Category: cabinet making

New Stained Glass Projects (building a face frame)

I have several stained glass tasks in the queue here. Some, like the upper cabinet doors in the living room media cabinet, have been on hold since 2003. Others, like the funky stairway skylight, I’ve wanted to replace since the day I first saw the place. While stained glass construction is fairly mechanical and basically just woodworking joinery using glass and lead came, the design, templating and piecing out can be very time consuming. Most of the glass I’ve done here is fairly simple and angular to match the existing stained glass. But I wanted something a bit more ornamental

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My toughest cabinet

My dogs are killing my floors! They’re large and energetic pups who like to use the floor as a skating rink. I decided to look in my photo archives to see what they look like now as opposed to five years ago. Thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as I thought but I’ll probably get the floors lightly sanded and refinished when I’m done with the construction here and the dogs are a little older and more sedate. One of the reasons I don’t stain floors is so I have the option to screen them if they need refinishing rather than

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Yet another “cool tool” article

I’ve blathered a lot on the blog about the coolness of routers but another tool I use quite a bit is a biscuit joiner. What’s that? Bread glue? It’s a tool I first saw TOH demigod, Norm Abrams, use back in the 80s. Okay, let’s be honest: Norm has a shop full of bizarre, narrow purpose tools. But a biscuit (or plate) joiner is really useful, especially for edge-laminating boards as I’m about to do here. It can also be used to strengthen mitered corners or to insert alignment pins. I did the latter when I installed the heavy mahogany

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Ten gallons of sawdust later…

I finished cutting 208 feet of bolection moulding for the wainscotting in the bedroom reno and guess what? I needed 216 feet to complete the job, dammit! I knew I was cutting it close (literally) but I only had a couple of (expensive) red oak 1x8s left which I need for the wainscotting shelf. I’ll dig into my red oak scrap pile and cut the remainder this afternoon. Anyway, I was right. A bolection moulding a/k/a inset panel cap moulding a/k/a rabbeted panel moulding is just an inverted base cap profile with a rabbet. After my router bit quest, I

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Bay window trim (almost) done.

Sheesh. Another “almost” cop out. The issue here isn’t woodworking but thermodynamics. The steam radiator that Richie from Sessa Plumbing installed is something called an “element”. An element works on the convection principle: as hot air rises off the element, it expands and exits through a grill at the top. This creates a low pressure area underneath which pulls in cold air from the floor through a grill at the bottom. An element radiator usually comes in a butt-ugly metal cabinet. It’s what that missing panel under the middle window needs to replicate. I’m gonna give you a private snapshot

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Another mini-milestone reached

Just like software development, I like to break big projects down into milestones and mini-milestones. Milestone Mini milestone Wall prep done Structural carpentry done Finish woodworking Wainscot east wall + outlets Window and door trim – large room Complete wainscot – large room Window trim and wainscot – ante room Construct and install dresser and cupboard – ante room Ahhhh… and here we are (check!) My next mini-milestone is the completion of all the woodworking in the hallway, followed by installation of the crown moulding over the windows, doors and this cabinet, followed by hanging of all the doors, followed

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Bah, humbug

It looks like slow going at BrooklynRowHouse but you’ll have to take my word for it: trim like this takes a lotta time. I probably have 60 hours of woodworking just into this tiny ante room and it’s still far from done. So what’s the hold up? I won’t spend a lot of time talking about my “real world” obligations, but my two oldest clients, Children’s Health Fund and Operative.com, both hit me with a pile of work to complete before the end of the fiscal year, which is 12/31 in both cases. It’s SNAFU for consultants like me this

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Face Frame 101

There’s a subculture in the carpentry world that one could call “wood nerds”. They passionately argue with each other over arcane topics like fish glue and lumber humidity, armed with canons of really impressive woodworking knowledge. I learn a lot from them but after a while it’s like listening to trekkie geeks debate the relative pulchritudes of Lt. Uhuru versus Seven of Nine. One of these contentious topics is “face frame” versus “32mm frameless” cabinet construction. Most traditional cabinets are face frame while “European style” cabinets are generally frameless, or boxes with full-width doors. Both work. That’s about the extent

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Welcome to Brooklyn Row House

This blog is about the challenges of renovating an old (1903) Brooklyn, New York row house.

My last major renovation project was the master bedroom, most of which is about finish carpentry. You’ll find other completed home improvement projects in the Projects submenu at the top of this page.

I’m not a professional builder and don’t pretend to be. I’m just an experienced amateur raised in a family of committed DIYers. I try to closely follow local and national building codes but don’t mistake anything on this site to be professional or even accurate advice! Your mileage may and definitely will vary.

This is the third iteration of BrooklynRowHouse.com, from scratch-built to Drupal and now Wordpress. I hope you enjoy your time here.