Bookcases, Shelves & Cabinets

I am a beginning cabinetmaking student at a local community college and technical institute here in Minneapolis. After taking a year of classes, I decided to work on reinforcing my newly acquired skills over the summer hiatus by making some built in closets for our bedroom. Using what I'd learned in my drafting for cabinetmakers class and after considering what my husband and I really needed by way of a built-in, I designed a nice modular unit. Woodsmith's Bookcases, Shelves and Cabinets helped me keep on course with the project, acting like an instructor. A number of projects illustrated in the book helped me design some of the parts that I wanted to include in my own design. I wanted simple finger hole drawers (p. 16-19) for the inside of the upper part of the closet which would be hidden behind doors, and larger more finished looking drawers for the lower closet. For the latter I redesigned some of the modular cabinets (pp. 94-105), using the case work the authors show and putting in drawers instead of shelves. The doors illustrated for these cabinets also provided me with a template with which to design the doors for the upper cabinets in my own design. The book includes a number of truly lovely projects, some for bookshelves, an armoire, and a corner cabinet that I'd like to try, but I think those will have to wait awhile. While some of the plans for jigs for making repeated parts easier to process were very interesting, I think I'll wait to consult with my instructor in the fall before trying them. The exploded views of all the patterns and the suggestions for alterations to the designs make the book fully understandable even to a novice like myself. I look forward to using some of the ideas and techniques in future designs for my classes next year. Really a terrific book.