My question has to do with the lower shelf/stretcher. This is my first design:

My wife wasn’t thrilled with the lack of thru tenons on both sides of the corner posts for the bottom shelf. I kind of like the minimal look of the first design but after I worked up these other options, I’m not sure anymore.
The first is just to remove the thru tenons from the end of the table so they are only on the long sides:

This is the other option, to add stretchers to the length with thru tenons:

One other thing I wanted to get some opinion on is the top:
As you can see, the legs and the boards that run from leg to leg are all chamfered. The rest of the top is therefore lower then the perimeter by about 1/8”. I know this will come down to opinion mostly, but does this design element work, or will it just be too much of a dust catcher?

Thanks for any input you guys might have!

It sure would help to just have work pouring in where I could find a decent place to rent. . .

At lunch time, we noticed that she had found her way into the garage, so my dad started talking to her.

She thought he had food for her and was pecking at his hand.

At the end of the day, we were cleaning up, and she was right next to the garage again, so I went out to say hi and get some close ups:


She started to get angry, or she wants a mate, I’m not quite sure:
.

At that point, she literally started to chase me! It was quite harrowing. :) I got away unscathed though.

I’m sure she will be back tomorrow.
Wild turkey for thanksgiving sure does sound good. . .if only she didn’t seem like a pet at this point. :)

The kitchen. The island is a very deep blue, and distressed on all edges. The corner posts are chamfered. The granite on the island is one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve seen.
All the drawers have Blum Tandem drawer guides with Blumotion. The boxes are 3/4 maple plywood. The fronts and doors are soft maple. Drawers are dovetailed, with 1/2 ply bottoms. Any cabinet with shelves uses 1/4” shelf pegs, 1” spacing. Face frames are attached to the boxes using Festool’s Domino system, so no visible fasteners. Lazy susan in the corner base cabinet. Apron front sink. 1 1/4” overlay hinges.

Another view of the kitchen. The island has large drawers for pots and pans. There are also open shelves on the angled corner not shown.

Just a neat view of the kitchen from the screen porch.

Lockers. The left locker is wider than the right due to the uncentered round window. Fun times. Architects just don’t think sometimes, I swear. When you are in the house, it doesn’t look too bad, for some reason this picture really makes it obvious. Or I am just being too picky.

The upstairs “kids” shared bath. Their is a linen cabinet that is not shown on the other side of far wall. Every bathroom in this house had a linen cabinet.

Master bathroom. Linen not shown on the right. I also did the panels on the face of the tub.

All pictures taken by John Pottenger from Coastline Studios.

I learned SO much on this job. Many things I will be doing differently. I feel like I just finished a class harder than any I ever took in college! Some of you probably read my thread in the forums about cabinet pricing. That was all in reference to this job. Pricing is the single biggest lesson I learned, that is for sure. Tomorrow, I have a meeting with the contractor to go over that pricing. I get to tell him how great of a deal he got, and hope that he accepts my pricing for the next project he has coming. If not, oh well, because I am not working that cheap ever again. I could make more at McDonalds, lets just put it that way. :)

1. I love working in my shop! I’m having a blast doing this, and am really hoping I can build things in the shop full time. If I didn’t have to trim a house again, I don’t think I would mind. Of course, part of that may be because I am getting to use my new toys, a Steel City jointer and a planer. More on those I’ll post in my workshop profile.

2. I wish I had enough work to make hiring a helper feasible. If only to help with milling lumber to size and do menial tasks like drilling shelf peg holes. I do have my little brother to help me on Mondays, but he is still learning a lot. We will see how he works out.

3. I really need better lighting.

4. I will never feel like I have enough tools! I’m really hoping to get a shaper in the next couple of months. I guess the not enough tools goes along with never enough clamps.

5. Contrary to popular opinion (well, at least, my opinion), I don’t know it all. Every day I feel like I’m learning something new, sometimes due to trying it the wrong way the first time. :) For example, the lesson of Always Pay Attention to What You Are Doing! Luckily, it was only one face frame for one cabinet, but instead of using my drawings while cutting parts for the face frame, I went off of “memory” of the size of the cabinet. So I built the frame 1/2 an inch less wide than I should of because I forgot about the panel that will be added to the finished side of the cabinet. Of course, I remembered right as I finished sanding the frame, at which point, the glue had definitely set, so I was unable to reuse the side pieces.
Another lesson learned: Always double check that your planer knives are securely seated and tightened. I came very close to having a knife get thrown, which would have caused who knows how much damage to my brand new planer, let alone possibly me. Thankfully, I caught it before it fully came loose because the planer just didn’t sound right and the test piece I ran through came out VERY ugly.

6. I really need a second dust collector! I know this could be covered under #4, but this is just frustrating. Moving my Delta portable dust collector between the table saw and the jointer and planer is a time consuming pain. So I guess, the real point here is that I can’t wait until I truly build a shop with integrated dust collection.
Speaking of dust collection, I am amazed at how much dust a jointer and planer make! I need to figure out something to do with it all.

7. I have a lot of respect for all those that have come before that built cabinets without the help of all the tools we have now. I can’t imagine doing this without tools like my Jointer, my Festool Domino and TS 55 Saw, or my Kreg jig, let alone doing it all without ANY powertools whatsoever!

8. Is it normal to dream about using your new jointer? Or am I just working too much?

9. I need a bigger shop!

10. Did I mention that I have the best job in the world?!

Here are just a few pictures of the progress so far. The cabinets are all spread out in the first picture because I had them laid out in the order that they would be going up so the contractor could see them.

I also found out today that I have exactly 2 months to build the cabinets and completely trim the house! The reason being is Brian is planning on this house being in the Grand Rapids Parade of Homes. Hmmm. I guess I will be calling in reinforcements! Hopefully my dad will be able to help me out, plus I have a friend that is moving back into the are who is very handy in the construction trades.
So basically, my head is spinning. This spring is turning into one wild ride.

The cabinets are Maple plywood with poplar face frames and doors. The mantel is poplar also. They are sprayed with Graham Aquaborn Ceramic, factory black. Rolly, our painter, then freehanded the copper “distressing” accents.