An Oak Home Office

We've just fitted an oak home office in a house not too far from us, it was nice having a short drive to the house to fit. The past few jobs have been a fair drive away. The folks were looking to get rid of all of there mis matched units that they picked up here and there when they were needed so I done a couple of designs. They chose the one that would work out best and we got to it.

We used oak veneer and solid oak and finished it off in wax finish, we used BriWax, it's a good wax. The shelves that you see are fixed and the shelves inside are adjustable, I'm going to add more shelves to the inside when they know exactly how much they need. 

The drawers were done with a dovetail joint, we done it with a jig and router, not by hand. It would have been nice to take the time and do it by hand but we needed to get it done quicker than that would take. When I retire to a small Italian village I'll do all dovetails by hand. My friend Alan came up to help for a weekend, it took us about 2 hours to get the jig all set up but once we got it set up it worked great.

To put the cabinets together I will nearly always use the Festool Domino and join them with the domino and glue, I'll screw them too if you won't be seeing the sides of the cabinet. This seems to work good for aligning and for strength too. I usually make jigs for each job if necessary, I'll make the jig and write some sizes on it then add the name of the job to remind me incase I have a similar job in the future. I use Titebond 3, it's probably expensive as far as glue goes but I like it, it's a good glue.

Sorry for the selfie but the place get pretty crowded when I do a job like this, I've got the idea for an extension to the front and that will pretty much double my space, I have no dreams of turning into a massive workshop with staff and churning out the same stuff over and over again. I want to do one off commissions as well as my own furniture, the space I have is prefect for that, no rent, no commute and a loch view. I'm staying! I still manage in this space but everyone wants more space. Once this job was fitted we moved stuff around, we like to call it space management. It works well now.

I like to use the domino and a tongue and groove for doors and drawer fronts. I think the T&G would suffice but adding a domino isn't too much more work and I know that once all the glue is set that they're solid. I'm honestly not a Festool fanboy, well maybe a bit but not everything I own is Festool, I like a few of the tools that they make, they're expensive but it makes work and life just a bit easier. Maybe they don't make life easier but they make work easier.

And the pictures above are of it fitted. It worked out nice. You're always learning doing this for a living. Learning on how to make the install quicker, learning on easier ways to lay on the face frame so when the cabinets go together it's smoother in terms of fitting hassle and time. I suppose thats the path we're on, to keep learning on every piece and eventually you might build one perfect thing.

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Until next time.