Woman: Hi. Well, it's great to see you all. When I suggested this class, they said women don't need a carpentry class. Now, I know that girls in school can do carpentry nowadays if they want to, but when I was at school, it was a boys' subject, and that was that. So,. But when I saw it would cost six months' wages to employ someone to fix my kitchen cupboards, I decided to learn. That was eighteen months ago. I've spent the past couple of months working on a chest of drawers, which I finished last week. I've decided to put it in the sitting room or perhaps the hall, although actually, my original plan was to use it in my bedroom, but now it's finished, it looks so good I don't want to hide it away! So, you see it's not too difficult.

 First of all, I want to say a bit about equipment. You will need to buy a few things. Usually it's a good idea to buy the best quality you can afford. Now, that doesn't mean you have to get lots of expensive electric tools. Hand tools are fine. They're slower of course, but you have more control at a slower speed. However, if you aren't very strong, the power of electric tools can be a real help. So you shouldn't feel that's cheating, if that's what you need. Make sure you take good advice on exactly which ones to buy before you spend any money though.

The next point is, don't expect to make anything very big or difficult for the first few months at least. You need to develop your carpentry skills fairly slowly, adding to them with each new thing you make.

If you don't, you'll make furniture which doesn't work well, or doesn't look good enough for friends to see, and you won't enjoy what you're doing.

Lastly, you must plan everything you do really carefully. You begin with a list of everything that's going to be necessary, and then think about the order in which you are going to work. So, what I want you to do now is to imagine you want to put up a shelf in the bathroom - and make that list.

Then we'll look at the lists together and see what you've forgotten! OK?