Lofty goals: How to get there

A Client recently came in with a picture of a space saving stairway. Apparently this is a relatively common design in Great Britain.

He asked me if it was something I could do. I said yes because I love the problem solving involved in trying new things. This project wasn't too difficult once we settled on an angle. The material is 1.25" thick knotty pine, and the treads are dadoed into the carriages.

The concept of the alternating treads is pretty interesting. Since your right and left legs would naturally fall on alternating steps, this staircase has an effective rise/run of 9.25"/9.5". I'm curious to see how well this works once it's installed.


This client had been using a fiberglass ladder to access his sleeping loft and he wanted something that didn't take up much room, but looked "cool". I'd say we accomplished that goal.

All the Right Angles

Actually right angles are easy. It's the other ones that cause woodworkers to scratch their heads. But I like to design with angles for several reasons:

First, you can make better use of space. The bookcase in the top picture was designed to fit along a wall, but there was a window only 8" from the wall. The angle allowed me extemd the bookcase all the way across that wall without blocking the window. More room for books, more light streaming into the room, and a happy customer.

Second, ngles can also help to make a space more functional. The second picture shows an angled drawer above a cabinet with cookie sheet dividers. The stove is barely visible to the right. We were working around a chimney that jutted into the kitchen, and this angle enabled us to install the stove with and still have usable counter space and a full size bank of drawers.



Third, angles can serve to soften a corner. The last picture shows a cabinet with a reclaimed wood top and another angled drawer. This angle allowed us to avoid having a sharp angle jutting out into the kitchen. It has visual appeal while it prevents bruises.

The final reason I like angles is that it helps me to keep trigonometry fresh in my mind. Someday, my little boy is going to ask me to help him figure out an angle in a right triangle where the opposite side is 14" and the adjacent side is 24". And I'll be able to say something more meaningful than "thats's such acute angle."

In the Process Part V: Not done, but it's got wine storage.

It's good that this project is taking some time--that means that I have some more pressing work to attend to.

My favorite feature on the hutch are the columns. They have a slight taper (one inch over almost 7 feet), and they open up to reveal a broom closet on the left, and wine storage on the right.

The most technically difficult parts are finished. I have yet to complete the doors, some mouldings, and the finish.

This hutch is pretty big. It's nearly 8 feet tall, and five feet wide. That means that it needed to be constructed in such a way that it could be easily disassembled for transport. When fully assembled, it is difficult to guess where it comes apart.

When I finally complete this project, it is likely to end up in the showroom at Lumen Essence Lighting on the North Park Blocks. If you have any interest in old house lighting, you owe it to yourself to visit Larry at this amazing shop.

In the Process part IV, It's not that clear

Using reclaimed material requires some decisions that you don't encounter when using new materials.

Most of the fir that I'm using in this project is far superior to the fir that I can buy new from the lumberyard. This stuff was clearly cut from old growth. The vertical grain in some of these boards is so tight that you would have to use a magnifying glass to count the growth rings. It's beautiful stuff, but it's also riddled with nail holes and their associated stains.

Normally, I cut out the defects that will show in the face of the project, but if I did that with the reclaimed, there would be a huge amount of waste. And waste is at odds with the concept of reuse that caused me to get interested in working with reclaimed material in the first place. That's why you see so much "character" in these pictures.

Here's where I am on the project:

The drawers are done. They ride on center mounted waxed wooden guides--just like they might have if this were built in 1925.

I still need to glue the doors together, and do the joinery associated with the curved detail.

The columns are done--on the outside, but I still need to figure out exactly how they will be attached to the cabinet, and I need to finish their special touches. the column on the left will be a broom closet. The one on the right will be wine storage.

Finally, I'll attack the mouldings. I'm planning on doing a built up crown mould that totals 7" in height and the base mould will be 9" tall.

In the Process III: The Pressure of the Clamps

The hutch building continues.

One of the marks of good craftsmanship is avoiding the use of visible fasteners. There are several ways to accomplish this goal. You can simply putty a nail hole, or you can use decorative or grain matched plugs to cover screws. I generally choose to use glue and lots of clamps.

Glued joints are amazingly strong. When done properly, the lumber will come apart before the glue joint. I do like to use mechanical fasters to complement the glue on moving parts like doors and drawers, but those don't need to show on the face of the cabinet.

Since my last post, I've built the upper cabinet box, attached the face frames to the boxes, and attached the bead mould to the curved part of the face frame. I also made a top and made the back using a joint called a half-lap.

Next up: Building the doors and drawers.

In the Process Part II

I'm making good progress on the hutch.

In the old days, the cabinet maker would have been working at the house, not at a cabinet shop. He'd nail things to the wall and build from there. That's why they called them built ins. They didn't have plywood so everything was built with sticks.

My project has the additional challenge of needing to be strong enough to move around. I'm doing that by building the lower part using a series of dadoes and tenons. This is the way some old dressers were built. Everything fits together like a jigsaw puzzle, and it can stand on its own even before I glue everything together.

The darker colored wood is recycled poplar--it was once a booth at The Old Spaghetti Factory. The lighter wood is reclaimed fir. It was once framing lumber in the old North Baptist Church in North Portland.

The bottom two pictures show some design details. I'm using a bead mould around all of the door and drawer openings. At this point, nothing is sanded, and only the face frames are glued together. The bottom picture shows how I arrived at the curves. The vertical pencil lines helped me to make sure that the curve was symmetrical. I still need to apply bead mould to that curves. That corner miter will be tricky, and the vertical section is a pretty tight bend, but I've got a strategy that has worked for me in the past.

Next step is building the cabinet box for the upper portion.

In the Process

I thought it might be fun to do a series on something that I'm building as I'm building it.

I collect pictures of built-in hutches from real estate ads...they help me with inspiration, and they help me to get the proportions and details right. Those old-timers built neat stuff, and I'm trying to learn from them.

So here's the project. I'm building the hutch in the picture using the reclaimed fir lumber pictured at the left. The hutch is white, but I'm building it to be stained. I'm going to use traditional construction methods, that is, I'm not using plywood, except in the drawer bottoms where solid lumber is completely impractical.

The second picture of lumber is the "after" picture. It's the same lumber after it's been metal detected and run through the planer.

I'll show some of the construction techniques as I go along. The final product will be for sale. I hope it takes me a long time to finish, because I hope I'm interrupted with paying jobs in the meantime.