build an excellent piece of furniture out of wood

I just made a great bookshelf earlier this week. I had some leftover 12” cedar planks and since I never do anything easy, I made a shelf whose case cants inward at a 7 and 1/2 degree angle. I was originally going for a “coffin” feel since I was going to story my ghost stories in this shelf but it looks so modern and chic with just the parallelogram portion I decided not to add the top.

When we took down our old shed last month, I saved much of the salvageable wood (some might say I saved even some of the unsalvageable wood too.) Some nice wide and thick boards. One of my wood-worker friends says I should try planing it, after checking for buried nails. Other friends are less encouraging. I’m really tempted to take off the roughness with a hand plane.

I had a, well, a vision yesterday of a perfect place for TWO of the shaker style step stools, I’ve been planning to build. Right in the bedroom, in front of a low window. We traditionally have a problem as to where we can keep some of our potted plants over the winter. A couple step stools would be perfect.

Maybe this will be the first project I attempt in the NEW shed!

I’ve built many pieces of furniture and repaired many other as well. I’ve refinished several too. The ones I’ve built are certainly functional and have a bit of nuance and flair but would I call them “excellent?” I dunno. I am afraid that my general sense of pessimististic self-evaluation will make this goal recede from my grasp whenever I am near to accomplishing it.

I think I might like to do one of those “build a Windsor chair in a weekend” retreats where, surprise, you build a Windsor chair in a weekend. Trouble is I’m not a tremendous fan of Windsor style chairs. And the retreats are a little price-y.

I’m honestly aiming at a two-step “Shaker” style step stool with honest-to-goodness hand-cut dovetail joints. This would be very practical because love-o-my-life Mib7 is just a bit too short to reach the top shelves in our kitchen (and I get heart palpitations everytime I see her standing on the countertop to get a can of beans or something!) I’ve got the tools; I’ve got the know-how… what’s left?

By x-mas ‘05 this might be done.