The Woodshop Shed

Custom Built In Cabinets

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


When we purchased this home last year we knew we wanted built-ins around the fireplace…but we also knew that no matter what we got from a builder we wouldn't be happy. So once I freed up a few other projects I got this started. The overall design is somewhat Japanese (shelves inspired by George Nakashima), with the shelves representing a tree where the central board is the “trunk” and the shelves themselves are the “branches”.The cabinets are cherry ply with soft maple face frames and doors/drawers, finished with water-based tinted lacquer from Target Coatings (more on that later). The tops are also cherry plywood with a cherry live edge banding on the front.The shelves are made from two very gnarly slabs I got from my lumber guy for $25 each. I cut them to length and screwed a piece of plywood into the back to create a straight edge that I could use for resawing. I mostly got things resawn straight, and I kept a lot of the gnarly parts of the boards in the final product to emphasize the rustic, natural feel of the live edge. The shelves are sprayed with a satin watco lacquer.The shelves are mounted on a central “trunk” of walnut using what I guess you would call a bridle joint. The trunk itself is finished with Dark Walnut danish oil, and mounted to the wall with some extremely beefy wall anchors with the screws hidden behind the shelves.I think this was a pretty straight forward build, with no new techniques for me except for the funny way I came up with to resaw the twisted slabs. I did try the Target Coatings lacquer, which I absolutely hated. Though the look of the final product is nice, I have to say that the target lacquer was not pleasant to spray as it constantly dirtied up my HVLP gun and was hard to clean up in small nooks/crannies. Additionally, months after spraying it is still “sticky” with other parts, so if you stack parts, you better put something between them so they don't stick. Would not recommend.All-in-all I am extremely pleased with this build. It brings a unique and striking focal point to our living room that's not just the run-of-the-mill built ins.Thanks for looking. Cheers!

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