The End

As of now, the business is closed. My life is taking a different path. I'm leaving these blogs up in hopes someone might find them interesting or informative, or even just amusing. Its been an interesting ride for me.

Curved Vanity Design

This is a vanity cabinet I designed. I don't know if it will ever get built, I'd love to do it, but just not sure when it would happen.

Its 36" wide, 21" deep, with drawers set to the right (of course it could be flipped). Its 34.5" tall, giving a 36" counter height, which is much nicer for bending down to wash your face than the standard 30" height of a normal vanity.

The design necessitates offsetting the sink to the left, which I see as an advantage, since it creates a large, single counter area on the right, instead of two small areas on either side of the sink. If a vessel style sink were used, the available counter space would increase even more.

The draw boxes and fronts are curved to match the face frame. By mounting full-extension drawer glides in a stacked configuration on the long, straight side, the drawers are made stable and open normally.

I won't claim this curved drawer design has never been done before, I will say I have never seen or heard of such an design, so it is at least original to me. I struggled with it for awhile. I knew I wanted the open end of the cabinet curved, and it is normal to see such a design use a curved door. However, if a bathroom were configured with a toilet or tub or shower close to the open end of this cabinet (as would be very normal for most bathrooms) its unlikely there would be enough room to allow a curved door to open properly. So drawers were the obvious choice.

How to mount the drawers then became the issue. The normal method of undermount glides or one glide on each side of the drawer box would not work because of the curved design. So I adapted the stacked full-extension glide (FEG) system I've used on pull-out spice and can racks, it might be a bit heavy duty for a bathroom drawer, but it solves the problem until someone makes a light weight FEG.

Traditional Mantle

My latest job is another mantle. This one is more traditional than the couple I've written about here before. This is the existing mantle which will be replaced. I'm not really sure what the designer was trying to achieve here. It has elements of from several different styles and a very top-heavy appearance. It also does not match any other design elements in the house, including the built-in cabinets located on either side of it (the mantle even uses a different base molding than the rest of the house.)

Below you see the new proposed design. The height and width will remain the same. The panels will utilize the same molding and recessed flat-panel design the existing cabinet doors which flank the fireplace. The base of the columns will be wrapped in molding that matches the base molding throughout the house.

The tile reveal around the firebox is identical for both designs, but eliminating the arch from the original reduces the bulk of the upper portion (called the 'frieze'). The addition of recessed panel with molding emphasizes the horizontal lines of the frieze making it appear lighter and more in balance with the rest of the design.

This a perfect example of the importance of design. Both mantles are the same height and width, both have the same reveal around the firebox, yet one feels unbalanced and out of place, while the other is balanced and fits with the rest of the house.

I do have to compliment the original design on one point, however. The overall outside dimensions of the original are an almost perfect 'golden-rectangle,' which has a height:width ratio of 1:1.618. This proportion is found very often in nature and is naturally pleasing to most people. That is why I maintained the original dimensions.

Contemporary Floating Enterainment Center

Today I installed a small project for a child's room. The idea was a built-in unit to house a game system and DVD player, plus provide storage for games, DVDs and controllers.

This is a client I've worked with before, they have a taste for contemporary furniture. Their son, whose room this unit is for, is just entering adolescence, so they will be getting rid of all his old "children's" furniture and buying a new bedroom suite. They wanted a built-in cabinet that would look cool and be easy to match to furniture on the market in both color and style, while still coordinating with other built-ins I've done throughout the house.

After some discussion, they opted for black stained oak finish, which is easy to match with furniture pieces, and a simple, slightly softened contemporary design. They specifically wanted the unit to 'float' above the carpet to match a vanity I built elsewhere in the house.

Here's the approved CAD design (I didn't use black for the CAD because it makes details difficult to see)

This view shows the drawers open to reveal dividers to accommodate DVDs and video games. The dividers are removable.
Holes in the back and bottom of the upper compartments allow for wiring which will eventually be run behind the drywall up to a wall-mounted TV, centered above the cabinet. Free-floating shelves may also be added to the space.

The drawers are 16" deep with full-extension glides, leaving 2" behind them inside the cabinet to accommodate wiring and power. The bottom of the cabinet is open to allow airflow to help cool components.

Since the TV will be wall mounted above the unit, the counter top becomes a display area for books, trophies, photos or whatever else a teenage boy wants to put there. Unlike a full height 'armoire' style unit (which was removed to make room for the new cabinet) the low profile of this cabinet does not dominate the room and allows greater flexibility in using the space.

Fixing a table

I had an interesting little project this week. My client bought a solid mahogany dinning table 20 years ago in the Netherlands. It is a beautiful piece, and well constructed save one thing. Seven years ago when the table was shipped over seas to Indiana, the extreme changes in humidity caused the wide boards of the table top to swell and shrink, breaking the glue joints and creating gaps which during the winter exceed 1/8" wide! It seems humidity changes are not a problem in the Netherlands, so the table was built without allowance for expansion and contraction of the wood.

The solution was fairly simple. First, re-glue the joints using biscuits to ensure strength (previously they were simply butt-jointed and glued). Second, expand some of the screw holes into slots to allow movement of the screws as the top expands and contracts. Third, replace some of the screws holes with slotted hold-down blocks. (Fortunately, the skirt had not been glued to the top, that would have been a very bad mistake in construction!)

Here's how the table looked when I brought it into my shop (this is one of four pieces which I worked on)


Here's one of the screw holes on the underside supports before I modified it.


And after modification


This is the jig I made to lengthen the counter-sink bevel using a router and v-grooving bit. Then I used a drill press to expand the through hole. Perhaps not all that elegant, but simple and effective.

On the ends, where the slots would need to run perpendicular to the direction of the skirt, I added these blocks and removed the existing screws. The blocks hold the top tight to the skirt while the slots allow the screws to move when the tops expands.

I should note that even though the slots will allow the screws to move, they are tight enough to not move by hand, it will take a lot of force to move the screws, but hopefully less than it takes to break the glue joint.