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Pine Nightstands

We were still in the Twin Mountain house when I first started to think about building these nightstands.  I envisioned stands attached to the headboard I built with the size determined by our bedroom dimensions and windows, but I couldn't come up with a design that was reasonably functional and wasn't overly large.  I put the project aside and, before I got back to it, we were in Kansas.

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Our bedroom was close to the same dimensions in Kansas, but there were no windows on either side of the bed.  However, I still couldn't come up with an attached design that I liked.  I moved on to a simpler solution and designed free standing, unattached nightstands.  They would be made out of pine to match the wood used for the headboard, but that's as far as the "attachment" went.

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The design for the nightstands was simple, a top that was larger than previous nightstands we had (the previous nightstands are heirlooms from my parents' house), a single large drawer, and a lower shelf.  I decided that the tops would not be identical; they would have a distinctive design all their own. 

Pine, in this case knotty pine, is difficult to exactly match pieces if you want poly as the finish.  There are too many variations in the wood unless you want to pay for "select" pine, and all that does is make sure the wood is boring.  As long as the wood wasn't going to match, I decided the tops shouldn't match either. â€‹â€‹

Who Belongs to Each Nightstand

It was my decision to design the tops of the nightstands with different patterns, but it was Nancy's decision concerning who got which design.  She picked out the diamond design: she has always liked diamonds.  I got the other one.

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This is another tabletop where I used Miller dowels to attach the top to the support frame.  I used the lightest Miller dowel, beachwood dowels, but they ended up darker than the pine.  I think the grain of the dowel tends to allow a little more saturation of the poly and that darkens it a little. 

 

Here's another case where I just decided to go with it.  The dowels are obviously visible, but, as long as they're installed symmetrically, I think they add to the character of the design.  And, yes, it was also the easiest way to do it. 

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A year or so later, it was Cohen's and Griffin's turn to get one of my furniture pieces.  They wanted nightstands.  I showed them our pine nightstands above as a starting point for the discussion about how they wanted them designed, and the discussion stopped there.  They wanted their nightstands to be just like our nightstands.  They even chose the same top pattern:  Cohen chose the diamond and Griffin chose the cross.

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In tables I built after these, I used the Miller dowels on the drawer faces and single thickness tops.  The dowels can be seen on the drawer to the left.  No dowels are seen on the drawer to the right.  I attached the drawer to the right using biscuit joints.  This method works fine, but over time I just swapped over to using the Miller dowels.

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Please notice on the drawer to the left that there are three dowels near the top edge of the drawer.  This is for symmetry.  The drawer attached to the face has sides and a bottom, but the top is open (wouldn't be a particularly functional drawer if wasn't open).  The top three dowels match the overall dowel pattern and provides a better look.

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