I ladder-style bookshelf for a neighbor comprising a solid oak frame, and quartersawn oak panels and hardwood edging for the shelves, and a large drawer a the bottom:
The frame itself is joined with half-lap joints and dowels; the shelves and drawers are simply attached via screws which were later covered by oak plugs in case the unit ever needs to be disassembled:
The drawer was made in my now-preferred style in which the frame is itself serves as the trim, and the panels are embedded, rather than the traditional approach of building a plywood box and adding trim afterwards. I also like having the panels inset, including the drawer front, which gives the box a nice symmetry around the front and the sides. Here it is outside on its way to the neighbor’s house:
The whole piece was finished with a few coats of Arm-R-Seal satin. Here it is in progress before any finish was applied:
I made many mistakes along the way – for example, I didn’t apply edge banding to the shelves until after I’d cut them to fit in the frame. That meant that I had to add the edge banding only to the awkwardly shaped exposed part, as shown here:
But you can’t tell unless you really look closely. In the end, the neighbor was overjoyed with the result.
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