Bedroom Set
Shop Sounds
Want to watch this video without commentary?
Click the button below and you’ll be taken to the shop sounds channel.
What started out as a great idea quickly became a living nightmare of a project. Now, the main problem with this project was that both of the dressers were outside of my skill level of woodworking. Until this point, I had never attempted to build anything that large and to be honest I didn’t fully understand the technical side of building pieces that are able to support the amount of weight that is needed in a dresser. Looking back on this project, if I had only done one dresser at a time I would have been able to more easily fix the problems in the design and overall the project would’ve been much easier, but this project also taught me not to over-extend myself.
Now the other problem here is that I don’t know what else to share about this project other than is was a miserable experience. It took place over far too much time and my choice to condense it all into a single video turned out to be horrible for the business. The one upside to this project is that it taught me that I don’t want to do custom commissions and instead, I want to put my efforts towards learning as much as I can about woodworking and then sharing that knowledge with others.
Project Details
Primary Wood: White Oak
Secondary Wood: Black Walnut
Finish: Tried & True Varnish Oil
Structural Joinery: Pinned Mortise & Tenon
Drawer Joinery: Through Dovetails
Key Lessons
Be careful not to over-extend yourself in a large project, take things slow and have a good plan in place
Pay attention to how weight will be distributed and make sure each area is properly supported with vertically oriented pieces
Detailed Plans
Purchase the downloadable plans
which includes the 3D SketchUp model & 4 bonus models
The nightstands are a great small project and unlike the dresser came out really well!
Dresser Plans
I’ve included these plans for free because the problems in the designs are a good learning opportunity for everyone.
With some redesign you could make these dressers stable, the only issue with the structure is that weight of the top sections is not distributed properly so there is some bending in those stretchers. I was able to stabilize the dressers by using a plywood back panel but that was a quick fix to the flawed design.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND BUILDING THESE DRESSERS FOLLOWING THE PLANS BELOW
Support the Craft
If you found these plans helpful and would like to show your support, feel free to leave a donation using the button below.
Any amount helps, and please know that I genuinely appreciate any support you can provide!