Drop-Front Limbert Desk

This rare and timeless silhouette is updated for contemporary use. When our youngest went off to kindergarten, my wife took on freelance copy-editing and needed a work station. An executive-size [...]

What’s The Best Glue for Furniture?

Why liquid hide glue should be your first choice as an adhesive. Since the beginnings of civilization up until World War II, most pieces of furniture were assembled using animal-based glues. That [...]

Perfect Proportions

Build a standing desk tailored to your body. I designed this compact stand-up desk to meet a prescription from my doctor to be less sedentary. “Sitting is the new smoking,” I was admonished. It [...]

Ruhlmann Tabouret

Create sultry sophistication with Art Deco details. Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann (1879-1933) is considered by craftspeople, collectors and designers to be the premier Art Deco furniture maker; he was [...]

Curve Appeal

This stool builds your skills with eight different joints and bent laminations. Competition is the whetstone of talent; this was in full effect when I built this Wharton Esherick-inspired stool [...]

Sideboard Fit for Tea

Design without compromise: An exercise in high-end handwork. Sometimes a cup of tea is more than a cup of tea. Its surface may be still, its color translucent and its container unadorned. But in [...]

Floating Table

This handsome piece is simple to build and easily adapted to fit your stock. A friend asked me to design and build a table using a special piece of walnut. I was given approximate measurements, [...]

American Gothic

This early form – an aumbry – spawned many different types of furniture. It is easy to forget that many of our favorite pieces of furniture are recent innovations. Forms such as coffee tables, [...]

William & Mary Chest

Mortise-and-tenon joinery and side-hung drawers make for a simple but impressive build. Early in my career I met an avid antiques collector whose focus was objects from the William & Mary [...]

Greene & Greene-style Blanket Chest

A simple approach to a sublime design. I’ve been enamored of Greene & Greene furniture since my early days of woodworking, well before I possessed the skills to produce such a piece. Since [...]

Mid-century Coffee Table

Top this sleek design with patterned veneer – it’s much easier than it looks. All over the country, mid-century designs, with their sleek surfaces and clean lines, are turning up in high-style [...]