A view of Barb's workshop, including bench, handtools and router station. "Anyone starting in a small shop should set up work stations, and the more mobile the better," Barb says.

Barb Siddiqui admits that having a small woodworking shop has its drawbacks, especially since her shop is situated in half of a two-car garage she shares with her landlady. "The landlady always complains about all the dust on her car," Siddiqui says. "She initially thought I should string a shower curtain across the garage. Now I have a dust mop that I clean her car with every time I finish working. Of course, I want the whole garage."

Barb laughs easily as she tells that story. The landlady in question is Barb's mother, who Barb calls the "greatest admirer" of her woodworking. "My mother is 82 years old, and she started watching Norm (Abram) on New Yankee Workshop because of my woodworking," Barb says. "Now she'll stop by the shop, watch me work, and say, 'OK, you're using your featherboards and doing it right, just like Norm.' "

The process of "doing it right" is something the 52-year-old Siddiqui takes to heart. Barb, who lives in the small town of Wenatchee in eastern Washington, refers to herself as a beginning woodworker, even though she's actively pursued the craft since the mid-1980s.

Copyright 2003, Rockler Companies, Inc.