Hi
I'm a long time lurker and dabbler in woodworking. Since discovering this forum a year or so ago, I've been inspired to try and push myself to increase my ability and try out new stuff thanks in particular to this thread.
Inspired by a bathroom cabinet that Mrs Grumps liked at a Bathroom place (which was £400 and made of MDF), I decided to have a go at making it myself.
It's white oak from Duffield Timber, my first experience of going and buying good quality timber for the project I have planned. The oak I've used in the past has been most offcuts of flooring etc. so it was a bit of an eye opener to see what they had on offer.
It's pretty much all hand tools - I've got a little Axi bandsaw and a lunchbox thicknesser for dimensioning. I tend to not use too many power tools as I do most of my work of an evening when the kids are in bed. It lets me build up a decent process of planing the face and edge true of components during the week then putting them through the thicknesser on the weekend. I always give pieces a quick once over with a plane before doing any joinery if it's needed, and it gives the wood plenty of time to settle.
Construction is a dovetailed carcass with integrated hanging rail, housing joints for the shelves, M&T Face Frame glued on and then the mouldings were done using a couple of hollow & rounds I got off ebay. The door has a little Ovolo moulding (done with a moulding plane) and is jack mitred (think that's the right term) in the corners.
I had to do the door twice as the first one developed a twist. Obviously I blamed my cheap clamps, but then I was much more careful about my M&T's on the second one (still plenty of room for improvement) and it came out nicely. Only issue I had on the door is I didn't think through how I was going to retain the mirror in it without it looking like the back of a picture frame, so ended up cutting a second rebate using a router later on (you might/ will definitely be able to make out a small patch where the router went to far on a corner... it turns out I did actually have time for stop blocks given it definitely took longer to fix it).
The panel for the door (not installed yet as the mirror has been delayed due to lockdown) is ply with a homemade oak veneer on it cut from the same timber for a good match. It was right at the limit of what my bandsaw could do but having put a tuffsaw blade (another forum recommendation) on it, it coped really well with a slow cut.
I didn't really want to paint it, but it was the look that Mrs Grump was after. I do regret using milk paint though. I found it quite fussy to work with and to get smooth - to be fair I think it isn't designed to do what I wanted it to. The finish looks a bit 'upcycled' to me, but live and learn. I've got my eye on a HVLP now having seen some threads on the forum. Painted furniture is definitely 'the look' in our house so I might as well take the plunge.
This is the first thing I've done that has been granted a 'pride of place' where people will see it every day and has earned me some other commissions around the home, so I'm taking that as a good sign. I'm also quite pleased that it hasn't fallen off the wall yet, given it's above a limestone counter and the sink... drilling the porcelain tiles for the screws was a bit of an adventure in itself and probably the most nervous I've been in a while, I think I quadruple checked that I'd marked the wall up right.
So, thank you fellow forumites for inspiring me to stretch myself, to try new techniques and trying to make existing ones better (these were the best dovetails I've done - honest guv!), and for the wealth of information that everyone shares.
All the best
Grumpycorn