Strengthen the Mind
Just being a kid
13-17
Carroll County teen becomes woodworking sensation
Photo and reporting by
News 5 Cleveland
Nate Stoffer started building a one-room log cabin on his grandparents' property before the pandemic hit. When school shut down and he had more time, he finished the cabin, then moved on to furnishing it with rustic log pieces—coat racks, coffee tables, bed frames, cutting boards—each one teaching him something new.
Somebody said yes
His mother Sarah recognized he could figure things out on his own. She didn't direct him but let him teach himself through YouTube videos, books, articles, and woodworking magazines. When he said he wanted to build, she got out of the way.
Why we picked this one
Nate built a cabin from the ground up, then turned into a woodworker. The real story isn't the seventeen-piece cutting boards with their thousand mortise-and-tenon joints—it's that a thirteen-year-old found out he could figure it out. That he would watch videos until he understood, read until he understood, build until he understood. His mother let him do that. Most parents wouldn't.
Nate went from a one-room cabin to a whole line of log furniture, learning something new with every coat rack and cutting board. Yours doesn't need a cabin, just one real project this weekend where the drill is in their hands and you measure twice from the sidelines.
Read the full story at
News 5 Cleveland
Where it happened:
Carroll County, Ohio
There's a half-finished project in your garage right now. Your kid has asked about it twice. What if you just said yes and left him alone with it?