Changing table/dresser

I started this project a long time ago. I even was blogging about my project but that fell through as the project took me 1 year to finish and another year to post on here. It’s solid maple with the exception of the drawer bottoms, and side and back panels. The legs were face glued together and stained with a dye and alcohol as were the horizontal pieces. All the pieces are about 7/8” thick and the drawer bottoms were made out of 1/2” plywood. Everything is thick and I hope this will take normal use and abuse for years. I finished it with a spray lacquer and polished the top with a gloss wax to set it apart and give the top some “depth.” I made the drawers with dovetails using a porter cable dovetail jig. This was the first time that I ever tried using dovetails or a dovetail jig. Not all the joints look as nice as the ones in the pictures. I used under mount drawer slides on the drawers. The bottom two drawers have 2 slides each to keep the drawers from binding. The bottom drawer is about 7 1/4” deep and the other are all slightly more shallow.

I did learn quite a few things on this project. One of which I still need to do and that is plane down the back of the bottom drawer a little so it will close a little easier. I’m very happy with this project as I made it for my daughter. This will hopefully be something that she can use for years and years to come. I still have enough lumber to make a matching tower that will basically be 2 cabinets on top of each other. The bottom will have a door and a few shelves for clothes and the top will be open to store “things” that she wants like dolls or trophies or maybe a television as she gets older.

I appreciate any comments and tips/criticism you more experienced lumberjocks may have. I haven’t build anything this big in over 10 years when I was in high school and had a real shop, not a one stall garage that my wife’s Jetta barely fit in.

-- Fladdy