A few of months ago, a friend of mine, Nicole, was asking about a custom sofa for her mother, Sandra. After some research we decided that I would build the couch specific to the dimensions she wanted. After a few discussions and mashing up a few pictures, we found a mission style sofa that she liked. I used dye to match the color of the sofa to the existing oak furniture in her living room.

Making furniture for family, friends, and customers is a rewarding experience. The oak for this project came off of my family’s farm. This farm has been in our family for over 200 years and has been recognized by the department of agriculture as a “Bicentennial Farm”. The oak from the shed was built over 85 years ago by my great-grandfather Childs. Knowing that I am handling and building with the same wood that he handled to make a shed has a lot of meaning and the wood is going to great use with a lasting memory instead of ending in a burn pile or landfill.

These are pictures of the shed during the tear down project.

Once I brought the oak back to the house, the chore of pulling nails and planing began. This is one of the oak beams that was planed, squared, and resawn.

The sofa design included 40 rectangular spindles that are assembled using mortis and tenon.

So far, this is the sofa glued and squared.

Drilling and setting the wood dowel pins:

Sanding and Finishing steps… the long part of the job. The following three pictures show the completed construction and sanding. A coat of water-based dye is added to match Sandra’s existing furniture. The first coat of shellac is added to seal and begin the process of multiple coats of shellac, finish, wax, and buffing.

See the full project on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gERZNEhslT0

We have been working on a kitchen renovation project for the past three months. The project is taking longer since I am doing most of the work myself. We did decide to buy the cabinets, which saved time instead of building, but I was not happy with the quality of the cabinets for the price I paid. I still think there is a way to provide great quality cabinets for a great price with a little process engineering and lean manufacturing in mind, but that’s a topic for a different day.

Some “before” pictures of the kitchen:

The living room / kitchen wall before it was removed.

Wall removed: Most of the new studs and frame head below are from a barn my father and I took down in West Virginia. The old pine was very dense and well beyond today’s pine standards for modulus of elasticity and deflection. Although, this was not a load bearing wall.

Floor removed and prepared for heated floor and tile.

Cabinets and heated floor system are installed. The floor heating system we installed is sold by Warmly Yours (http://www.warmlyyours.com/). The support (Matthew Caruso) was great and very helpful. A design layout is sent to the company so they can design the layout particular to your floor. We found the install process easy. By using Schluter – Ditra system, we installed everything in one day. There was no need to wait for thinset to dry between layers based on specifications of the Schluter product. In the background, a new window was also installed. This new window really lets in the light and a great view to the backyard patio.

Drywall installed and ready for mud and paint.

Making the Maple Butcher Block Countertops:

The stack of maple blanks were purchased a couple of years ago. At the time, I had no idea what I was buying or what I would use them for, but we found the perfect project for their use. The 2 inch X 6 inch pieces were probably intended for a butcher block table, so all I needed to do was plane and rip the pieces in preparation for assembly.

I learned quickly that I needed to have several widths. Since I wanted to add a variety of color and thicknesses to my butcher block countertops, I had to have the exact widths when butt jointing pieces. I had enough length to go across the entire width of the counter, but having some pieces butt jointed added a variety of color and character for a nice look versus same color throughout the length. Originally, I did not make a stack of same thickness and then found the problem when trying to use the same wood pieces for the next run. The gaps were too big for a tight fit countertop. The picture to the right shows the variation of sizes from 1 1/4″ to 1 5/8″.
Here is a picture of the counter tops installed. At this point of the project, the countertops, cast/porcelain sink, hardware, floor tile, cabinet finish, window, and maple window trim are installed. For the counter top finish, I decided to use a product that I have always had great results called Waterlox Satin Finish. This wood finish is tung oil based that goes on easily with a brush, lambswool applicator, cloth, roller or spray. Waterlox resists alcohol, hot liquids and similar problems, while sealing the wood and hardening and enhancing the wood’s natural appearance. It is child safe when dry. I tried some other finishes and did not have luck with resistance to heat, water, and standard surface cleaners. Since I am not using the countertops as a cutting board, the concerns of food preparation is not an issue. I did not sand between coats since I used several coats of Shellac as the base coats to seal the wood and sanding Shellac provides a really nice finish. We had some friends over one night and did not realize that red wine was spilled on the countertop. The wine sat overnight on the countertop. I wasn’t happy the next morning to see the wine spill. I took a damp cloth (water only) and to my amazement, not a single stain was left.

Since we knocked the wall out, we had to remove one side of the fluted columns I made a couple of years ago. I was glad to remake this side as I had a few mistakes in my first attempt to make custom fluted columns.

Since Christina wanted an organized place to keep her spice rack, I decided to design and build our own spice rack out of maple. We used the 9″ cabinet. I removed the hinges and converted it into a pull out drawer for ease of access.

The last cabinet/project left was the butcher block island. Given the size of our kitchen, I designed the cabinet with casters for easy flexibility and convenience of moving when not in use as an island. This was made with the same maple butcher block lumber as the counter tops. One addition was the walnut band around the outside of the maple butcher block. The cabinet carcass and doors were made with maple and given a distressed look by using dark walnut / golden brown dye, shellac, milk paint and Waterlox. First, two coats of dye sprayed on with a HVLP sprayer. Then, two coats of shellac. A light sanding and then added a single coat of black milk paint. Another light sanding after the milk paint dried provided a distressed look by allowing the darker under coat to show through. Waterlox was added for a seal and satin finish.

The threshold between the dining room and kitchen was made from a barn I salvaged at my grandmother’s farm. I re-sawed one of the reclaimed oak beams to use for this project.

Below are more pics of the finished kitchen project: