The guest room in our new place needed a pair of nightstands that were sized to fit the space. We previously were using a pair of old IKEA Malm three drawer nightstands that originally had a particular storage purpose at the old house, but they were too large for the new guest room and honestly, not in line with the style of the room. So it was time to make replacements.

These tables are based on the same design that I've been using for years which stems from Thos Moser's design published in one of his books of shop drawings. It's a typical Shaker influenced table. I've used this design for square end-tables as well as longer and narrower hall/sofa tables, etc. It's very adaptable. Some have drawers; some have shelves; some, like these just have a simple apron all around. Most have the underside of the table top beveled to lighten the look, but I did not do that on these. The very first iterations of this table years ago were made with mortise and tenon, but honestly, I haven't done that since. While some may scream bloody murder, I just use pocket screws and glue for the aprons to legs and for this kind of small stuff, it's more than strong enough for my purposes. I've detailed the construction multiple times her in previous projects, so I'm not going to repeat that. It's easy.

For this project, I chose to use some leftover VG Douglas Fir, both because I had just the right amount available for two tables and because it was an opportunity to see what the results would be with dye for coloration. I didn't use any coloration previously on this species but wanted to match the tables to other elements in the room; primarily picture frames. It worked. The other thing about this project was I'm back to a cabinet saw in the temporary shop, rather than the slider that I'm used to, so it was necessary to create a crosscut sled for some component cutting and re-jigger my leg tapering jig back to its original form to run along the fence. The nice folks up in Buffalo NY had just returned the two 10" WW-II blades I had them recondition, so cutting was very clean and there was not a whole lot of sanding necessary prior to finishing. Dimensions are 400mm x 400mm for the tops and the height is just over 700mm. Aprons are 100mm tall. Finish is transtint dye in water, SealCoat barrier to help with grain raise and because top coats would be brushed on and Varathane oil based polyurethane brushed on; two coats on the bases and three coats on the tops. (No spraying in my temporary shop due to space, etc.)

I did take a few photos along the way and will post them here along with shots of the finished work. Enjoy!

Quick and dirty working out the apron dimensions on a scrap of MDF

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Tapering jig doing it's tapering thing...I made this back in the early to mid 2000s specifically for this design...

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Components sanded and ready for assembly

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Base assembled and legs leveled. Only a very slight adjustment was needed

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"Beauty shot" pre-finishing

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Assembling tops to bases after finishing is complete

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Done!

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Installed!

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