Rebuild of Nightstand

[PaulDerrico]

As you'll see in the photos from Sketchup, I'm working on a rebuild of an earlier design for a nightstand with a light unit built into it. This particular one has legs that taper down on all four sides for the bottom third of the design. The yellow areas represent a see-through panel that will be covered with Shoji paper and house lighting.

My struggle is that I really want to put some form of storage in the middle, either a drawer or small cabinet. How that middle section will sit in there is the biggest struggle for me right now. I want it to remain 'light' and 'slender', almost feminine to the eye. I've tried various designs where the middle section will suspend or sort of float in there. I just don't want the eye to immediately focus on that area. I want it to be more of an afterthought. The current design has a drawer front that has lips that cover the drawer housing, concealing any joinery from the front. There is a small groove under the lip of the drawer for pulling it open, thus no hardware is shown on the front. But I'm open to change that.

I just can't find something I'm comfortable with in the overall design. What's the first thing you see? What would you change? And so on... I'd be more than happy, btw, to post the final sketchup model with dimensions if anyone wanted to attempt this project. If you're interested, I'd even post some pics of the build, the mortise and tenon joinery, etc.

Thanks in advance for the much needed help of a professional eye!

[kep1019]

I dont have a professional opionion, but I do like the design you have my only suggestion would be to leave the middle open and shrink the bottom portion from the top of the box down resulting in a skinnier drawer. This would leave a bigger open spot in between which I believe may lighten the look even more. Kind of hard to tell with no dimensions though.

Please post pictures of the final version I like to see it

[Bombarde16]

As you'll see in the photos from Sketchup, I'm working on a rebuild of an earlier design for a nightstand with a light unit built into it.

Very promising. The drawer you've designed doesn't bother me; but some other thoughts do jump to this unprofessional mind:

- The horizontal members of the lamp section could be stronger. Perhaps go with wider stock and then cut an arc in the lower edge. Perhaps tilt them at an angle, giving rhombuses (rhombii?) instead of squares.

- The legs could well continue past the top of the light section. Look at what Marc did with the top of the gadget station legs.

- I'd prefer a two-sided taper on the bottom of the legs.

- It'll complicate the joinery, but it would be awesome to hide the cord inside one of the legs. David Marks did this in a WW episode with the bent-lamination lamp. Saw the piece in half, hog out a half-round channel inside each half, insert a metal tube as conduit and then glue them back together.

Could you post the Sketchup file that you used to generate these JPGs? We could try making edits directly into that.

[PaulDerrico]

Very promising. The drawer you've designed doesn't bother me; but some other thoughts do jump to this unprofessional mind:

- The horizontal members of the lamp section could be stronger. Perhaps go with wider stock and then cut an arc in the lower edge. Perhaps tilt them at an angle, giving rhombuses (rhombii?) instead of squares.

- The legs could well continue past the top of the light section. Look at what Marc did with the top of the gadget station legs.

- I'd prefer a two-sided taper on the bottom of the legs.

- It'll complicate the joinery, but it would be awesome to hide the cord inside one of the legs. David Marks did this in a WW episode with the bent-lamination lamp. Saw the piece in half, hog out a half-round channel inside each half, insert a metal tube as conduit and then glue them back together.

Could you post the Sketchup file that you used to generate these JPGs? We could try making edits directly into that.

Cool, that's what I was looking for. I really dig the idea of an arch with thicker stock in the horizontal pieces of the lamp. I was also thinking a 2 sided taper on the legs. Maybe then it wouldn't be so drastic between the "weight" of the top and the legs. Not sure I have the machinery to accurately cut one of the legs in half to route out a channel. Maybe if I cut that first and then mill the legs down to size? Thanks, again!

=paul

Here's the sketchup design...

nightstand 1.3.skp

[klousiajp@gmail.com]

My initial impression when looking at it is that it's pretty "dense" and it would be darn tough for me to get my hand in there to hit the snooze button every morning.

A couple of thoughts:

How about shrinking the depth of the drawer and making it float. Somehow suspend it from the underside of the shelf without having the case around the drawer. You could replace the structural integrity by putting some cross pieces down lower, where they are less of a focus. I'm not sure how that would be accomplished, but that might add to the "feminitity" of the piece.

Another idea is to stop the legs at the shelf and reduce the number of uprights supporting the light. Run two uprights up to the light on the back of the piece, or in the middle on each side. Maybe a single piece from the middle of the shelf though that it getting a long way from the current design.

[PaulDerrico]

My initial impression when looking at it is that it's pretty "dense" and it would be darn tough for me to get my hand in there to hit the snooze button every morning.

A couple of thoughts:

How about shrinking the depth of the drawer and making it float. Somehow suspend it from the underside of the shelf without having the case around the drawer. You could replace the structural integrity by putting some cross pieces down lower, where they are less of a focus. I'm not sure how that would be accomplished, but that might add to the "feminitity" of the piece.

Another idea is to stop the legs at the shelf and reduce the number of uprights supporting the light. Run two uprights up to the light on the back of the piece, or in the middle on each side. Maybe a single piece from the middle of the shelf though that it getting a long way from the current design.

Thanks, J.P. I had initially wanted to shrink the drawer and float it like you just mentioned. The problem there is that the eye is naturally drawn to that shelf. In the sketchup versions that I did, I just couldn't stop staring at it!! It stuck out like a sore thumb and didn't feel cohesive. I like the idea of stopping the legs from running all the way up. Let me give that some thought. Thanks again!!

=paul