Sofa Tables

I was contacted recently by a friend of my neighbor to build 2 - 55" sofa tables for her home. She had difficulty finding exactly what she wanted at various furniture stores or on-line, or anything not made in China

Finished tables in clients home- 55" x 11" x29"

Her main request was she wanted reclaimed wood. With some help from a couple of contacts, I located some reclaimed quarter sawn white oak from a guy in SE Indiana who tears down barns and not only sells the lumber, but produces some outstanding furniture from it. Most of what he has is 100 to 150 years old from barns and other buildings in the SE Indiana, Northern Kentucky, and the SW Ohio area.
The other requirement was a marble, slate, or limestone top. The tops you see are marble from a vendor in Madison, IN.

A good part of this entire build was making the mortise and tenon joinery. The rails shown above are for the lower shelf, 4 required.

For reference, the legs are 2" square (not shown), and  the shelf slats here are 2 1/8" wide, all I needed to do was to get all of those in the opposite mortise at the same time and clamp it before one end or the other came apart. Took me more than one try, with a few choice words :)

Success! As usual, the second one went together a lot quicker than the first

The finish on the wood is two coats of Tried & True Danish Oil. This really brought out the character of this wood. I really enjoyed working with this reclaimed lumber. Hard to explain but this reclaimed white oak seem to cut a lot easier than the kiln dried material I am used to and the "defects", nail holes, worm tracks, knots etc, made it look all that much better.

Wooden Chest Cooler

My neighbor asked if I could build this cooler for his sister’s birthday present with no instructions as to what he wanted for a design, so I designed as I built.   Some minor surgery on the cooler was required, removal of the handles, hinges mostly, and some slight modifications to the sides to square up the chest. 

  It is rough 1x cedar for the chest, legs, and lid, the cooler is supported with 4 – 2”x4”s spaced evenly across the bottom and attached with pocket hole screws, the legs, large panels as well as the top panel were built with pocket hole joinery. 

The drain is attached with 5/8" clear tubing to the cooler and a pvc fitting to the valve
He picked a 5 day cooler approx 42”x18”x20” and the overall height with legs is 38”. Hope they ice down plenty of cold ones for the party. 

Cherry and Maple Nightstands Complete

Completed the second of two nightstands for our bedroom. This project has been on the list for longer than I can remember so I am getting closer to finishing the bedroom furniture. The cabinet sides, top, and door frame are solid cherry. The sub top, divider, and bottom panels are Baltic birch edged with 1/4" cherry strips. The hand cut dovetails are still a challenge for me but I am getting better, practice makes perfect I guess.

There are faster ways to cut tenons but for me none more enjoyable than cutting them by hand. These are the rails for the base. Each leg has 2 mortises that I drill on the drill press and chisel to size.

This is the finished base prior to finishing. The corner blocks add strength and also a way to attach the cabinet.

Edge jointing the cherry to glue up panels for the cabinet with a No.6 which for me is a good size plane for this type of work. The Stanley No.386 attachment works great in keeping things square.

Assembled cabinet with the door installed. The hinges make the door adjustment a breeze.

Another view of the finished nightstand. The finish on the cherry is Tried & True oil, 2 coats, and I add a light coat of wax. The base is finished with General Finishes Black. I wanted a nice contrast between the base and the cabinet.

The next project for the bedroom will be a dresser that matches the style and finish of the nightstands. Need to get this done before it warms up and the golf courses open up :)