Pantry Update: Finished

From J:

The pantry is finished! Let's go back in time and see how this build evolved...I originally made sketchup plans for a desk. Our two big furniture needs were a desk/file storage and a new pantry. I decided to build the desk, since that's a very classic "I'm a woodworker now" project. We went to the lumberyard, bought about 40 board feet of hard maple, and I got to work on making a few pieces. While we were out shopping for a new pantry (build one/buy one was our strategy), we found a very inexpensive Amish desk at our local furniture distributor and bought that, instead, along with a large lateral file cabinet; those two pieces combined cost much less than buying a pantry of the dimensions that we wanted. I was now committed, time to build a pantry instead!

First, I made a few scribbles on some paper to work out my dimensions. I searched around online to look for design ideas and found a wonderful pie safe from Fine Woodworking that A liked. I copied the style but declined to include the punched tin panels in the doors; maple plywood is just fine for me. Next up, sawdust.

I had already glued up the top for the desk, so I went about dicing that back apart to make the pantry top and many of the carcase pieces. For the vertical posts, I originally diced up a board of 8/4 maple into 1.75"x1.75"x60" pieces. Unfortunately, the residual stress in the wood twisted and bowed them overnight. I was grumpy about this, because 8/4 maple isn't cheap. With those now unusable for this project (they'll make some lovely cutting boards), I laminated some 4/4 boards instead and milled those to 1.5" square posts and, thankfully, these stayed true enough to work with.

For construction, I used inset plywood panels along the sides and pocket screwed horizontal rails. The plywood was rabbeted 1/2" along all four sides and corresponding slots were cut into the rails (at the table saw) and into the vertical posts (at the router table, thanks for the sweet 1/4" spiral upcut bit, Dad!). I killed my old Skil router doing this and got to upgrade to a new, much higher quality Bosch model to finish the job. I cleaned up everything with chisels prior to assembly.

In the Ikea adaptation of this project, this is what would come in a flat cardboard box.

Test assembly: Allie approves. Forgot to cut two plywood panels, oops.

Carcase assembly started with the sides. Starting at the top, I made absolutely certain that the top rail was flush with the post, clamped everything, and got a screw in to hold it. Then, I worked my way down the rail setting in the plywood panels and screwing in the rails. Once the first rail was complete, I set the other rail on top and persuaded it into place with a mallet, then used a similar top down clamp-and-screw approach to finish the side. Repeat for the other side. The back pieces went in with A's assistance. I used my 40" parallel clamps to hold things flush and square so I could get some screws in. A huge positive to pocket screws: once they're in and tight, that's it. No more clamp time needed.

Making good use of my new assembly bench. Wouldn't have been able to do this without having the extra large work surface.

Wife for scale.

I cut the top to size with my circular saw and installed it using z-clips from the underside. It's wonderfully flush and clean all the way across the piece; the attention to detail during assembly really paid off at this step.

The z-clips sit in a single-sawblade kerf cut 3/8" from the top. Don't forget to cut this before assembly or you're hosed.

For the drawer, I milled up some more maple and used pinned rabbets with a plywood bottom. To make the pinned rabbets, the piece is glued up like a regular rabbet, then I go back after the glue is dry and drill holes for dowels through the joint. Add glue, hammer dowels, then flush cut after it's all dry. This adds extra strength to the joint and will help it stay together over the years as it get tugged on. I built a dovetailed drawer slide out of scraps and pocket screwed that into the bottom rails. Drawer dimensions turned out perfect for the space; sliding action is decent.

I love the endgrain dowels.

Up next: doors. Shaker-style assembly, with a twist. I kept the same panel-and-rail lines flowing around the piece, which makes things a bit more complex than a regular door. To allow for a proper gap at the top and bottom and keep the alignment with the side paneling, the top- and bottom-most rails are cut 1/8" smaller than the middle ones. Otherwise, it's regular shaker-style construction with slot-and-tenon joinery on the rails and stiles and rabbeted plywood panels. My expanded clamp collection came in handy on these glueups. The doors are installed with fancy soft-close hinges, which I've used on other projects. In this case, the carcase posts aren't deep enough to accept the hinge mounting plates so I added little maple blocks to install them. When these were installed and aligned, A can vouch that I was so happy with the result I had to sit down in the garage for a minute. I was nervous about the fit on these since I had a very small margin for error, they were large and complex pieces, and they had to match with everything else. Such relief.

Clamp count: 9.

My entire mounting and aligning method was much improved for this door installation compared to previous projects.

I was so happy at this point. It's not kindling!

The last parts are the shelves. Solid maple, naturally. I milled up yet another batch of boards (really giving that planer a workout), diced them up, and did some quick panel glue ups. Amazingly, I had enough clamps to glue up all three shelves at the same time. In the past, this would have taken two or three glueup sessions. The shelf mounts are maple strips with slots cut in them for z-clips. I notched the corners of the shelves with the jigsaw to fit around the posts. Getting them sized just right to get them into position required a bit of finessing, but they sit nicely in the end and are solid.

The shelf mounting strips hide the pocket screws in the most visible portions of the interior. That's not by coincidence.

Details: I mounted a stop-block (maple scrap) to set the closed depth for the doors. Cleaned up some glue squeeze out in places that nobody will ever see. Sanded everything to 220 grit (this took about 6 hours - it's a big piece of furniture).

At this point in a project, I feel like a big weight leaves my shoulders. The hard work paid off, things turned out pretty well and the toughest parts are behind me.

Disassembled and getting ready for finish. Glad I built more workbench space.

Finish: like I used on the Groland redo, first coat is shellac, then three coats of Arm-R-Seal satin polyurethane. The shellac cuts down on blotching and makes the Arm-R-Seal go down incredibly smooth. Knobs match Groland's.

Shelves after shellac and poly. This is the kind of thing that I love so much about making furniture - when I bought this lumber, the figure didn't show at all in the rough state. Once it was milled, the tiger figure emerged and I got to choose where I would feature it. You don't get that on store-bought furniture.

After finish.

The look can completely change after finish - some of the boards come to life with figure that wasn't visible before, and different boards will darken differently. It's exciting to see it evolve during the process.

Each coat of finish took 2-3 hours of work. It's a big piece of furniture!

Project stats: finished lumber content: about 35 board feet of hard maple and around one 8'x4' sheet of 1/2" maple plywood. Total lumber purchased was closer to 50 board feet. Total cost was about $200 in hard maple, $100 in plywood, $30 in hinges, $20 in other assembly hardware and consumables, and about $25 in finishing supplies (I used an entire quart of shellac on the first coat - this thing is big). Add it up, about $375 in material cost. The closest piece to this that we found commercially was about $1800. Guesstimating that I spent about 100 hours on this build, I'm paying myself about $14 an hour to make furniture. Hobby: justified.

Up next: home improvement projects.

Rain garden v. 2.0

From J:

Some time ago, we redid the drainage situation in our yard and added a rain garden to hold water and keep it from ponding in other areas of the yard. The backyard magnolias have turned out great. Everything in the rain garden died (with the exception of a sickly hydrangea and a lone clethra). Wet feet + full sun = plant torture chamber. RIP.

So, we finally decided to try again and replant. This time, we selected different, hopefully hardier, plants and planted them much higher in the ground to keep them out of the water as much as possible. Our choices:

• 1x sweetbay magnolia
• 3x red twig dogwood
• 1x shamrock holly

Before we arrived at these plants I consulted with a few landscape architects about our options. They mostly came back with designs that we were unimpressed with, but we got some good ideas for what varieties might do well in the space. In the end, we sat down and decided what worked best for our style. We've loved the sweetbays in the backyard, plus they're evergreen. The red twig dogwoods are, by all accounts, extremely hardy and have a wonderful red bark in the winter after they lose their leaves, adding some color. The shamrock holly is also evergreen and will sit at the front of the bed, adding a bit of winter color and privacy. The colors will be a nice complement to the bed on the front of our house, which also goes to a winter mix of red (firepower nandina) and evergreen (blue girl holly and cherry laurel). Yay, consistent design!

As it turns out, though, these plants were a bit hard to come by in our area. We have a lot of nurseries in our area, but calls to our usual suspects were fruitless, particularly for the magnolia. In the fall, they said. By luck, I was out on a Saturday morning running errands and I decided to stop in at a different nursery that we don't normally frequent. They had everything. I poked the top of the sweetbay out of the sunroof in the Forester to get it home.

Plants home, time to put them in the ground. A went to get some soil while I worked on prepping the bed. I pulled out the old clethra and hydrangea and dug holes to replant them elsewhere in the yard. We'll see if they take. If not, shrug. Doesn't hurt to try. The poor root systems of those plants didn't even try to infiltrate downwards into the wet rain garden soil; the roots had spread out laterally along the mulch/soil line. The clethra root "ball" was about 4 feet in diameter and 1cm thick. Poor thing. Hope it survives and thrives in its new location.

The new plants are set in about 4 inches higher than the rain garden bed to give them some drier conditions. I staked the sweetbay with some homemade stakes from a spare 2x6 I had laying around from when I made my latest round of workbenches. Lumber + 5 minutes = stakes. I like having tools.

We finished up just before it started raining. First impressions of the new planting situation are positive - the plants sit above the pooled water in the garden and look great. After we're satisfied that the drainage situation is still adequate I'll remulch the bed. Once they mature the garden should look full but not too crowded. Fingers crossed that the second planting goes better than the first!

Project cost: ~$250.
Project time: ~4 hours.