that same evening from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. for a free book-release party for her fantastic new tome: “English Arts & Crafts Furniture.” There are some spots available for the evening event; you can register here.

Nancy will be signing books and egging on attendees to beat the snot out of a special pinata she has made for the occasion. To enhance the beatings, we will be providing free alcohol and snacks (as well as plain-old water).

We’ve all been busy in the shop since last month. Brendan has a new three-legged backstool to show off (I think it resembles a cockfighting chair). Megan is building some fancy sawbenches for a customer. And I have finished a new Welsh stick chair design that you are welcome to try. I think it’s quite comfortable and really easy to build.

In other storefront news, Brendan and I have just finished building some new fixtures for the store. We have a stockpile of old No. 2 black cherry that we have transformed into a book rack to show off our new Lost Art Press titles. We have also built two “tool walls” that now cover the bookshelves above the bar.

These tool walls hold a lot of the communal tools for the workshop. Don’t worry, I haven’t given up on tool chests. We’ll remove the tool walls while the storefront is open, but we’ll have them there for you to see.

As always, Covington is growing by crazy leaps and bounds. We’re barely able to keep up. Just down the street we have a new pizza place, Alto, that we haven’t gotten to try yet. And across the street from Alto is Peppe Cucina, a great deli with very friendly service. The City Goat is just down the alley. And Flying Axes opened up around the corner. A bar where you throw axes (at targets). We went. It’s fun!

— Christopher Schwarz