Scandinavian Corner Cabinet

When Woodsmith started there publications many years ago my father subscribed to it. In one of the issues was a corner cabinet that hung from the wall. He started to make the piece but with a lack of some tools he left it sit. A few years later after I had acquired a few more tools of my own, I retrieved all the pieces from my father’s basement. Many of the wider boards had started to cup; we laid wet towels on them and put heavy weights on to try to flatten them. This did not take all of the cupping out but was able to make them work. Susie and I finished the cabinet and gave it back to my parents.

Over the years my wife (Susie) will comment how she likes the cabinet that now hangs in their living room, so last year when she drew her sisters name for a Christmas gift, we decided to make Susie’s sister one. Now the search was on, where had I put that issue of Woodsmith, after about a week of searching and asking dad if I gave it back to him; the conclusion is it was lost. I periodically travel to the Woodsmith store in Des Moines (actually Clive) for their Thursday night seminars held during the winter months. The seminars are put on by the staff of Woodsmith magazine from August Home Publishing. I asked Doug Hicks (who has worked for August publishing 20+ years), if he remembers the cabinet. He showed me a three ring binder full of past articles and the closets he could remember was a standing cabinet. The search continued and my father found it on a website where I ordered the issue. Plansnow

About two weeks later I attended another seminar and when I walked in the room Doug Hicks found me and said he remembered the cabinet I was talking about on the way home from the previous seminar I attended. He waited for me to attend another seminar and handed me a special edition hard cover book with many cabinets in it and one was the Scandinavian corner cabinet.

So now with the plans again we decided to build two this time, I told Susie we would give one to her sister and sell the other one. As we finished them I ran into the dilemma I suppose a few others have, how do I sell this for what I feel it should be worth. So after mulling it over and knowing that Susie always commented when we visit my folks on theirs I decide to let her hang it in the house. We made these out of hard maple (this was the first time I worked with maple) and my father’s original was made from pine. We used lace for the door opening in my fathers and glass on the two new ones.

Susie now has her own cabinet that she has decorated and it hangs in the corner just over the left side of her chair.

-- Joel Tille