Designing Projects
There is always a process. Steps to take to create an end product. What we forget is processes tend to have steps we don’t consider. For example, cooking doesn’t start at the stove, it starts with a grocery list. You find out what you need to make a recipe and search through the pantry and fridge to identify what you have and what you need. Then there is the trip to the grocery store. Contemplating brands, evaluating the freshness of produce, and the bag of chips you don’t know how got into your cart but they are your favorite flavor. Finally you can start cooking by reading the recipe, preparing the ingredients, following instructions, and finally finishing the meal to enjoy with family. It’s a lot of work to cook a meal.
Everyone enjoys a different part of that process whether that’s shopping, cooking, or simply researching new recipes to try. Processes aren’t always enjoyable. Sometimes we just want to eat. There are shortcuts to take, frozen meals, pre-cut vegetables, ordering in. But there are areas it is hard to shortcut. You can’t speed up the baking of a cake or rising of bread dough. Those things take time to get right.
Same in woodworking. There are steps that can be sped up. Routing a dado can be done using a router plane, or using an electric router for a faster result. Boards can be ripped using a handsaw and cleaned up with a plane or run through a table saw. Some tasks don’t have shortcuts. Glue needs time to dry, finish needs time to cure. Designs take time to get right.
Designing has a shortcut. You can be all together avoid designing by buying plans. You may even change a few details to make it your own, but ultimately it isn’t your design. Designing is like creating a new recipe. You may draw inspiration from other dishes, but to get the dish right, you’ll likely need to make adjustments on the fly and still you may have a failed dish that you need to make again and again until it is perfect.
Right now I am designing a simple clothing rack for my daughter’s play dresses. Our storage solution right now is a trunk filled to the brim with dresses, shoes, tiaras, and jewelry. The essentials. The problem is the dresses take up a lot of space and are the first thing to be ripped out and tossed across the room when the matching purple shoe is buried deep down in the trunk. So in comes a solution, a stand alone clothing rack to remove the dresses from the trunk all together.
Usually a project starts because it is necessary. There is a problem to solve. In this case, I could simply screw some 2x4s together to hold a stretch of pipe that will hold hangers. Boom. Problem solved. But I like to challenge myself. I want to build using a new technique or create a unique design to test my abilities.
Here are my steps to designing. First, I gather requirements. Requirements are what you get from the client such as the size, shape, color, function, etc. In my case my wife wanted something to hang play dresses on, solve the problem, I got to figure out the rest. Second, establish your constraints. This also comes from the client. How much money do they want to spend? How much time do you have to make it? Third, establish the style. Does the client want your work to match an existing piece? Do they have a picture you can go off of? Or can you do whatever you want?
My requirements were to fit dresses and to have a shelf to put shoes on. My constraints were I wanted to use materials I already had on hand and I had another client job coming up soon that I didn’t want to delay with this project. And the style was whatever I wanted. Here were the rules I set out when designing this. I wanted to stray away from using any metal fasteners. I wanted it to be made out of solid wood so I had to consider wood movement. I had to keep it simple because I have another project I need to start for a client and don’t want to delay that work.
Here’s what I came up with.
SketchUp model of the clothing rack
A little bit about my process. I did create the design in SketchUp, but I don’t like starting there. I actually started with a piece of paper. I brought a tape measure up to the playroom to measure dresses, hangers, shoes, and the space my wife wanted the rack to sit. I jotted down measurements and drew out a general design to start with.
After the paper design I created a SketchUp model. This step isn’t necessary for simple projects like this, but I like to see a piece in 3D to visualize the proportions and to help me think through the joinery. I plan to half lap the columns and mortise and tenon the shelf to the bottom rails to act as breadboard ends. After the model I see that the center will be a challenge with a half lap and a mortise into it plus that’s my fixed point for the breadboard. So I’ll have to dowel in from the underside and drawbore the ends of the shelf leaving it blind on the top which I think will look better anyway. The dowel at the top will be glued into holes on both sides to keep the top nice and tight. Nice and simple but a first for me to create proper breadboard ends which has been on my list to do for a while and I’m excited to try it out to test myself and build a skill.
I know this is an easy project. I could make it even easier by pocket holing the bottom on and running some screws through the outside to hold the dowel in place. That would be fine and last long enough for my daughter to outgrow dress up play, but I wouldn’t enjoy it as much. That’s like cooking a frozen meal. Sufficient sustenance but not inspiring. To me, this is trying a reverse sear method to cook a steak as opposed to a traditional sear to see how you like that new technique. Even if it’s not as good, at least it’s a steak and you learned something along the way.
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