Not sure if this qualifies as a Viewer Project but I have a different twist on woodworking. Instead of going to the lumber yard, about 80% of my projects are from recycled wood. I live in Plano Texas and I drive around on country roads looking for old vacant homes that where built in the early 1900’s. Once I find one, I start knocking on doors until I find who owns the land and home and get their permission to take some wood. Most of the wood is old growth southern pine. It’s a lot of work cleaning up the boards because in the early days, they used small tacks to hang the cheesecloth wallpaper, but it adds that distressed look that looks pretty cool.

The bed and end tables where made about 10 years ago. The dresser/entertainment/bookshelf I just now completed to match the other bedroom furniture. The cool thing about this wood is the tight grain pattern and patina (because of the large amount of rosin) for pine. You just can’t find pine like this today.

Now here is the interesting thing about the piece I just completed. I designed it for the bookshelves to be on each side of the large piece, as you can see in the photo. When I put it in the room, my wife said “it looks great…but, I want the center piece angled in the corner and put the two bookshelves together”. I told her that is not the way I designed it and she said, “I know but that is the way I like it”. Now I did what any successfully married man of 23 years would do. I stood up tall, bowed out my chest, folded my arms and said, “Yes Dear!” I hope you enjoy.

Here’s a bookcase I designed as a Christmas present for my wife. While thinking over the design I needed to address a couple of things. First and foremost the design had to be basic and be quick to build. This couldn’t be another Christmas present project she wouldn’t see until June. Second, it needed to be cheap to build. Cheap build means I need to use whatever species of wood I had the most of in the shop. Unfortunately, it was oak.

Anywho, the project is basically just casework using sheet goods with the exception of the ogee feet. Its dimensions are approximately 60″ high, 36″ wide and 12″ deep. With the exception of the face frame and ogee feet everything used trim screws, pocket screws or wood screws as a way to clamp the piece while the glue dried and everything received at least a domino or two. The face frame is attached primarily with dominos with a couple of pocket screws in the top, none of which you can see. The half round you see on the ends was used to cover the veneer I burned through on one side. It was one of those mistakes that when you try to fix you only make it worse. I should know better. The ogee feet, although looking very complex, probably took the least time of anything. Using my table saw, router and scraper I probably constructed the base in 3 hours or so. I will attach a Sketch Up file of the feet geometry if anyone is interested. It was imported from Auto Cad so please excuse any extra drawing garbage it may have brought along. The shelves will sag as they are only ply edge banded with oak but its all I had on hand so sometime in the future when I can’t take looking at sagging shelves any longer and replace what we have with something solid.

In trying to keep the process quick I skipped any idea of color and simply shot three coats of precat lacquer on the entire project. This was done in pieces as it would have been virtually impossible to finish with the back attached!! So the unit was finished with the back unattached and when the lacquer dust had settled it was attached. All in all I have about 15-20 hours invested and maybe $50 for the sheet of Oak for the back and a couple board feet for the face frame.

I’ve been following your video podcasts rather closely for quite some time. My girlfriend has been insisting that I write to you for some time too. My name is Andrés and I live in Argentina (if in doubt, type the following coordinates into Googe Earth: S 34°32´23″, W58°30´08″ and you´ll fly straight to my street) Don´t you just love technology?. I´ve been carving wood for the last 6 years, but I don´t dare call myself a carver. I´ve ventured into carpentry 3 years ago. Nowadays, my projects are a combination of both disciplines. Having learned AutoCAD (pre-Sketchup era) has had a profound impact in my projects.

I thought I´d give it a try and send you pictures of an old project of mine. It’s called “WM” and it´s a bookcase. I think that what´s cool about this project is not the craftsmanship behind it (since it´s butt-joint plywood with a paint finish), but the design and the concept behind it. I am an avid reader and when I moved into my new house, I needed a cool looking bookcase to house my books. I started looking around for inspiration when I realized that 99% of all bookcases IN THE WORLD hold their books in an upright position with horizontal shelves. So I set out to destroy the norm. After 4 or 5 different approaches, I came up with this design that resembles the letter M behind a letter W. To give it more of a perception of depth, I brought the “W” forward, offsetting it from the wall some 5 inches (I use the metric system). Thanks to working with CAD, assembling the cut list was only a matter of seconds after I finished drawing it. The task would have probably taken days with any old school method. The only tools involved were a circular saw and a cordless drill. Pretty effortless to be honest. The only other thing I really had to sleep on, was choosing the colors. The whole thing probably took me 3 full days.

Hope you find it inspiring. Keep up the good work, and thanks for taking the time to input your craft into the cyberspace. Saludos desde Argentina, Andrés

This is the finished piece, it’s a turnable English library (don’t know if the name is correct), it has hidden wheels on the bottom so it can be easily moved or turned. The finish is stain, french polished shellac and bees wax. Hope you like it!

My brother-in-law always has reference books sitting out for easy access. Atlases, dictionaries, etc. He has always wanted a library book-stand to display and read them on. So, I sketched out some ideas and the attached photos are the result. I used solid cherry and MDF-core cherry ply. There is a small drawer and a pull-out writing surface. A “secret” compartment hides below the drawer. The doors below are fitted with patterned glass. The pulls were made from walnut with an in-laid cherry strip. Finish was Danish oil and wipe-on poly. The finish on the top surface was rubbed out using pumice and rottenstone powders with paraffin oil.