Free Woodworking Plan: You Can Build a Bedside Table

On its to becoming an antique; our bedside table circa 1987.

One of my favorite woodworking projects has always been the bedside table I made about 25 years ago. We had purchased most of the furniture for the room - all made of pine, but when we were able to afford a matching side table, the furniture line had been discontinued. So, I decided to make one that incorporated design elements from what we had already purchased.

This table was challenging because many aspects of the project were firsts for me: my first attempt at raised panels, I had never included beads around the drawer and door openings, and as I recall, this was the first project which utilized bracket feet.

The other furniture in the room were all made of knotty pine (I was into knotty pine at the time), so I chose pine for this project. I have always liked the proportions: a nice balance between the height and width; the bracket feet aren't too big and I even like that the face frame stiles on the left and right sides have a little more width on them and they contain a nice chamfer as well.

I have replicated the process of building this table in my fifth woodworking plan titled You Can Build a Bedside Table. Also, this plan has been updated; instead of just showing you how it was built many years ago, I decided to incorporate a few design changes to reflect how I would build this table today.

To get an idea of what the project plan looks like, see some example pages below (click the images to enlarge):

I continue to look for ways to improve these plans I do and You Can Build a Bedside Table incorporates a couple of advancements. First, the plan incorporates true orthographic views, something I have never included before. These are basically straight ahead, two dimensional views which are useful when adding dimensions. Secondly, instead of one main exploded view, there are exploded views throughout the plan. You Can Build a Bedside Table is sixteen pages long and I include web based links for sources as well as more detailed information on how to complete certain tasks.

A super cool project plan experience - Sawtooth Ideas.com
You Can Build a Bedside Table is available as a free download from Sawtooth Ideas. This new site provides a unique way to view project plans. You can download them in the normal way; as a PDF file, but the plan becomes interactive with their IdeaRoom software. You can see the finished project in 3D, a 3D exploded view, and even zoom in and find dimensions for specific components, again in 3D. Best of all their IdeaRoom software is available for use on a mobile device like a smart phone or tablet.

To get this plan free at Sawtooth Ideas, click here.

See the completed bedside table as build by Ed M. by clicking here.

A note about my woodworking plans: I go to great lengths to organize them so they will be easy to follow. Prior to building a project, thoroughly read the plan and make sure you understand all of the process. If you find something to be confusing, all you have to do is email me so we can discuss it. My email address is jeffobranch@hotmail.com.

I hope you find this table to be a handsome project. And as always, I am interested in some feedback, so leave me a comment if you would like to. To view all of my woodworking plans, click here.

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My custom crown molding project is finished!

Paint and more paint: here a final change in plans - I paint the ceiling using a flat color.

I just walked into our home office to sit down at the computer; straight from the dining room where I have been renovating the ceiling there. A project that began on February 18, 2011 and even though the paint is still wet, I’m calling this one finished!

Why do I have to tackle such large projects? At least they are large for me, a weekend woodworker. I have not worked on my dining room ceiling continuously since early 2011. It came to a stop for six months while I built a queen size bed. I also launched two e-books during that time (I have my next e-book almost finished) and I did some extensive writing on SketchUp. But it has been a long project none the less.

Even though other things derailed my ceiling reno, it was always going to be a slow moving project; ceiling work is simply no fun. I think most projects which involve the frequent use of a ladder should be automatically categorized as no fun. Even though I did get a little enjoyment from seeing the project coming to completion, I had long ago become tired of looking at my progress.

What I have created though looks sooooo much better than what it once was: a typical popcorn textured ceiling minus crown molding. I never liked the original crown and had taken it down sometime in 2008. We don’t use our dining room much so no crown molding wasn’t a big deal. However it was an unfinished project which I wanted to put behind me. And so it is...

My favorite view of the completed project: I like how the molding wraps around the columns; the faux beams and my coffered ceiling project in the background.

In this photo: the long run of molding along the opposite wall. Nice, crisp paint.

A view showing the molding heading into a corner.

It will look even better when I get the dining room cleaned up; the floor vacuumed and all the furniture moved back in. The adjacent living room has served as storage space for our dining room furniture, so it is a wreck as well.

A review of a long project
Since this project began more than a year ago I thought I would dust off some of those early photos…

The process: mist the ceiling with a spray bottle and then scrape the texture off.

After scraping and sanding, the ceiling looks like this.

And the floor looks like this.

The process of removing the popcorn ceiling ranks as the single messiest home improvement job I have ever tackled (and I am no stranger to sanding sheetrock mud). It is worse than sheetrock work because taking down a textured ceiling requires scraping the stuff off and sheetrock work: sanding the original mud smooth.

I have decided that the real reason popcorn texture was ever used in home construction was to hide all the sheetrock mud which was never properly sanded in the first place.

Once the ceiling was smooth, I added a primer coat of paint and began the second phase of the project: adding faux beams.

An illustration of the beam layout.

Forming a lap joint.

The lap joints were utilized where the beams intersect.

I added quarter round molding to dress up the edges of the beams and to hide any gaps where the beams did not fit tight against the ceiling.

Most recently, I added the custom crown molding which was a chore unto itself. For the crown, I replicated a cornice molding found on an awesome breakfront piece shown in Fine Woodworking magazine more than twenty years ago (see it by clicking here). I selected extra dusty MDF for this part of the project and formed the crown mostly from built-up 1x stock.

After altering the crown profile about a million times, I settled in on what I called a "router friendly" design.

I then began the long and dusty process of forming the various layers of molding.

With some of the profile created, I began adding the moldings to the dining room.

Little by little, the crown molding comes to life.

Today
Bringing this project to completion has involved some fussing with both imperfections from the scraping process as well as inconsistent coverage of paint. The paint is a low luster satin, but even with such a slight sheen, I have had a hard time getting the ceiling to look good when light hits it from outside.

This was not an issue when all I had on the ceiling was flat primer. So, I bought some flat paint for the ceiling the same color as all the trim (Sherwin Williams 1102 Chenille White) and applied a coat, leaving the beams and molding satin (see the photo at the top of this post). Then at long last, I determined the project was finished!

On a side note; one aspect of the project that made me nervous was where the first and second row molding came together. These two boards needed to be flush where the routed edges met up. See below...

The red arrow shows where the two boards meet and it all went remarkably well. You really can't tell the sweep of molding is built up from two boards.
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Getting the long lengths of routed MDF to line up properly was critical to the success of the project. I used a pry bar to pull them into alignment in a few instances, but I was surprised how little I had to call on the pry bar for help. I used only a little joint compound to ensure a smooth transition between the two layers. No big deal really.

Thanks for following along with this project. It was long and at times a ton of work. I hope I did not gripe too much about ladder work, etc. Time now to begin thinking about my next project - I guarantee it will be something smaller. :)

To view all the posts on this project, click here.

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Have a question or comment? Leave yours by clicking on the "Comments - post yours here" link below. My email is jobranch@yahoo.com. Consider subscribing via email or RSS by clicking here.

Some popular projects:

1. Pediment picture frames. 2. The Coffee Table. 3. The TV Console project

Safety Week 2012: Don't let your guard down

This is Safety Week at the Woodwhisperer site – a time in which safety in the workshop is the focus. Such a topic is extremely important and I thought I'd share a couple of stories.

If you are a frequent woodworker, some processes within the shop become common place. Ripping a board on the table saw frequently becomes no big deal – the same is true for many of the operations I do with my band saw and to a lesser extent my router. The one tool that still scares me a little is the powered miter saw mainly because much more of a big spinning blade is in view and mine sits higher off the floor than my table saw. This means it is closer to my face. But all tools should be respected; be they power tools or hand tools.

I have been fortunate in that during nearly 30 years of woodworking I have not had a significant accident in my workshop. About the worst thing that has happened to me did not really involve a power tool. While cutting a somewhat long board with my miter saw, the heavy cut off fell to the floor with a heavy, sharp corner coming to rest on top of my bare foot. The pain was surprising; I wondered if I had fractured something. Not a major injury, but a stupid one for sure. The saw was not at fault, I simply had never taken the time to build a proper miter station which would support a board like this. Lessons learned: improve my miter saw station and don’t do woodworking barefooted (a new miter saw station will be an upcoming project of mine).

The most serious accident that has happened in my shop actually involved my father. He had stopped by the house to cut some boards and while doing some ripping, a thin cut off dropped into the throat of the table saw (see the photo above). With the saw still in operation, my Dad decided to remove the cut off. I could see this event unfolding from the driveway but the sound of the saw was greater than my screaming mouth, and the accident happened. The cut off made contact with the spinning blade and kicked back driving a nice sized splinter through two of his fingers. He could not pull them apart because the splinter was so long. But, after a trip to the doctor and some antibiotics, he made a full recovery.

Since that time, I have begun using a zero clearance insert with my table saw which eliminates this kind of problem (I should also find some kind of acceptable blade guard for my saw - mine came down almost immediately after getting my table saw.)

The point though is to avoid becoming complacent in the shop. The more woodworking you do, the odds are greater that an accident will happen, unless you work smart and respect the damage your tools can do.