First Nightstand

Hi all,

Back to woodworking!  I now have images from my cell phone on my laptop.
I don't know why I was so slow in getting them transferred, but since I only
use Linux, I am always nervous that a device is not recognized.  But it was fine and the 8 Gb disk on the phone showed up as a drive right away.
So now I can show pictures.  I'll start with the the nightstands.

First I made two carcases -- this is the basic structure of the thing.
It has a drawer at the top and a roomy space for storage at the bottom.
The doors and drawer are not made yet and the nice top is not sized and fitted either.

The raw top is made out of ash that is glued together
using biscuits.  I had never used biscuits for joinery before so that was fun too.  This particular lumber was resawed from 2 inch thick ash stock
and so the glued up top had to be smoothed a fair bit using a long plane and
a belt sander.  Nice way to meditate!  I used the same technique for the doors too.

The above picture shows the finished nightstand along with the 2 inch thick ash boards I'm using to build my daughter's sleigh bed.  I had a great time picking the ash out in Atlanta.  The finished top is edged in purple heart
and you can see the doors have been installed.  I used these really nice
hinges that once installed let you adjust the door fit three ways so you can
get it perfect.  Then you can remove the doors by pulling on a lever
and take them out if you want.  I did want to do this as I was not done.
I wanted to make a picture on the door involving a giant squid, me and a kelp forest.

I made a drawing of what I wanted and then cut it out with
an xacto knife and moved the pieces around with tape until I liked the placement.  I did all of this on top of my table saw.

Here is a detail of the squid cutout I used.

Once I was happy with the placement, I woodburned through the paper to make the outline of the drawings on the doors.  This outline was faint so I
had to go over it a few times to get it dark enough.  You can see my Colwood
wood burner on top of my table saw.  That is a very nice piece of equipment!
Here is the finished woodburning.

You'll notice I had the drawing go up over the board between the doors and
the drawer and then continue into the drawer.
Then Pauli -- my wife -- sealed the entire nightstand with Watco natural
finish and after a 3 day wait, I painted in the image.

Then I needed to even out the wood variations so I added a blue

wash to everything.  Then three coats of varnish and it is done.
The only thing missing now is the drawer knob which Lowes still has on order.  It is a starfish.  The door pulls are nautiluses.

And here it is in the house!  Next, I'll talk about the second nightstand
which has a seafoam/ sand picture.