Mission Bookcase

 Not visible in these photos is a carved Confederate flag on the bottom rail of each side.  The bookcase is to house a collection of Civil War books.

Mission Bookcase

I finally got some pix of the cherry wardrobe I finished last year.  So this post just to update on last year’s post which showed it under construction.

Cherry Wardrobe - doors closed

There are 8 dovetail drawers with floating cedar bottoms and 6 shelves with cedar panels floating within the cherry shelf frames.

Here is the completed mobile Bar Cart made of solid maple.

The finish does not show well in these photos but is a combination of cherry, yellow and ebony stains with a wiping varnish seal.

This piece was personalized with a carved stylized monogram on the centre back panel.

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Here are shop photos of a solid cherry wardrobe, nearly completed. The doors are stained, not yet varnished and almost ready to install.

The drawer and shelf bottoms, and back of the wardrobe are made of Spanish cedar panels ‘floating’ within the frame construction.  This was done to minimize risk of the panels cracking because of seasonal changes in humidity and temperature.

One of my customers asked for a solid pine sofa and ottoman.  For me this was a very interesting and challenging project.

To start, I searched for plans, but was unsuccessful, so I referenced the sofas in my house, and taking my client’s sketch, design preferences and specific measurements as a start, went about preparing a design.

Here is the finished project.

The sofa is 8 feet long and 3 feet deep.  The back has slots at the top and bottom to allow the cushions to be secured.  The ottoman is 2 feet by 4 feet.  It can also serve as a coffee table.  The top lifts off, offering easily accessible storage.

The sofa presented several challenges …  the sofa frame is solid mortise and tenon joinery with panels and drawers as shown in the photo, but it also needed to be modular so that it could pass through a standard doorway.  For this reason the 2 back and the seat pieces are removable.  Also, shop space limitations required that I complete final assembly in my garage, where I had to improvise extenders so I could clamp the complete length of the unit (my longest clamps are 60″).

Here are a couple of shots during construction …

Here is a variation of my sofa table design for another client.  Essentially with dimensional differences and with the carving on the bottom, instead of on the face and sides as for the other.  The finish is a combination of 2 stains, first an alcohol based yellow followed by an oil based black.  They were separately applied followed by 8 coats of wiping varnish.  

  … it is difficult to see in this picture, but under natural light, the effect is a deep greenish with the wood grain very evident in gold.