Walnut Vanity

[wtnhighlander]

Looks really nice, Russel! Do you know what sort of counter top they plan to use?

[Coop]

That’s darn beautiful bud! 

[Pwk5017]

Id say that turned out pretty well. No need to apologize for biscuits or screws. At a certain point, things need to be value engineered to a practical sense. 

 

You can choose to not answer this, but did you keep track of your hours and costs? How did you do overall? Ive done hundreds of commissions of the years, but never a piece of furniture more complex than a bench. I keep a clipboard with each project as i work on it for knowing who ordered it, how much, dimensions, and then i also track materials and time. I clock in and out on the margin as i move along with the project. At the end i tally up my material costs, add $100ish for glue, sharpening, electricity, sandpaper,and finish, and see what i netted per hour. I ask because ive turned away more complex builds wary of hosing myself. For example, people have asked me to build a king bed frame. Overall my own king bed went smoothly except for adding drawers for my wife. Getting the web frame structure in place to disassemble along with the rest of the bed, but still hit tolerances and have a proper looking/operating set of big drawers was such a pain. I think back on that project, and i would have had to be around $5000 for me to make my typical shop rate plus materials. I can almost guarantee before the onset of the project i would not have thrown out a $5k bid. Sounds like you got to enjoy working with solid materials on someone else's dime, but hopefully you walked away with enough to buy a tool or two as well. 

[Chestnut]

I think it turned out great. I agree don't apologize for biscuits. They get a bad rap but in the right spot they are the perfect solution. I've personally had good luck with them.

[Denette]

On 1/14/2019 at 3:39 PM, Chestnut said:

I think it turned out great. I agree don't apologize for biscuits. They get a bad rap but in the right spot they are the perfect solution. I've personally had good luck with them.

Thanks!  I figured that doing a Norm job with glue, screws, and biscuits was appropriate here.  I mean, the outside looks nice, the drawers will be functional until the end of time, and the inside of the vanity - well, it looks just fine.  So I'm content.

On 1/14/2019 at 3:12 PM, Pwk5017 said:

You can choose to not answer this, but did you keep track of your hours and costs? How did you do overall? 

I predicted my hours and quoted a price at the beginning, before shelling out a penny on materials.  I stayed pretty well within my estimates.  I just closed my eyes and did the whole project in my imagination, right?  Lumber sorting, design work, selecting boards, milling, joinery, surface prep, glue-ups, finish application, delivery & installation.  I typed up each category and an estimate of how long each task would take in hours.  For every imagined duration, I doubled it - because in my imagination everything goes perfectly and I've had a good night's rest and a cup of coffee.  I find that my own honest estimates end up being about half of the real-world time taken, so the hours I bill for are usually a pretty good match with how long I actually do spend on a project.  It's a lot of thinking work up front the first few times you do it, but I've gotten into a groove with estimating the number of hours in a build and I've gotten halfway decent at it.  Now the only difficulty is finding the hours in the day to actually get out there, right?  This project was quoted at 52 hours, $15/hr.  Ended up costing my client a hair more than $1300 once materials were added in.  And I'd say that my estimate was, if not "correct," at least close enough to correct.

On 1/13/2019 at 9:21 PM, wtnhighlander said:

Looks really nice, Russel! Do you know what sort of counter top they plan to use?

Thanks!  I don't know what kind of countertop, but I know they're getting it custom made, too.

[Ronn W]

Great piece.  I am sure the client will will love it.  I like it.

[legenddc]

On 1/16/2019 at 11:13 AM, Denette said:

For every imagined duration, I doubled it - because in my imagination everything goes perfectly and I've had a good night's rest and a cup of coffee.  I find that my own honest estimates end up being about half of the real-world time taken, so the hours I bill for are usually a pretty good match with how long I actually do spend on a project.

I have to do this for everything from home DIY projects to car maintenance and wood working. Usually double the cost too!