Wood 'n' Soul

The hutch is starting to take shape pretty quickly. Here is the bottom carcase with my apprentice [when he can come in from punching cows and getting bad guys] standing next to it to give some sense of scale... he is a little over 4 feet tall.


The rails are clamped on - now they and the stiles as well are all cut and ready to start fitting up on the morrow. With a bit of luck, I should have the bottom done by Wednesday and the upper section by early next week at the latest.

I finished the twin cabinets, and with my usual aplomb, delivered them and forgot to take any pictures. They turned out rather nice, if I say so myself [and I did] and my customer really liked them, which is the main objective. They look very much like the hutch my mother gave me that has been in our family for quite a while. It is a beautiful old piece and the new cabinets would stand along side as newer [and much less dinged] cousins. They look quite elegant in their new home office. I’ll try to get some pix in a few days.

And another project has begun in my shop. The pix below show: The basic plan; and the bottom carcasse for a hutch for one of the local wineries [there are about 65 within a 12 miles radius of my house]. It will be a large piece - about 10 feet long and something over 8 feet high. It will have a dark frame and back - a dark stain with a bit more than a hint of a brown cast and a slight bit of antiquing - very slight.




The design objective is large scale elegance with a decidedly masculine feel. It will dominate the room and be an inviting place to “hang out” as well. It will have some serious business features: a large amount of wine storage - with 2 coolers in the bottom, plus lighted storage on the top section; a large screen TV/computer monitor in the center, framed with mirror glass to look like an elegant mirror when the computer/TV is off; and a granite top for an elegant look and yet, practical in being easy to clean and impervious to spills. I think it will be magnificent!

Watch it come to life - it is a great project for a really great customer!

I am making some good progress. Didn’t work as much yesterday as I likely should have, but it was Halloween and my birthday as well, so...

I did the face frames for the top section first, and--------- made a design change. They simply didn’t look right no matter what I did with them, so I adios’d them. I’ll have to so some finish work on the edges, but they do look really nice without the face frames. My partner agrees - she thought the face frames looked ungood. Looked good on paper and not good in reality. It happens! It is all good though and the cabinets are looking pretty fine, if I say so myself.

We still have to pick out some hardware. And I need to get on with the finishing. I want to deliver them at the end of the week.

The first image is the lower section in glue-up. Lots of clamps on the miter joint.


This image shows one of the upper sections in glue-up and the other on the floor where I was doing some trim work on it.


This shot is of the face frame for one of the lower sections. They have gone together quickly and easily.


I'll have some more pix later this week as I finish them.