Woodcraft of Rockville is a bit of a hike but it’s great

Thanks! I’ll check it out.

Howard County Woodworker Guild is a thing. Hcwg.org. They have almost no online presence in terms of making themselves known, but I think it's like $50 for the year or something fairly cheap. It gets you access to their shop at the Bain Senior Center. Supposedly, if you go there, they'll teach you how to use all the tools/machines, but the shop hours are terrible. They're only open 9:00am to 12:30pm on weekdays, which isn't particularly helpful for most people. They did a member survey recently and that's the number one thing I suggested they change, so we'll see. You also get access to classes/presentations from master woodworkers. I haven't attended any, so I'm not sure the skill level they are aimed towards.

OpenWorks in Baltimore has a bunch of classes and way more stuff than just woodworking, but I think that may be more expensive, though the hours are definitely better. They have much more in depth safety training from what I can tell.

Honestly, I picked it up entirely from YouTube at this point. I'm not great, but I've made myself a face-frame cabinet that is supposed to look like a built in TV stand, a small deck, an art table for my daughter, a stool, floating nightstands, my workbench, Cornhole boards, cheeseboards, a wall mounted frame for a monitor, some marking gauges, and a few other smaller projects, all with basically a circular saw and hand tools. I had no experience prior to jumping in with the nightstands beyond shop class in high school 15 - 20 years ago. Rex Krueger, Steve Ramsey, Stumpy Nubs, Bourbon Moth are all great channels and their videos should recommend videos from a lot of the other big woodworking YouTubers. So much of woodworking comes down to problem solving, and nothing develops that skill better than picking a starting reasonable project that you have most of the tools for and jumping in.

Amazing! Thanks for your thoughtful response. I’ll look into everything you’ve mentioned.

Apologies for the rookie question, where do you get your wood? I've been curious in trying, but in my experience with Lowe's and Home Depot there's not much quality.

I actually have bought wood from both big box stores, but mostly pressure treated boards and plywood. If you pick through, you can normally find something straight and not full of knots and defects, but it can take some digging. Almost everything they offer is crazy wet still, so I often sticker it and let it dry a bit in whatever environment it's going to end up in. Hasn't caused too much warping for me yet. I've bought some poplar there, too, which was actually in really good shape, but was way overpriced.

Beyond that, I've had really good experience with John Wilson Lumber in western Howard County, and Freestate Timbers in Timonium. Freestate has a pretty crazy selection of slabs and boards, JW has more sheet goods. Both can cut things for you.

Beyond that, check craigslist and Facebook marketplace. There are often either small mill operations or people getting rid of a fallen tree or downsizing their board collection or selling leftover stuff from projects. Obviously selection can be rough, but you can get some great deals.

When you're starting you mostly want to build with pine since it's cheap. You can get decent wood at Lowe's and Depot. You will want to look for boards that are labeled "Select boards" or something similar. Most of the wood sold in box stores are meant to be hidden or painted. "Select boards" are the better looking boards and are appropriate for finishing with the wood grain visible. They are more expensive than general lumber, and you'll still need to poke through them to find the best. They also have a small selection of Poplar, Oak and sometimes Walnut, Cherry and Maple. It's a crapshoot from store to store what types they actually carry. The hardwood in Depot is usually along the back wall behind all of the lumber.

If you want to find pretty much any type of wood you'd like I'd recommend going out to the Frederick Lumber Company. They have good prices for hardwoods, can mill stuff for you for a price, and also have a lot of very nice common and exotic hardwoods pre-cut and milled. Don't be intimidated by going there. The people working there are extremely nice and helpful.

https://www.fredericklumber.com/

As mentioned by some other people you can really learn a lot from youtube. Steve Ramsey - Woodworking for Mere Mortals is a great place to start. He even has some paid online classes.

I agree with everything said including Frederick Lumber. I am also a HCWG member. I am working to improve the online experience as well but I think it’s going to take some convincing.

I learned a lot from youtube. Also Woodcraft in Rockville has classes. They are worth the money imo, but they aren’t cheap. I took the Japanese wood working class. I talked several friends into going and we had fun and learned some hand tools.

We’ve visited this guy, but not for a few years. Call beforehand, great selection. Guild discount.

timberline

Beyond that, woodcraft mentioned below. I know there is a store in Beltsville but the name escapes me.

HC library has a few tools you can check out, I think from the savage location.

Station North Tool Library in Baltimore has classes (practical joinery, dimensioning lumber, picture frames, wooden utensils, etc.)

I've taken some of their classes and they are very good. Not the easiest location to get to from Columbia though.