The origin of this project is shame. Last year I built a basic storage cabinet for my dining room as my pantry is fairly small (just a few shelves) and I needed more space for foodstuffs. That storage cabinet is really not a cabinet just some shelves attached to four posts so everything in there, including a glorious collection of tinned fish but also plastic storage containers of pasta, is in open view.
My parents were recently at my home. My mother told me that my dining room was no place to display pantry goods and that I should put something nicer in there. I thought it was a justified situation of utility over aesthetics but ultimately the shame led me to build a new cabinet.
It had been a while since I’d built any furniture and this effort, like all before it, reminded me of the vast difference in vision and capability between me and a master woodworker. I rather like how this turned out but there are so many small errors and so many shortcuts that no one would mistake it for an heirloom piece. What it does, however, is fit the space and my needs perfectly.
This was the first time making doors on any of my works and it was fairly successful. I forgot to carve a depression in the posts for the hinges so the doors only shut b/c I installed a magnet on them. But I really like the simple pattern I put on them and ultimately they serve their purpose. Overall, this was a project that reminded me of my limitations as a woodworker but also how much better I am now than I was when I first started. I’d call it a success.
