These shutters are destined for a cottage in the Adirondacks. I built 12 shutters for six windows to replace rotten ones. The frames are made of 5/4 pine. The panels are made out of marine grade plywood. The color is the primer; the final coat will be darker.

I found a book called “Making Wood Boxes with a Band Saw” by Tom Crabb. I had an old shipping pallet that had a big chunk of wood on it. I am showing you part of the wood in the picture and the box that I made from the wood. I like the way the grain wraps around the box.

I also tried to make a round box by cutting out the round shape with the band saw just a bit (no pun intended) bigger (1/4”) than my largest forstner bit. The bit is so big that it bogged down my bench top drill press, so I had to go really slowly. I got the idea of making a round box from Thomas Porter’s spectacular Eucalyptus Burl Small Jewelry Box.

All in all these were fun quick projects/experiments. These are not finished, I might just hit them with a bit of shellac, but I like the natural look of them. Any suggestions welcome. Thanks for viewing.

I built this queen sized platform bed over ten years ago. I was cleaning and decided to take a couple of pictures.

I really like the “Contemporary Scandinavian style” so I decided to get a platform bed. I looked at a lot of platform beds in the stores and I thought I can do that… So I studied the construction techniques and drew a plan. I was taking a shop course at the time and had access to great machines. I had very little in the way of woodworking tools at home at that time.

I thought about the plan for quite a while before building this one. It is basically pretty simple, with two boxes made of poplar planks one box on top of the other. The boxes are not “concentric,” the “headboard” of the top box sits above the “headboard” of the bottom box. The box on the bottom is smaller than the box on the top and the other three side “cantilever” over the floor. This forms a nice “kick space” under the bed and a great place to collect dust bunnies. A great place to stash woodworking magazines, I might add…

The bed is built of poplar with fir for the slats. The nice thing about this bed is that each person has a separate set of slats; the slats do not go all the way across. I made the bed such that it can be broken down and moved quickly; there are no fancy joints, just butt joints held together with screws. There is a cleat along the inner side of each side plank and a beam down the middle that supports the other cleat(s).

Enjoy!

I got a commission.

The lady designed it. We even made a full size paper model to see what it would look like. Frame and panel doors? No, like this – keep it simple. Any ornamentation? How about this carving from this catalog? What about door knobs? Wood. What kind of finish? light, like this piece of furniture.

Materials: Birch plywood, biscuits, navy blue self stick felt, hinges, wood door knobs, chrome pipe. Satin EF Polyacrylic Blend.

What I like: Wood figure of the doors. 2000 grit finish. Spacing of the doors. Cutting the plywood on the top to the shape of the store bought scroll work with the band saw.

What I don’t like: voids in plywood, one plywood door warped on the bottom.

Every project teaches.