Top blanks

The blanks for the tops. Again, there's significant work involved in making rough lumber into the boards out of which you make stuff.
Each of these blanks is glued-up from five sticks; each of those sticks was cut, planed, jointed, and grain-matched before they were glued up.

Once glued up, they have to be leveled again - the sticks weren't exactly the same size (my planer's knives are a little slanted, I think), there's a glue line, and there's the imperfection of aligning the faces in the same plane while gluing up.

Normally, not a big deal - just another few trips thru the planer... unless the blank is 10" wider than your planer in which case...

Notice all that fluffy stuff behind them?...

...and on the floor, and behind the bench, and on the floor on the left end of the bench, and in my shoes, and on my shirt, and leading from the basement to the chair in which I now sit typing?

There's something really satisfying about hand-planing stock: you feel like a "real" woodworker - for the first ten minutes or so. After that, it just feels like manual labor.