Though not traditional, router patterns make quick work of the inlay. In southeastern Pennsylvania, just northwest of Philadelphia, is Chester County. It was one of the original three counties formed by William Penn in 1682, under a charter signed by King Charles II. In 1729, a large portion of the western county was split off…

This useful tool is easy to make, easy on the eyes and awesome to use. Wooden layout tools usually are superior to metal ones in my opinion. They are lightweight, inexpensive and as accurate as woodworking requires. Period. A 36″-long wooden straightedge can easily be trued to be as accurate as a metal machinist’s straightedge,…

It’s easy to get caught in the trap of design by formula. But if art were simply a matter of ratios, a paint-by-number Mona Lisa would be just as good as the one hanging in the Louvre Museum. The curves and lifts that exemplify the work of Charles and Henry Greene are a good example…

Use unconventional techniques to create a traditional tea caddy. England began to import tea about the middle of the 17th century. When first introduced, tea was expensive, so it was a drink affordable only to the wealthy. That, of course, was an invitation to smugglers who, during the next 100 years, drove down the cost…

This simple modular shelf offers plenty of options for reconfiguration. Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the December 2012 issue of Popular Woodworking. One symptom of my pervasive early 20s restlessness is that I regularly overhaul my apartment, completely rearranging the furniture and décor once a month or so. It’s not so much that…

I was looking for a safer way to use my trim router for everyday chores around the shop. My solution was to build a router table that hangs off the end of my bench on a French cleat. When I’m not using the router table, I store it under the end of the bench on…

Steam-bending or bent laminations can be used to make this eye-catching design. The design of this table is part of a series that I revisit from time to time. The original concept for the series was based on a pinwheel (a common example of which is a child’s pinwheel on a stick that blows in…

Three variations on a carved foot offer high style. Access to information provides the modern woodworker with greater variety, and it challenges their skills more than their 18th-century counterparts. When we consider how fashion-conscious both producers and consumers were in the 1700s, it’s truly amazing to think how quickly the word spread of stylistic changes…

Expose your joinery skills with this Arts & Crafts classic. In the early 1900s, furniture maker Gustav Stickley began producing a unique style of furniture that he called “Craftsman.” At the time, the world was coming into the modern industrial age, and Stickley, among others, began to question the value of mass-produced furniture and its…

Campaign-style furniture is as sturdy and simple as Shaker. It is as masculine as Arts & Crafts. And it is free of adornment, like Bauhaus pieces. Yet many woodworkers are unaware of this furniture style, which was popular for more than 150 years in Great Britain, its colonies and North America. Perhaps the problem is…

This North Carolina beauty exemplifies the style of the early South. I don’t consider myself a furniture snob, but until recently, I’d not studied furniture from the South beyond pieces featured in “Southern Furniture 1680-1830: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection” by Ronald L. Hurst and Johnathan Prown (Colonial Williamsburg). After spending a few days combing through…

This small coffee table is a great introduction to building furniture. It doesn’t require much material and it’s an opportunity to develop your skills. This project is sturdy, attractive and easy to build. All of the parts come from standard widths of lumber. I used poplar from my local home center, and I made the…

Learning to work with veneers and curves enables you to design and build almost anything. This bow-front entry table serves as a good introduction to both – without costing a small fortune or requiring you to attempt an overly intimidating project. Veneer introduces to you to a world of beautiful grain patterns and species that…

Many countries have their own woodworking traditions, which are often a combination of mythology and ideology. The Japanese  are no exception, and those traditions are part of the foundation of my work. There is a temple that ancient Japanese carpenters built. Its columns, hewn from trees, are positioned as when each was a standing tree….

All these years, my assistant, Laure Olender, has not only been working with me doing woodwork, she also takes photographs (including those in this article), edits my articles and assists me at lectures and demonstrations. I thought she was ready to do her own large project from beginning to end. I brought up several traditional…