This mahogany Arts & Crafts desk chair exemplifies furniture as art. Most woodworkers are familiar with Arts & Crafts designers William Morris, Gustav Stickley and Charles and Henry Greene. But Charles Rohlfs’ inspiring work is a bit less well-known. Rohlfs, trained as a designer and draftsman, spent his early years designing iron stoves and dabbling…

Dress Up Your Custom Furniture With Custom Knobs Why would you ever make your own when you can buy them for less than a buck? I can think of many reasons. One is wood choice: many knobs are only available in oak, birch/ maple and sometimes pine, cherry and walnut. Perhaps the best reason is…

An anachronism in its time, this table now fits perfectly in our homes. Frank Lloyd Wright would probably be dismayed to see a coffee table built in his Prairie furniture style. In fact he and his fellow early 20th-century designers all would have been disturbed by the concept of a coffee table. Eating or drinking…

This small rack rolls easily to anywhere you need it. There is an old saying in woodworking that you can’t have too many clamps. While this is true, it is entirely possible to have too many clamps in the wrong place at the wrong time. The last thing I want to do in the midst…

This classic Stickley ottoman oozes Craftsman style, but don’t let its simple form fool you—it packs in some great woodworking.  Project #2221 • Skill Level: Intermediate • Time: 4 Days • Cost: $150 Named for a neighborhood in Syracuse, New York, this Gustav Stickley footstool design was an instant favorite. Originally sold with a massive Eastwood…

Art Nouveau meets Arts & Crafts in this oval-topped piece. Although he died in poverty, the Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s furniture now sells for tens of thousands of dollars at auction. Part of the appeal of his work comes from the sheer variety of his designs, which range in style from Art Nouveau to…

This classic Stickley ottoman oozes Craftsman style, but don’t let its simple form fool you—it packs in some great woodworking.  Project #2221 • Skill Level: Intermediate • Time: 4 Days • Cost: $150 Named for a neighborhood in Syracuse, New York, this Gustav Stickley footstool design was an instant favorite. Originally sold with a massive Eastwood…

Art Nouveau meets Arts & Crafts in this oval-topped piece. Although he died in poverty, the Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s furniture now sells for tens of thousands of dollars at auction. Part of the appeal of his work comes from the sheer variety of his designs, which range in style from Art Nouveau to…

Build this timeless chair with modern methods. When I was 17 years old, my family had an old craftsman style armchair that we’d inherited years earlier. It was an antique chair with solid bones but badly in need of refinishing. It had all the right details, from the through tenons in the armrests to the…

Harvest green wood saplings, bend ’em, nail ’em and sit yourself down. You can make a pretty good case for bending and attaching green wood sticks as the second oldest wood-furniture making method (after sitting on a log). Today, this type of furniture is labeled “rustic,” so exposed nails, screws, and other hardware are acceptable…

Uncomplicated construction and an easy, attractive finish make this table tops.

As you recall, a few months ago, I wrote about a beautiful chair made of solid mahogany that we bought and found out that it was sadly damaged during shipping. The vendor sent us a replacement, but I decided to fix the broken piece anyway so we could use it. At the time, I thought…

I felt like I won the storage-space lottery when I came up with this bench design for my shop. I wanted a way to store lumber and my benchtop tools. The backbones of this bench are the 2 x 4 frames. For my 8-ft. bench, I made four frames. The rest of the materials were…

Tool: 7 in. Carpenters Vise Shop Now   Manufacturer: Doyle MSRP: $69.99 I recently saved an old workbench from the scrap heap, and the first thing I knew it needed (after a good cleaning and flattening) was a vise. I wondered aloud to Logan if Harbor Freight had anything, then decided to check online. Just…

An 18th-century French workbench is quite possibly the most perfect design ever put to paper. In the 18th century it was common for the workrooms and living areas of a home to share the same space. A workbench, for example, would not be out of place in the front room of the house. This small…

Since I received my Benchcrafted Roubo workbench a year ago, my woodworking life has tremendously improved. My new and heavy bench (I wrote about it here and here) has 1” holdfast holes that can be fitted with the excellent Crucible tools ductile cast iron holdfast that Chris Schwarz makes. The 1” holes and the monumental…

The bench hook is without question one of the most indispensable tools in my wood shop. The force of gravity and the force of using the tool up against a solid fence is all that it takes to keep the work from moving. It’s deceptively sophisticated and exceptionally simple to make. It’s a great choice…

Modern hardware and techniques update this Tage Frid-inspired bench. Scandinavian- or Continental-style workbenches are the vinyl LP records of the woodworking world. These iconic benches have never left the scene. A few are classics and others are the flavor of the month. Some benches in this style are masterworks and some are poor approximations of…

Get organized fast with easy slat construction and versatile hangers. Whether you have an exquisite collection of antique tools or the latest in high-tech gear, this versatile wall rack stores them all within easy reach. It’s easy to build and adapts to fit virtually any wall space. The 48 in. by 48 in. rack shown…

Turn a contractor’s tool into a precision woodworking machine. I don’t know of too many woodworking shops, whether home or professional, that don’t have a miter saw as part of their equipment. A miter saw is a fine alternative to a radial-arm saw or circular saw for rough-cutting lumber. It’s also an accurate alternative to…

This small rack rolls easily to anywhere you need it. There is an old saying in woodworking that you can’t have too many clamps. While this is true, it is entirely possible to have too many clamps in the wrong place at the wrong time. The last thing I want to do in the midst…

Like many North American woodworkers, my shop is located in our two-car garage underneath the house. Most garages include two ceiling-mount bulb fixtures that accept a regular light bulb. While it’s possible to hire an electrician to add additional light fixtures, there’s another way to increase the brightness of the space. LED light fixtures, which…

When I first started teaching the 8th-grade stool-making class, I needed to find an easy method for my students to mark the leg length accurately before trimming them to a parallel surface with the seat. While there are various techniques available, such as using wedges to level the seat and scribing a line on the…

This centuries-old device is effective in use and simple to make. In my early years as a woodworker I was prejudiced against veneer – but experience has mellowed my opinion; I’ve realized building the period furniture pieces on my bucket list requires skills working with veneer and inlay. My burgeoning interest in traditional techniques made…

Separate, sort, and see your collection With just five different parts to make, this easy-to-build caddy accommodates bits with both 1/2″ and 1/4″ shafts. It can be customized to handle just about any collection. Long bits have plenty of room on the top shelf. The caddy stands solidly on its wide base, stores easily on…

Router table cabinets can be a waste of space. This compact, vise-mounted unit stores easily and is just the right size. I think it might have been seeing a $1,000 router table setup at a recent woodworking show (it’s very cool, but $1,000?). Or maybe it was realizing that our shop’s router table’s cabinet mostly…

An easy interlocking joint begets great strength and style.