Is this clunky or clean?

[George Gibbs]

I like the design and absolutely love the wood. I too would have used different hardware, but the only opinion that really counts is your wife's.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Check out all the iconic Arts & Crafts pieces by Stickley and contemporaries. No frilly bits.

[Dave Anthony]

Thanks for all the feedback. My friends and wife tend to say everything I make looks great which is nice, but doesn't help me to grow and develop as a woodworker. My wife picked the hardware, and I don't own a lathe. Also, turned knobs wouldn't get executive approval, though wooden handles might. I kind of like that idea, though I have no clue how to design and make such a thing. I thought I would get criticism for not using thicker stock such as 8/4 for the legs and doing a taper: apparently making everything out of 4/4 and having straight legs with an open "L" at the bottom isn't as bad as I thought (4/4 was what was available when I was purchasing lumber). I'm currently building the twin dresser. These are the changes I made with the current project, and what I would have done differently on the 1st with the benefit of hindsight.

1. 6/4 stock was available this time. I made a new resaw fence, adjusted the bandsaw and and managed to get 7/16" panels after glue up and sanding to get a true book match. The 6/4 stock was 1 1/4" thick, so I lost 3/8". In hindsight, I should have resawed the left panel on the 1st dresser to get matching panels on the left and right. This is a slipmatch from two adjacent boards, and they were the boards with the most curl and character. I doubted my ability to resaw and glue up to get a 1/4" panel, so both panels are 3/4". The right side panel is nice enough, but kind of vanilla. If I lost the same 3/8" from 3/4" stock I'd have had two 3/8" matching panels for the sides, and I think with the right cauls I could get a successful glue up.

2. I agree, the doors don't match well, and the left door is less than ideal. I tried to use the remainder of the two boards which made up the left side panel for the doors. The right hand door had two large knots which I filled with black epoxy. (It's leaning against one of the side panels for dresser #2 and the glued up panel stock for doors #3 and #4 in the picture below). I decided the knots clashed to much and went back to the wood store. After going through the entire stack I found exactly one board with curl/character; two pieces of this board glued together became the right hand door. In retrospect if I'd resawed it I could have gotten two matching doors - not book matched, but both exhibiting the curl.

3. I may play around with using a top with a larger overhand and some king of molding. This would make the top rail look less heavy, and I could use the top for dresser #1 as an inner shelf for dresser #2.

4. I may try to make wooden handles. Not really sure where to start, but it seems like a good skill to have, and done properly, I can see how it could add a lot to the piece.

Again, thanks to everyone who commented.

Kind regards,

Dave

Door 001.jpgPanels.jpgResaw fence.jpg

[Brian Holcombe]

Dave,

I would go the other way with the top, I think it should overhang the carcass by something like 1/8".

I think the wooden handles would be great if they were the full length of the doors, but very thin with a routed groove. Same for the drawers, but the full width.

Similar to this except much thinner.
cb-32-wall-drawers-yellow-detail-01-h.jpg

[Tom Sontag]

It is possible to be stylish within the confines of extreme simplicity. I suggest you study the Shaker aesthetic, one which eschewed all decoration but managed (often) to be elegant and beautiful. Mid century scandinavian, or Danish Modern, also kept ornamentation to a minimum and came away with some gorgeous stuff. Krenov's work builds on this idea, but he (correctly IMO) uses very subtle curves in place of straight lines. There are asian tansu pieces with lots of right angles that spiff up the look with interesting hardware, which is the effect your wife seems to like. Buy some books.

[Art Mulder]

I think the only thing I would change (besides the hardware) would be that I would have done a full round over on the edges of the top,

Make wooden pulls.

I really like about 95% of it.
...
The only other thing I would have personally done differently is I would have chosen some different pieces for the doors, and maybe one of the legs. For example, the right door frame really looks nothing like the left door frame and the stiles on the right frame have a distracting, streaky look to them. Ditto for the legs. I probably would have turned the leg on the right front to bury the streaky grain on he inside of piece. The left door is book matched, accentuating a feature that doesn't look good book matched in my opinion, and the right door is absolutely gorgeous wood except it's either not book matched or it's haphazardly book matched.

I also mostly agree with John. But only mostly. (You know you're getting lots of competing opinions!!!)

Regarding the hardware... There are umpteen bazillion different choices out there. This one is kind of growing on me. But it is easily changed, so if you ever do want a different look, you could just buy some new pulls.
I strongly disagree with the guys who suggest wooden pulls. You have some highly figured wood here, and I think it would be very challenging to make wooden pulls to go with them. I think a nice subtle contrast like you have with the satin nickel (or Stainless steel) look of the pulls works better. I would probably have started with a plain rod (ie: like your pulls but without the knot) and then tried comparing a bunch of others until I found one that LOML liked...

Regarding the roundover on top... My choice would be to make the top just a touch wider, and then relieve the bottom of it so that is is thinner at the edge. I drew this in on the photo below, in case you don't get what I mean.

And finally, Like John I noticed the door panels. I wasn't sure how much was just the photography, as I know it is VERY hard to get good photos of shiny/glossy stuff. The one other thing I would have done is picked straighter grain for that horizontal piece under the doors (noted on the photo below). I like to pick fairly straight grain for the stiles and rails and legs, and put the wilder grain on the door panels and the drawer fronts.

dresser-mod.jpg

[John Coloccia]

You know why an exercise like this is so useful? Because of the work i do, people get up close and personal with my work, handle it, examine it, etc. I'm always surprised at the large (to me) glaring faults that no one notices, and I'm always surprised at the insignificant details that stick right out to people. It's good to get an idea of what people actually look for.