Maple Nightstands

These are a pair of maple nightstands I built this summer. Loosely based on a Stickley nightstand. A couple of accent pieces missing, but otherwise pretty close.

Maple for the frames, plywood for the panels, jatoba for the drawer fronts, and oak for the secondary wood of the drawers and inside.

A little rough in places, with some jointery not as tight as desired, but a wonderful learning process. I plan to build more of these now that I’ve finished the prototypes.

The biggest challenge for me in the design work was how to attach the top securely. Ended up just gluing the top directly to the sides and hoping for the best. The next version I will plan better for that step in the process.

Finished it with BLO and plan to add several coats of water based poly once the BLO dries for a while.

The tiger maple was fun to work with – really neat stuff to both mill and also see spring to life with the finishing process.

Drawers ride on guides above and below the respective holes.

Looking forward to getting these into the house.

You can see a much fuller set of photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/STLSkee/CurlyMaple

• Note – second photo with them side by side is prior to any finish being applied, thus the duller Jatoba look to the drawer fronts.

-- -- Skee from MN