Furniture Making Videos

Building a Bathroom Vanity

There is a lot of wooden furniture and other wooden objects that were designed hundreds of years ago that just do no have much functionality in today's world. This doesn't mean they aren't attractive, just that the uses for them have passed. For example, candle boxes, these are smaller wooden boxes used to hold a small supply of candles. Most homes don't need a small warehouse of candles so a box to hold them is not much use.
This is partially true with many things, and even this antique designed bathroom vanity. Some people  could have a problem finding a place for it in their home. 100 years ago, most homes had one. I had a large bowl on top and often some sort of a pitcher with water and was a place to go and wash your hands. Now we do that in a sink with hot and cold running water.  Still, I love the designs of these old wash stands and have been wanting to make one for years. I really am not sure what you I will be able to put it to, but we will see if we can fit it into modern living in our home.
The challenge with this build was to make the entire cabinet, and doors using only my doweling jig so that we could compare the differences with the build we made entirely from a pocket hole jig a few weeks earlier.

The design of this cabinet is such that it could be used for a multitude of things including plants on to and storage inside, it could be used as a small library cabinet. I could be re-purposed as a very trendy looking bathroom  vanity or it could even be uses as bedroom storage and decor.

Part 2 of this build is making the doors, and to keep to the theme of this build, we needed to make them using our dowelmax jig, just as we made our past video using only pocket hole technology.
As a rule, when making doors, I prefer to make them using the router and router table, it's quick and easy, and just something I have become accustomed to doing. I found making the doors using the doweling jig worked well and for anyone who does not have a router table and the associated door bits, using a doweling jig is a great alternative. 

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Make an Entry Way Table

Pocket hole joinery is nothing new, it's been around for many years and still remains a strong, viable option for creating all sorts of woodworking projects. It's very versatile and can be used from everything from jig making to custom furniture making. One of it's greatest assets is the fact that you can disassemble pocket hole joinery in order for fix or modify it and put it back together easily. After the holes are drilled, assembly can be very quick because it's a simple matter of using the special wide head screws to put things together.

In our case we are making an entry way table and part one is making the legs and frame. The wood we are using is kiln dried red alder, a super wood to work with, easy on the tools, hard enough to make fine furniture, and takes most finishes with ease.

The first step in making anything is to determine sizes, and for our project we elected to use square legs 1.5" square by 32" high. The apron for the table would be 5.5" wide and other than the legs and some drawer parts, everything else would be 3/4" material. The lower stretchers for the table would be 2" high, enough to support a small shelf.

The drawers are veneered on the front to match a veneering that will be happening on the table top.

And of course the last component is to put a top on this carcass and so we decided to laminate a veneer on to MDF and then add some natural wood edges to really make it "pop" and this is what our finished table looks like. 

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Easy Build Wooden Quilt Rack

quilt rackMost woodworkers, even causal ones, are often looking for projects that they can make a little bit of money on, if only to help pay for wood and other supplies. This great little quilt rack is one of those items that could be turned into a small part-time cottage industry.
There are thousands of quilters all over the world who need to have a place to store and display their works. This quilt rack is easy to make, looks great would be a perfect addition to any bedroom's decor. Especially attractive in guest room, where quilts or even spare blankets, towels and such could be stored.

The rack that we built was 12 inches wide by 32 inches high and 32 inches wide. There are no firm sizes for quit racks so you can build what ever works for you. The only thing we really want to do is to make sure that it is sturdy and that it won't in any way mar the quilts. In our case ...

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Completing the Pedestal Table

In This article and the associated video we finally get to finish our little three legged - Pedestal Table. We have taken three videos and associated articles to arrive at this point, but it has all been worth it. We got to try a variety of specialty techniques like creating a round table top by using the circle jig that David Cooksey provided plans for. We showed how to make sliding dovetails which we used for the legs of the table and we showed how to create a 6 sided, or hexagon shaped column that we then turned on our lathe. Then of course we assembled the the table and finally finished it with Osmo, one of our favorite finishing products.
In this article we will only touch on the aspects we went through in the video primarily because we feel the video is self explanatory.


This was a great little project and the end results are well worth the effort. Nothing was terribly difficult but you will need to take your time to make sure all aspects turn out to your expectations.