School Entry Cabinet

One of the other first pieces of furniture I built with my dad (along with the lightbox). It came about due to a mistake—Dad was working on a kitchen cabinet project and accidentally made the front frame an inch smaller that it should be. Once the frame is glued and screwed together, there’s no taking it apart. So he ended up with a lovely face frame that couldn’t be used.

There was a small entry way at my children’s school that was piled with stuff. All important stuff that served a purpose, but didn’t look so great as the welcoming space to the school. I offered to build them a cabinet. Dad and I pulled out that face frame and built the design around that.

The whole piece is Red Oak, except for two strips of Cherry in the cabinet top. I got to practice cutting dovetails, a technique that I’m still working on years later (with only incremental progress).