This bar is 62” x 30” and is built in the same manner as the one above except it has an inlaid ceramic tile on top. The back side has some drawers and open storage. The sink is in the cabinet behind the bar and once again, there is a brass foot rail.

The bed frame is made of Rif and Quartersawn red oak. The head and foot board panels are inset into the frames all around. The legs are attached with a long mortis and tenon joint and topped with a turned knob. The arched top boards were made with 3/16” strips all cut from the same board so when the stain was applied, it looked like one board. The 3/16” strips were glued together and clamped to a shaped form. The blanket chest is made from quartersawn red oak. It measures 50” long 17-1/2” wide and 22” high. The panels are made with 3/16” strips set in at a 45 degree angle . The lid hinges from the back side and it is lined with cedar.

This headboard is not connected to the bed but is a wall hanging. It measures 59” wide x 59” high and constructed of red oak.

Most blanket chests are made horizontal. This one is vertical. It measures 36” wide by 68” high and 20” deep. The top half houses a television and video player. The bottom half has two glass doors and 5 adjustable shelves for quilts. It is made from quartersawn red oak with Daily’s #41 walnut stain and about 3 layers of satin clear finish. The design is Arts and Craft.

The mirror measures 40” wide x 49” high and is made of quartersawn red oak. The top has an inset panel cut to the silhouette of a row of trees that is backed with an amber art glass. The top board is half lapped to the side boards. The mirror is beveled glass. and a small shelf finishes the bottom with five support brackets. The cabinet measures 42” wide by 13” deep and 38” high overall. The lower frame is mortise and tenon construction with 1/4” square ebony pegs. It has the same tree silhouette and art glass panels inset in the back between the small drawers as the mirror.

I saw one like this at an antique store so I measured it and built one. It measures 28 inches wide by 17 inches deep by 30 inches high at the table top. The towel rack measures an additional 24 inches in height. I built this piece about 35 years ago and it has followed us to four different houses.

My wife used to make porcelain dolls and create reproductions of turn-of-the-century clothing . This cabinet and one like it supports a ceiling beam in a library nook off our dining room.

A corner cabinet is a challenging project, especially with triangular drawers. This one measures 65 inches across the front and is 48 inches high. The top has two sets of double doors. It has a small breadboard slide out that can be used as a small desk. The two big drawers at the bottom are triangular. To make them work, I put a runner front to back under each drawer for vertical support and put a runner under each drawer on each side of the first runner with about 1/16 inch clearance. This made the drawers stable from side to side. Then I put another runner with about a 1/16 inch clearance above each drawer to hold it in place vertically. After waxing the runners, the drawers worked smoothly. As you can see, this piece is not completely finished. It still needs bin pulls on the lower drawers and magnetic catches on the top doors.

This is a vertical medicine cabinet and a new beveled glass mirror along with a ceramic tile countertop and backsplash.

I have a book of original Stickley blueprints. I made two Morris chairs from his prints. These chairs are constructed with through mortice construction and ebony pegs. The chair backs are adjustable with four reclining positions. The cushions are temporary. I will eventually replace them with leather.

This is a very heavy stool I saw on the internet in a wine tasting room. It is unusual but the winery stated that the wines you drink while seated on this stool will actually taste better.

I built a trunk for each of my grandchildren when they graduated from high school. I don’t have photos of all of them but this one will give you an idea of what they are like. The trunks are 24 inches by 24 inches by 36 inches long. Each of the trunks was unique however, they all have one thing in common - a secret compartment - or two. Some were only stained stained and some were finished as I am outlining below. This one was first constructed as a clear pine box. I resharpened an old plane blade to have a curved cutting edge and planed the surface of the box in every direction. I lightly sanded the surface to remove any fuz then painted the pine box with a tan latex paint (2 coats). Next I applied the oak and put in the ebony pegs. The next step was staining the whole box with a walnut stain including the painted surface. When I wiped the stain, I heavily wiped the painted surfaces. This left the finish that you see. Next I took the sludge from the bottom of an ebony stain can and applied it to all the inside corners with a Q-tip. A little of this stain goes a long way. I then feathered it out with a dry brush until I gave the trunk the old look I was after. Try the ebony stain on a sample piece before you put it on a project so that you get familiar with the procedure. The sample should have all the features on it that the project has. The final coat is a flat clear finish. My rule for reproduction antique finishes is if it isn’t glass it should not be shiny.

This is another trunk with a dragonfly inlaid in the top and black steel straps.

I built this dining room hutch for my daughter. It measures 65 inches long by 18 inches wide by 36 inches high. It is made in a Craftsman Style and the bottom shelf contains a built in wine rack.

I built this trunk about 25 years ago. It is 60 inches long by 30 inches wide by 18 inches high. The main box is made of pine with box joint corners. The top and bands are red oak. The pine has a distressed latex painted finish and the oak has a dark walnut stain finish. The front of the trunk is fitted with 3 drawers; the top is hinged from the back side and the depth of the storage area is about 9 inches. The box on top of the trunk was a reproduction of an offering box from a stone church in Stratford-upon-Avon England. The original would have had a pole attached to the bottom and would have been extended into the pews to collect the offering. It makes a good box for magazines and the hinged lid in the front is ideal for storing TV remotes. The wooden hand, also sitting on top of the trunk, has hinged fingers and when you turn the crank on the other side, cams on the shaft make it drum the fingers.

This is a cooler with a wrap-around cedar enclosure, casters on one end and a handle on the other. It has a piece of wisdom carved into the top “In heaven there is no beer that why we drink beer here”.

You can’t get too Craftsman in design. This is an 8-drawer chest of drawers, all assembled with through mortice construction and locking wedges. It measures 45 inches wide by 16 inches deep by 48 inches high and is made of quarter sawn red oak. The drawer faces are attached with 1/4 inch square ebony pegs. The pulls are made of oak and ebony.

I tried to mix materials a bit on this project. The tops and frame are quarter sawn red oak and the drawer fronts are all tiger maple. The bottom section measures 43-1/2 inches wide by 21 inches deep by 36 inches tall. The top section measures 38-1/2 inches wide by 9-1/2 inches deep by 8 inches tall. The sides are each made with two inset panels and the hardware is Craftsman style.

My wife uses this table for a sewing table along side of her chair. The table is similar to a Green & Green style. The top has tapered sides with the back wider than the front to allow a chair to be on each side, angled in. The drawers have exposed box joints that protrude about 3/16 inch from the front. The two top drawers have a cloud style. Legs and cross members are pinned together with 1/4 inch and 3/8 inch ebony square pins. The total width is 26 inches across the back by 24 inches deep and 22 inches high. The two sides have inset panels.

This table also has a tapered top to fit between two chairs. It measures 16 inches wide across the back by 20 inches deep and 21 inches high. It has a lower shelf and is built with through mortise construction and ebony pegs.

After watching the movie “Tombstone”, I got interested in the old west gamblers. Some of them had small tables that contained all the things a good, honest gambler would need yet still small enough to throw on top of a stage coach. This table measures 32 inches wide by 24 inches deep and 29 inches high. There is a drawer on one side to hold small objects and the table is hinged on top to store all the rest of the gambler’s gear.

It took about a year to gather all this gear; some at antique shops and some off the internet. The items include: cellulose poker chips, three antique decks of cards, reproduction paper money, old stagecoach and railroad tickets, colt .45, boot knife, Doc Holiday’s collapsible cup, gamblers dice, old dip pens and a rolling blotter, an antique cribbage board, old photos and wanted posters, new cigars with reproduction old cigar bands and even a few “cat-house” tokens.

Once again, here is a project that is over 30 years old. This is the first entertainment center I built. It is in 6 pieces that bolt together and measures 92 inches wide by 26 inches deep and 90 inches tall in the center. The big door (top and bottom in the center) swing open and then slide back inside the side walls of the cabinet. All the electronic equipment stores in the glass door sections. The back is inset about 6 inches with troughs to hide all the cabling. It has a full surround sound system

This table has my signature tapered top but the box is also a night light. It is hard to see in the daylight but all the slats are designed to make light patterns on the floor and walls.

I tried to stay with Craftsman style as much as possible when I built this fireplace. I started with a 3/4 inch plywood box top and bottom which was then bolted to the wall. This was overlaid with oak. The top TV opening has a beveled glass mirror that pulls down to hide the TV. The bottom section measures 77-1/2 inches wide by 54 inches high and sticks out from the wall 26 inches. The top section measures 60 inches wide by 52 inches tall and is 17 inches deep. It has a crown molding on top with brackets. The crown molding is made of flat boards. A marble slab surrounds a zero clearance gas log fireplace. There is a 56 inch wide by 45 inch high bookcase on each side with leaded glass doors. The top of the bookcase and the hearth is a ceramic tile inlay.

The gratings on the fireplace are laser cut 3/16 inch steel plates. They were made to stack up and look like castings. I ground the plating off the heads of carriage bolts for mounting screws. The grating design is a dragonfly, flying across the sun. The parts were finished with high temperature flat paint and buffed to give them a gun-metal look. The gratings are not subject to high temperature; I just like the finished look.

This fireplace wall was built for my daughter. The face is original stonework. We added the mantle and the cabinets on either side then wired in the lights. The project is about 25 feet long.

This custom entertainment center is the largest piece of furniture I have ever built and was built for my youngest daughter and family. It measures 16 feet long by 8 feet high in the center. It is constructed in 6 pieces and bolted together. The center upper section houses a flat screen TV with drawer for CDs. The lower center is for storage and some electronic gear. The lower painted side areas have drawers and doors to be used as storage areas. and the top surface is inlaid tile. The bookcases are oak and have art glass windows.

A few years ago, my oldest daughter and I built an outside fireplace for her patio. We cast the fireplace first in concrete, one level at a time and overlaid it with stone

This box has almost 100 pieces in it if you count the hinges, screws and felt. It is all made of scrap material. The interior tray holds small objects and lifts out for added storage.

This jewelry box is made of quarter sawn red oak with spalted maple back and door panels

The adjustable floor lamp is an old design that goes back to the days of using candles. This lamp has a ratchet built into the back side of the post. The bracket that holds the leaded glass has a spring loaded lever on the back side that can engage the lamp in whatever height you choose. The lamp was top heavy and was prone to tipping over so I included a box front and back on the base and filled them with lead shot.

We couldn’t find a wine rack small enough to fit the space we had so we purchased this wrought iron plant stand and I went from there. The rack that fits inside the stand is made of oak and is wrapped with 1/8 inch black halibut line. It holds 7 bottles of “the good stuff”.

My father-in-law built a stand like this in his first school shop class. They could not use power tools . He died a few years ago just short of his 100th birthday.

I saw a table like this in a woodworking magazine and liked the way it looked. This one is made from a natural edge maple slab I got at Oso Lumber. The apron and legs are made of spalted maple. The top had some cracks in it that I filed with epoxy tinted with graphite.

Note the carved monk. He was one of my first attempts at carving. He is maple with a dark walnut stain.

I wanted to make a table that could display some of my collected items. This oak Craftsman style table measures 44 inches long by 31 inches wide and 17 inches high. It has an inlaid 3/8 inch safety glass top and is constructed with through mortise and tenon joints.

The display items include a Philadelphia derringer, a 2-barrel twister pistol, an Ethan Allen pepper box (4-barrel), a cutless pistol and a 2-barrel snake eye pistol. These guns are made from highly modified kits. The knives are boot knives, carried by gamblers. The guns were only accurate across a poker table.

This unusual table measures 34 inches long by 12 inches wide and 28 inches tall. It is built with flat board legs and the legs and aprons are half lapped together (one edge flat and one edge curved). The lower frame is put together with through mortise and tenon joints.

This view of the previous table shows the joinery.

I built this custom dining room table for my youngest daughter to fit in a large space. I did not build the chairs! The base table measures 10 feet long and 4-1/2 feet wide. Notice the rectangular blocks sticking out of the end apron. They are on both ends and pull out 36 inches to support extensions leafs that make the table just under 16 feet long.

When I built our kitchen cabinets, I made the upper doors above the range and refrigerator with inlays. To make the inlays I taped 2 pieces of 1/4” thick oak together then cut out the design on a scroll saw. After removing the tape, I painted one panel flat black and stained the other dark walnut. I glued the pieces onto a piece of 1/4 inch plywood separating the two finishes to make one inlay look like it is daylight and the other to look like it is at night. This set of doors are the night time panel.

This the second set of cabinet doors depicting daylight.

This cabinet is designed to house a collection of old medicine bottles with the old labels. Most cabinets are made so the lower door cross members are mounted with the shelf located at the bottom edge. I designed this cabinet so the shelves are at the top edge. This way, the display items are not hidden behind the lower door. The lower shelf does not have a face frame cross member, the shelf itself is the cross member.

Mounted above the washer and dryer in our laundry room is a painted cabinet made from poplar with inset panels of bead-board. The cabinet measures 60 inches wide and the center section is inset. I used the old style butterfly hinges and the external ice box catches to give it a vintage look

My brother-in-law and his wive are building a new house. She has a French background and asked me if I would build her a bathroom cabinet that had a “Frenchy” flavor and looked like a piece of furniture. She found some photos on the internet to go by and this is what I came up with. I started with a 3/4-inch plywood box and added up to five layers of wood in some places to match a French-style. It is built from clear pine and will be painted. This is just about as “Frenchy” as an old Swede can get.