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Apply layers of milk paint to add depth and contrast to your work. A visitor asked, “Paint over wood? Aren’t you obscuring wood’s natural beauty?” There are two assumptions behind these [...]

Learn to make your own and you’ll never have to compromise your design. Bandings and stringing are a dramatic and exciting way to dress up your period furniture. I see them as a way to highlight [...]

Early 20th-century filmmakers used time-lapse photography to dazzle audiences with never-before-seen images of flowers emerging and bursting into bloom. Critics with Victorian sensibilities [...]

Design without compromise: An exercise in high-end handwork. Sometimes a cup of tea is more than a cup of tea. Its surface may be still, its color translucent and its container unadorned. But in [...]

An embellished lid is your woodworking calling card. Embellished tool chests are perhaps the quintessential calling card of the cabinetmaker. From Benjamin Seaton’s mahogany and tulipwood [...]

Invisible lines and circles explain the beauty of a series of fair curves. I can still remember Holloway’s farmhouse. Even in summer when the fireplace was cold, the smell of wood smoke lingered [...]

The black stallion’s name was Step. Marvin, the only man I ever saw ride him, called him simply “the horse,” his raspy Southern voice pausing for emphasis. I was 5 years old the first time I laid [...]

  Empirical, not Imperial, is the measure of the pre-industrial maker. In this article I’m going to show how I design a simple piece of furniture whilst immersed in the mindset of the [...]

  A little geometry and a simple prototype ensure a pleasant ride. I recently set out to design and build a new rocking chair. I’ve designed and built a handful of rockers, but my past [...]

Designing the process can be as challenging as designing the object. The way something looks is only the first half of a design problem. How to make it and how to make it efficiently are often [...]

 ‘Crossettes’ in the corners add flair to this mirror or picture frame Architectural elements on which intersecting vertical and horizontal members extend beyond a simple lapped or mitered joint [...]

Three variations on a carved foot offer high style. Access to information provides the modern woodworker with greater variety, and it challenges their skills more than their 18th-century [...]