Upstairs Furniture

15 May 2014

Garden troughs and coldrames are one thing but venturing inside and upstairs required a step up in skills and bravery. The bookshelves project seemed to go ok and with enough paint and books you could get away with a lot. The following projects were more adventurous and some use hardwood and other exotic material (well glass) - one even has knobs on (literally). In some cases a prototype was made in pine to reduce risk of expensive failures in hardwood.

A simple cabinet to hide an ugly alarm box in the downstairs loo. Routed channels with a biscuit bit and slotted the mirrors in. Don’t make my mistake: make sure you paint everything first and slot in the glass later - otherwise the mirror reflects the unpainted slot if you glue up and then paint.

Mostly a technique in search of a project. Bandsaw boxes are made from a single piece of timber (in this case a book-ended, laminated piece of walnut) and are then glued back together. In my version I hide the rather ugly inner drawers by having a flat front piece. This is a model of a budding Saccharomyces cerevisiae - model organism of choice for all budding brewers and bakers.

These were less inspired by my long standing addiction avoidance of Tetris, but more by a recent interest in thinking of subliminally educational toys. I had a set of identical building blocks in a small trolley, which I loved, so surely the added excitement of these tactile beech pentominoes would appeal. What I didn’t realise is that building the above 3d cube is nigh on impossible without cheating. Even getting a complete rectangle is extremely hard. Oh well. I uploaded the sketchup designs to the 3d warehouse.

These oak trivets (for hot serving pans on the dining table) were inspired by versions in a restaurant in Leeds. This design uses lap joints cut with the router table using a clamping 60 degree jig.

Not just a flat piece of walnut (yes it is) - this is a highly engineered and ergonomically designed serving platter carefully crafted to exact specifications.

Sewing table - made for the fabrication of some curtains. Provides a large flat surface to help move the fabric. Plywood undercarriage is adjustable with threaded rods and star knobs.