 
POSH PLACE FOR PORT Construction is put on hold several times before final completion. SHOP OWNER: Steven Odut LOCATION: Calgary, Alberta, Canada This is a small wine cabinet I built for my Mother-in-law that I finished five years after I started it. There was a matching wall cabinet planned, but the extended construction period caused by the birth of my two daughters has forced me to postpone the wall cabinet. 
Below is a shot of the original design sketched up while on an airplane. I followed up with detailed drawings to work out the proportions and dimensions. The cabinet is 28” tall, 26 ¼” wide, and 17 ¼” deep. 
I bought a small wine rack to fit in the bottom of the cabinet rather than make a built-in rack so that the cabinet may be used for a different purpose in the future. 
The cabinet is made of solid cherry, with cherry, cherry crotch, and maple burl veneers hammered onto Baltic birch panels. 
The knobs are from African Blackwood, and the Krenov-style door catches are cocobolo. 
The drawer slides on maple runners, has poplar sides, an aromatic cedar bottom, and I finally used up a piece of twisty old curly birch for the drawer divider. 
The finish is a mish-mash due to the extended construction period, but is mostly a coat of shellac, followed by dyed shellac for toning, then two coats of gloss water based lacquer, and one coat of satin water based lacquer (Target EM6000). I only recently started using the satin topcoat and I really like the sheen. I started out with a French polish finish but eventually scrapped that as my spraying skills improved over the years I spent trying to complete this project. I also found the finish on older pieces that I had French polished were being damaged by water stains, scratches, lamp impressions, etc., whereas the Target finishes have been much more durable. 
This is the first time I started with 8/4 stock for all the door pieces and re-sawed book-matched stiles and rails for all the doors. 
On the doors I used Brusso knife hinges (a first for me), and Krenov-style door stops (another first for me). 
The knobs are attached using through wedged tenons. For the drawer, the tenon diameter is 7/16". 
The top is ¾” thick but uses steep bevels on the underside to give a lighter appearance. 
Here the veneer is softening and awaiting selection for panels. 
Drawer slips were used to hold the drawer bottom. I put a false divider at the rear of the drawer to give people a warning before the drawer is completely pulled out, also forming a small hidden compartment. The inside of the drawer is finished with lavender-scented wax, giving a wonderful aroma when the drawer is opened. 
Everything that could go wrong with this project did, and there is one flaw that I didn’t fix too well. I sanded through a run in a dye-coat and I just said, “I gotta finish this thing”, and used a touch-up pen to hide the flaw as best I could. The inspiration for the design of my cabinet was from this photograph that I copied from the Internet years ago. However, I did not record who built it. 
And a final shot showing the disaster that was my shop in 2009 when we reorganized the house and cleaned the carpets before my second daughter was born. If you look carefully you can find bits and pieces of this cabinet strewn about the place. . . .
GolfSteve in Calgary
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