You say you have a detached, 3,000 sq. ft. shop with HVAC and every stationary and portable tool known to man? Good for you! Now look at what Kirby Pople of Longwood, Florida, made in his “shop!”
We bought a dresser at an unfinished-furniture store and I applied nothing but four coats of water-based polyurethane to the Aspen wood. I fell in love with the light color, so now I had to find a bed to match. No luck. I found a mission-style design that I liked, but it only came in Maple and oak. So I measured it and made my own out of Aspen. Same finish, nothing but water-based polyurethane to show off the pale grain and patina. It is a queen size bed, standard dimensions, with a 4" cap rail running across the top with 45 degree chamfered edges. This is the only change I made to the original design, in which the cap rail was rounded.
Now that we had the bed, we needed some tables to go with it. I looked on the Web and found plans for this mission style table on the Popular Mechanics site, and went to buy more aspen. (Hard to find good wood these days!) I modified the PM design slightly to accommodate the 1-1/2" legs that I found. I again went with a 45 degree chamfer, and again applied waterbased poly. A note about the poly though: I applied three coats with a foam brush, sanding in between, then I thinned the Poly about 20 percent with water and wiped on the last coat. That gets a pretty good finish, but to get that soft feel, I rubbed it with a Scotch brite pad before and after the final coat to take off any edges and to make the wood "feel" good.
Bedroom set
done, time for a living room table. Again I found the plans on the Popular
Mechanics site. The top opens up. I wanted originally to put a model train
layout in it, but that has not happened yet. I made it out of red oak,
followed the plans, and finished it with a Colonial Maple stain and three
coats of polyurethane. There was no need to rub out the last coat on Oak.
I use the hidden compartment to store my woodworking catalogs and books.
Now for the interesting part: I made all of these items--and many others--on
my third floor apartment balcony.
I have wanted to make one of these for years. I always felt it would be a great challenge, and after reading an article in one of the woodworking magazines, I decided it was time. I didn’t care for the style of the chair in the article, so I ordered the NYW plans and video. It was this style of the L&JG Stickley chair that I liked from the beginning anyway. I am pleased to say that even though this was only my second attempt at bending wood, the chair was no more difficult than any other project. I paid particular attention to the joints and the finish. I had to drive an hour and a half to find 1-5/8 oak for the legs, and then decided I had to have a matching footstool, so then I had to go back for some more wood. The chair took two weeks, the footstool, of my own design, took six hours start to finish. The chair is made of quarter sawn red oak, and I used General Finishes Sealacell and Arm-R-Seal wipe-on finishs. The cushions are of vinyl, because I have a cat with claws. They cost about $160, including the stool cushion. They are foam-filled, with overstuffed loose fill to give a sink-into-it feel. Oh, yes, it is comfortable. And no, I am not getting up so you can try it...
