Sawdust on the Floor

According to some of the recent articles I have been reading on designing and building of woodworking projects, my way of woodworking is all wrong. According to those articles when it comes to designing, I break all of the rules that lead to good design.  Most of the renowned designers use the concept of making a complete set of drawings, followed by a mock up of the project before they ever venture into the work shop.  Once in the shop they follow the drawings and mockup faithfully, never deviating from the plan. 

My method is a little less refined, ok make that a lot less defined.  I make a sketch with the pertinent dimensions defined, and work from that.  I feel that you need to be able to adjust your project as it develops. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. 

If you’ve been following along, you know that I have been working on the new vanity for our anticipated bathroom overhaul.  As part of the searching for the perfect green tinted wood stain for the proposed vanity and its accompanying wood trim, my wife and I visited one of the local woodworking shops.  While there we not only found some stain that may or may not work, we also found cabinet hardware that should’ve looked absolutely perfect on the vanity. The hardware which we choose is gloss black, which would be a provide contrast to the green stained wood.  Well the simply designed drawer pulls looked okay when I installed them. Wish I could say the same for the door pulls, but after I installed them, they just looked off.  I don’t know a better way to describe it but the pizzazz they had in the store just disappeared on the vanity doors.  Or as my wife said, “They’re just there. Nothing special”.  So we went looking for new door pulls, again.     

Taking this second look at the door pulls gave us another opportunity to exam our design choices. The drawers and the drawer faces looked great, but we felt that there were still issues with the doors, beyond replacing the pulls.  The original plan called for full wrap around hinges, with balled finials on the ends.  These are the same type hinges we used in our kitchen cabinets.  They looked great in the kitchen; here they looked out of proportion. After spending an couple of hours pouring over the hardware catalogs and knob web sites, we decides to abandon the wrap around hinges  entirely and try a totally different approach, concealed Blum hinges. 

I have used Blum style hinges before, but that was always on frame-less cabinets with full over lay doors. The vanity is built with conventional rail and style face frames, and the doors were designed as inset doors. Common sense told me that the conventional Blum hinges wouldn’t work on my application.  I have been able to purchase Blum style hinges at the local DIY centers in the past, no such luck this time.   So another trip to the Woodworking store was in order.  There I found Blum hinges that met my criteria.

I spent this morning putting the new hinges on the vanity, and to my wife and me they look fantastic. This change from the wrap around hinges to the concealed hinges however required another change.  With the original design, the doors were had a center astragal, which is typical on double doors.  But we felt that the astragal looked wrong for the concealed hinge application. Removing it left a 1/2” vertical gap between the doors.  Remembering the fun I had working with the bead detail on the doors, there was no way I wanted to rebuild the doors.  So another solution had to be found.   A simple fix would have been to just install a 1/4″ strip to both sides of the opening, but I knew I couldn’t hide the joint.  Then it hit me, make the patch decorative. So instead of the plain 1/4″ vertical patch, I decided to apply a bead to the patch.  Since my shaper was still set up with the beading bit, cutting another bead was painless.  For safety reasons, I didn’t try cutting the bead on a 1/4″ piece; instead I used a piece that was roughly an inch wide.  The bead detail was cut into two edges, and then the stock was ripped to the final 1/4″ width.  The patches were attached with glue and a couple of small nails from my nail gun.

 The attached photo shows the vanity with the new style hinges and hardware installed.  We still haven’t found the ideal door pulls, so for now I installed the original ones.  I still have some sanding to do before I apply the green tinted stain.  But before I do that, I think I will experiment some more on scrap stock, to be sure the color is right. 

While the changes that were made on the vanity were not significant, they were in fact changes.  Something the design experts tend to frown on.  I truly believe that being able to look at your work with an honest eye and appraise it, is as much of a skill as being able to cut a good Mortise and Tenon joint.  If something looks wrong then change it.  The idea of making something exactly from a drawing wouldn’t be woodworking to me.  It would be wood manufacturing, something I have no desire to ever do. 

Well, it’s time to get back to the shop and do the final sanding on the vanity.  Once I’m sure on the stain, I will begin the finish process, which could get interesting.  I have never worked with tinted stains before.  Once the vanity is done, I think I will begin work on the mirror that will be installed above the vanity.  The original plains are quite simple, but …… you never know what changes we will make as I work on it.