The owners gave us a challenge in this piece. They wanted something made to fit a space but look like it was found in pieces in their barn and put together.

Aromatic red cedar, cut on the owner’s farm was used for the substantial base of this piece. We used our hand tools on this one. Full mortise and tenon joinery,  along with hand cut pegs with offset holes are the only thing holding it together. That’s all it needs.

The upper section, also of red cedar is entirely hand scrub planed including its tongue & groove back.

The top is a full 2-1/2” thick, made of reclaimed heart poplar floor joists and we decided to take advantage of the rat eaten edge. It has a true breadboard end with full through, pegged tenons. Naturally, it’s scrub planed too. Although we ran the crown on our molder, it too has been hit with hand planes to give an old feel. The hammered copper sink fits in a carved recess for proper drainage. Its plumbing is hidden behind more hand run tongue & groove. The slat deck is fastened with hand cut nails.

Finished with spar varnish this piece of furniture will out last us all.

The customer wanted a unit that was ergonomically designed to allow for good traffic movement through the room.

Because of the door to the left, the unit needed to be narrow on that end and widen to accommodate a TV and widen further for the armoire on the right.

The cabinet is constructed of ash plywood and solid ash, having the outside corners lock mitered. We prefer this to having seams showing where the face frame is attached.

All doors are made of 3/4″ solid ash and contain 1/2″  solid ash panels. The doors are hung on 165° European hinges. The drawers and pull outs are of dovetailed Maple. The 2” top is of reclaimed heart poplar, scrub planed. The 5/8” accent inlay and the butterfly inlays on the counter top are of aromatic red cedar.

Cedar also caps the baseboard and stepped cornice. The finish is clear conversion varnish.

This cabinet was designed to stand between the aromatic red cedar entry doors and the walnut entertainment center,  so we chose to use both woods in its design.  Its footprint is hexagonal to mimic the floor plan of the room and the custom entry door handles.

The walnut stiles have been plowed out with a custom router bit to trap the 3/8″ rope lighting which runs continuously through the cabinet (about 45 feet). The  3/4″ shelves have 1-1/2″ solid edges made up of walnut and aromatic red cedar, coved down to a 3/8″ thickness at the outside edge to give a lighter appearance.  The pair of doors have a tongue and groove astrigal to insure that they stay aligned and to prevent light leaks. They are held closed with rare earth magnets.  Some things we especially like about this unit are the hand turned walnut and aromatic red cedar dimmer switch knob and my walnut and cedar acorn door pulls.

This desk was made to fit against a window wall in a hexagonal home office. Mike drew this desk in AutoCAD, so we were able to make a template of the top including the position of each leg in relation to the skirt. This allowed us to lay out all of the joinery, in place, on the template, eliminating errors that might happen if done another way.

The skirt of the desk was done as vacuum laminations of two 1/8” layers of cedar onto a core of solid heart  poplar. 3/4” was ripped off the top edge of the skirt and the drawer fronts were cut from the remaining. Then the 3/4″ ripping was re glued to it’s mating piece. In that way we were able to keep the grain continuous and the gaps at the sides of the drawer fronts tighter.

The legs were joined to the skirts using hand cut mortise and tenon joinery. The drawers are of course, hand dovetailed.

The top is 2” thick black walnut cut from the owner’s farm. It is two book matched slabs scrub planed with hand eased edges. The two slabs meet at a corner in the wall, at a 75° angle. They are joined with a tongue and groove joint and hanger bolts. The finish is hand rubbed lacquer.

This 18 foot wide by 8 foot tall unit constructed of American black walnut solid and veneer, has a 1-1/2” solid slab top with a natural edge.

An interesting element of this piece is that it sits a half inch off the floor and a half inch from the ceiling. These void areas are air intake and returns. Hidden in the center soffit are two 6” flex ducted fans that draw air from the heated floor and exhaust it at the ceiling. There are also two 2” ducts that draw heat from the center TV cabinet. The lock mitered columns enclose the ductwork.

The curved upper doors and their laminated walnut and cherry track are on a 511” radius to follow the natural edge of the top. The track is suspended from column to column with no other support.

The cherry trolley wheels were cut on a CNC router with grooves cut by hand on a lathe. The wheels rotate on ball bearing hubs.

This unit was pre finished with conversion varnish.