The wife asked me to replace our 20 year old Walmart coat & shoe station that sits near our entry way. We always called it a "hutch" which isn't probably an accurate term, but it stuck.
The goal with the new hutch was to leave more of our 1902 farmhouse stone wall visible, while also adding functionality with upper cubbies and lower shoe organizer.
Installed 1.jpg Installed 2.jpg Upper closeup 2.jpg Bench interior.jpg
Edit: Those looking closely will notice where I accidentally cut a dado in the wrong spot. For a customer, I would have rebuilt the part... for our own use, we figured leaving an imperfection in would be a good test of which of our friends/family notice (and are brave enough to mention it to me). Ha!
I got the notion early on that I was going to use tons of breadboard ends in this project... the panels of the bench affix to the legs with breadboards, and most other panels in the piece feature breadboards ends as well. I contrasted dark wood with light pins, and vice versa. The grain on the front & side panels of the bench are from the same panel for a wrap around grain look.
Contrasting pins 1.jpg Bench 3.jpg
For the bench, this was no problem. For the upper portion, lots of competing wood movement to consider - I managed this with selective glue/no-glue zones within the dado areas, and will keep an eye on it. If I were to build it again, I'd consider sliding dovetails instead, but for our own use (and being a prototype designed on the fly) I think we'll be ok.
The hooks were needlessly complicated as a distraction from work stressI affixed a sliding dovetail first, slid the hook over later, and pinned through the whole thing to finish it off. The sliding dovetail really does nothing for the strength of it, but I was having fun trying techniques.
Hooks 1.jpg Hooks 2.jpg
Reply With Quote
