Other than folding stepstools, this is my first real furniture project. It is built out of South Texas mesquite. The top is out of a 13 inch wide 4/4 slab. It’s hard to find a mesquite board that wide without major voids and cracks. I actually have enough left of the slab for a pair of matching end tables. I also found this beautiful peice of mesquite burl with amazing figure that I resawed for the drawer fronts. The legs are attached with sliding dovetails, drawer fronts with one hand cut dovetail on each side. The only metal used was the figure eight tabs I used to attach the top which was raised to give it that “floating” effect I’ve seen on a couple or other pieces I have seen on this site. I could have probably gotten away with directly attaching the top since mesquite moves hardly at all.

This is one of two boxes I made for my daughters, my first project(s). They were made from curly maple with machine cut dovetails (Incra jig). I’ve learned so much since these were first constructed about a year ago. Now I would have spaced the dovetail further apart and made them smaller. The girls were thrilled though since they have a way to lock their possesions away from their brother. The brand on the inside of the top was from a former working branding iron my grandfather used in Oklahoma, back before statehood, when it was still “Indian Territory”.

I have accumulated several projects I’ve made over the last year that I will post one or two at a time for fairness to others.