Furniture for the home, straight from the garage

Most guys never finish the projects they start in their garage, probably because unless you pick it up in your teens, using a pipe is just much easier than learning to roll a J. Finishing far more ambitious work, Jalex Studios.

Jalex is the design-and-build side-business of an upstate NY-raised, Houston-dwelling electrical engineer who forages for junk from bookshelves to brushed steel with which to craft modern-think home accessories after-hours in his garage, a hard place to concentrate, what with Kevin Spacey constantly asking if he looks "doable". Larger works run from the cubicle Kork Van Gogh chair, with legs made from a hollow core door and arms from cork flooring, to the L-Modern 2 coffee table, made from L-shape storage units, a door, and Brazilian walnut parquet, so smoothly integrated you'll swear it's butter. Rounding things out are candlesticks built from rotating stacked-bamboo tiles, and, for those with electricity, lamps like the stacked window-bracket Jinga, named for the resemblance to Jenga blocks, giving you yet another reason to scream every time you turn on the light.

Jalex even makes vases worth buying, including the Linea, made from brushed metal, the insides of a hard disk drive, and mango wood -- if Mango took teenage you into his garage and showed you that, hopefully he didn't finish what he started.