Sunday, May 23, 2010

Bathroom Woodworking



A little over ten years ago we were finishing up an addition
 on our first house in Santa Fe, New Mexico
 and the last thing was a bathroom next to the upstairs bedroom.


 After all the hard work on the addition 
it was a pleasure to have some fun work.
 We sold that house years ago and last week we stopped by
 and Tara graciously let us in to see what we had left behind.


This bathroom was my favorite part of the house.
This cabinet is faced in walnut  left over from another project, 
and the side panel and the cabinet carcass are reused pine. 
The door panels are aspen ( which gives a nice contrast to the walnut )
 and the little handles are scraps of maple.


The counter is 3/4" Indiana limestone and the sink is from Stone Forest
 which imports hand carved granite products from China.
 I worked there for a couple of years off and on and part time
 in exchange for things like this sink. The faucet is for a utility sink 
and I fashioned a piece of brass to hold it to the sink.
 I had to scratch my head on that one for quite a while.


The paneling to the left of the cabinet is 1x6 tongue and groove aspen 
with an edge trim of more walnut. Doing renovation work in Virginia 
in a previous lifetime I noticed the use of t & g paneling with no stud
backing for partitions. Rigidity was achieved with trim molding
 on all the edges which is what I did here.
In this case I also had the cabinet to strengthen the paneling.
The little shelf is made from slats with an edging to keep things
 from falling off. The angled upper cabinet allows
for lots of storage without jutting to far out.


To the right and over the toilet I put in these slatted shelves 
with a towel rack. The advantage to the slatted shelves
 is that I can use up those long narrow pieces of scraps.


And they don't collect dust. 
These get wider as they go back to the corner.




The slats are pine and the brackets are walnut.
 As a woodworker I love to use contrasting woods together.