Student-directed projects motivate and educate the students, inform the public--and produce some very handsome furniture that may well become treasured family heirlooms that will live beyond their makers. In this article, the author describes how he adopted a student-directed approach in his Fine Woodworking course by setting up a two-project course. The first project was made in a team setting of three or four students, and the second project was individual. In both cases, the projects were student directed. However, over the course of several years, the author found that most of the time was spent designing and constructing the initial team project. This left little time for students to work on individual projects in a 15-week semester. So the author decided to change the course to one individual project. This gives students plenty of time to focus on the task and not be hurried. More importantly, the students could build something they wanted or something they needed.