Better than IKEA anyway

[JayZeus]

A work in progress.

MDF. Horrible stuff but it has its place. In this case a hallway bench and storage box in a useful sort of size. Enough space underneath for shoes and ankle height boots, enough space inside for whatever usually clutters the entry area. The swedes have some options but they’re too small and too shite to bother with.

18mm MDF, legs made with offcuts of beech and put together with ‘floating tenons’, in this case 12 x 100 dominos. I have the machines so I’ll use them. Those are attached through the base with M8 bolts using 20mm washers on the underside, in tidy recessed holes using a fantastic old Zobo forstner bit, secured with T-nuts inside.

Legs tapered before assembly using a super simple jig made from offcuts on the Sawstop equipped TKS 80. I’m loading up on the details to help people find Gubu, hopefully! They’re set at 30 degrees after a mug of tea and a bit of messing with protractors and giving the whole thing a hard look at from about 10 foot away.

Gave it a couple of coats of Astra shellac from Dictum (the lads in Naas have similar) to stop the poxy MDF drinking paint when the project gets to that point.

A pair of piano hinges to attach the tops, set into 1mm rebates to keep it neat, with a centre support made with more scraps and offcuts. Hinge on outside of the base because screws into the edge of MDF is a fools errand. If you haven’t done it, don’t!

I like their meatballs and their memory foam matresses are good value, but I’m done giving the big blue cardboard shop any money for short lived pieces of furniture.

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[Norman Breaks]

Nice piece there.
I hear you on the short lived furniture. Their Kallax used to be a must have for anyone with a decent size record collection. But they changed them up. They are much flimsier now. I got a few recently to replace some water damaged shelving and they are close to feather light now and even when built correctly and tightened up, still have a sway to them. Not as good as the older version.

[kadman]

Do i detect a slight tendency towards a scandinavian influence, or is that just me reading too many krenov articles. Or perhaps ercol even.

Nice .solid, and easy on the eye. I like it

[CelticRambler]

Apart from the MDF, it reminds me of the style produced by yerman with the fancy workbench.

My front room (don't have a hallway) needs one of those; it's been on the To Do (Eventually) list for a long time, but I reckon I'll have moved out to the chicken shed before it gets done.

[JayZeus]

Do i detect a slight tendency towards a scandinavian influence, or is that just me reading too many krenov articles. Or perhaps ercol even.

Nice .solid, and easy on the eye. I like it

I like fairly simple lines on most furniture, which would certainly lean more towards Danish, Swedish and Finnish designers from the last century if there’s anything of a formal influence. But it’s not a deliberate pursuit, just something that’s crept in a bit.

And while I’ll criticise the way a lot of IKEA furniture ends up, there’s a wealth of design influence to be found in their stores and catalogues. I’ve some boards set aside to make a couple of lounge chairs over the winter and I’ll basically copy an IKEA chair and build it to last a lifetime instead.