Six Little Indians

As I was putting these together tonight it dawned on me that at some point I must have decided to not do a glass panel but I don’t really remember when that was. Its not that I think I made the decision at some point and now I’ve forgotten when that was. I don’t think it was ever a conscious decision to do the wood panel. So, because the decision was made subconsciously, my conscious mind has no recollection of it. The brain is a tricky little thing, isn't it?

Most of the process of building this cabinet is about how I can use the wood I have in the most efficient manner. So I had the last few pieces of the burl slab left over and I guess it just seemed like the natural thing to do. This is the same burl I used for the drawer fronts and for the single burl panel on the lower center section.



Having said that, I’m not sure this is the right way to go. The idea is that the panels, which have the same trim as the drawer fronts, will be surrounded by curly redwood rails and stiles – same as the drawer fronts. This upper panel will match in size the lower panel. Its not that I think it won’t look nice. My fear is that the design may come off as too simplistic. These are supposed to be High Victorian, after all. Simplistic was not in their vocabulary.

We’ll see.





The panels themselves are pretty spectacular. Hopefully that will make up for the simple geometric pattern of 6 horizontal panels. We’ll see.



Putting them together was a challenge because I didn’t bother to smooth out the bottoms. As I said, this is the very last of the burl slab and the bottoms are very rough and uneven because it looks like this was cut out with a chain saw. I mean that literally. When I was adding the molding on to the sides they tended to wobble around a lot.

To compound the problem, I didn’t do the best job at measuring the molding when I made it. I thought each piece would be enough to do either 2 long sides or 4 short sides. Well, when it came time to actually start cutting and assembling, each piece was, in reality, an inch too short to do either of those things. I thought I had several extra pieces, but as it turned out I had no extra pieces! It was a nail-biter. One bad cut and I would have run out. Of course, I could always make more, but it’s a bit of a process. It takes 2 different router bits and a pass on the table saw for each piece. I got lucky.

Tomorrow, hopefully, I can start putting together the panel. Then I will get some idea of how this will come out. I can always go back to glass.


Edit: After reading this post my subconscious mind just kicked me in the head. What I SHOULD have done was use this as the lower panel and made 6 small drawers and then had the tile panel on the upper section. Oh well, too late. There is no way in hell I'm going to dismantle the lower cabinets.

This will haunt me for the rest of my life, though. No question: I'm must sell this house the day I finish it.