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…

Gerrit Rietveld’s simple design for a lounge chair is a great platform for exploring ergonomics. PROJECT #2005 • Skill Level:Beginner • Time: 4 hours • Cost: $50 Gerrit Rietveld was a Dutch furniture designer and architect that worked in the first half of the 20th century. Part of the De Stijl art movement, Rietveld’s furniture…

  Many interesting pieces of furniture are deceptively simple. Deceptive, because although they appear simple, they are actually very difficult to make. Although this is occasionally true in my own work, that’s not the case with the Arch Table, a piece that looks more complicated to make than it actually is. I’m not saying it’s…

Wood is the starting point of inspiration for these boxes infused with the past. In my mind, this article goes to the root of why we work wood. It is about the philosophy of creating things in wood and the approach more so than the technical application of skill. Back in 1993, I spent nine…

Simple tools, techniques, and joinery deliver elegant results. It’s the stuff of arguments: Which tools in the shop are really the most important for joinery? It’s almost like arguing the top movie or the best shortstop of all time. There is no one answer that satisfies everyone (although “The Maltese Falcon” and “Ernie Banks” should)….

At 6 am, the bathroom is yours, because everyone else is asleep. So rather than rushing, why not pamper yourself with a great shave? Forget cold foam from a can. Instead, massage your face by applying hot, soothing lather with an old-style shaving brush that perfectly fits your hand. Then switch to a razor that’s…

As the old saying goes, sometimes you have to learn to walk before you can run. That’s certainly been true in my career as a cabinetmaker: I’ve tried to learn the basics on small projects, where I could afford to make mistakes, before tackling the really ambitious work that I’ve had my heart set on…

Remember Lincoln Logs? When I was a kid, my friends and I spent hours building cabins and forts with them. Lincoln Logs locked together, one on top of another, just like the real deal. They were my first introduction to wood joinery. While playing with them, I must have learned something that stuck with me…

Unique because of its appearance and easy to build because it’s constructed using basic woodworking techniques, this two-part cabinet provides copious storage and signals the work—and the shop—of a true craftsman. The two cabinets share the same features and joinery, so building them simultaneously offers economy when milling the parts. But either cabinet would make…

This project first appeared in the August 2011 issue. For me, one of the most perfect shapes ever designed is the general-purpose incandescent light bulb. While some people use the word “mushroom” to describe its profile, I’ve never seen a fungus with such sinuous and perfect curves. The most elemental light bulb combines a sphere…

Coffee tables didn’t exist as a furniture form until the 1920s  (when they were known as cocktail tables). So while there is no true Shaker coffee table, I needed a table to put in front of my couch that would work well with the other Shaker-influenced furniture in my living room. And to my mind,…

  From 1977-1983 I made my living as a studio furniture designer and maker. In addition to making furniture, I found most of the hand tools available at the time so uninspiring and inconsistent with the craftsmanship values I was trying to impart in my furniture, that I made my own. The roots of my…

The editors present some of their favorite designs. Whether we spend most of our time building 18th-century highboys, production cabinetry or toys for our kids and grandchildren, we all build small boxes from time to time. Because we produce so many small offcuts of beautifully grained and highly figured woods, to do otherwise would be…

I had this blog entry on the back burner for quite some time now. But, as our current unprecedented set of events has unfolded so rapidly, it became imperative for me to finish and publish it as soon as I could.  For the last few months I was trying out a few models of half-face…