I am commonly asked why I spend so much time on superfluous furniture projects when there is home improvement I should be doing.  Usually, the honest answer is: “home improvement projects generally suck and I’m procrastinating”.  But every now and again, there is another answer: “because I’m practicing for an important home improvement project”.  And this is one of those very rare cases.

The finished cherry table with the last scrap of the source wood for comparison.

It’s no secret that I don’t chop many mortises.  I much prefer dovetails and housing joints.  But with the double-sink vanity I’m making for the upstairs bathroom, only mortise and tenon joinery will do.  I would not describe the vanity design as “delicate”, the legs and rails will only be about 2″ square so the joints need to be as stout as possible.

The 48x13x36 reclaimed cherry console table (seen above) is done.  It served two purposes (aside from cleaning out some of the wood pile), really.

First, it allowed me to test build a Nicholson workbench if I ever go that route.  I’m impressed with the overall design.  I was able to figure it out without any real plans, so that makes me think it would be good for someone making their first workbench from construction-grade lumber.  It seems stout and scalable and not very dependent on the materials that you’ make it from.  Oak, Douglas Fir, Spruce or even White Pine all seem like they’d work just fine.

The cross rails add rigidity despite the lack of a slab top.

The second purpose was to practice mortise and tenon joinery.  With such little margin for error on the relatively small dimensions of the vanity components, I’ll rely on stub tenons to hold everything together.  For aesthetic reasons, I don’t plan to drawbore the mortise and tenon joints, so piston fits will be important to lifetime bonds.  And that’s what this project allowed me to practice.  Unless I decide to learn to fox wedged tenon.

Gratuitous up-frame shot.

At this point in the retrospective, I typically assess what I’d do differently on this build.  In truth, very little.  I absentmindedly broke the arrises on a few boards before the glue-up, so there are a few visible glue lines (the joint line between the apron and the tabletop as seen above comes to mind) that no amount of boiled linseed oil will hide.

But that’s about it.  Once the BLO dries, I’ll move the table into my office.

JPG