Progress on the coffee table

The “coffee table” (aka the cabinet my coffee machine and grinder will sit on eventually) is getting closer.  I can almost taste the coffee.  I have since I last blogged about it built the doors for the table and installed them on the table.  I used the “euro hinges” that often are found in cabinets today that are mounted inside.  I was a little nervous about them because I had never built a door before, not to mention installed hinges, but these hinges are nice because they can adjust up, down, in, out, etc.  I turns out that is lucky because I put the doors in and they brushed lightly against each other enough so that it would have been a problem if I could not have adjusted them.  It amazes me that I had this problem because I thought I was so careful to prevent it, but when you are looking at a gap of a few mm’s, I guess it is easy to be off by a bit too much.


The doors require a large round hole drilled in them that the hinge slides into, and that was also nerve racking, but it worked out fine since I was indeed fairly careful.  


The drawers make me nervous, too, because I have never built a drawer before and if it is just a little too big it will not be that easy to shrink it down.  I suppose I could play it safe and make it a little too small and figure I can always add a small piece of wood on the side of the cabinet where the slides attach if it is too small, but it is hard not to at least aim for the right size.  


I am going to put the drawers together with finger joints aka box joints.  These are a little like square versions of dovetails.  Dove tails are just a little above my skill level to do by hand and do really well and they also are slow to cut, but box joints are much faster and can be done with a homemade jig.  (There are jigs for dovetails, but they cost an arm and a leg).


I can’t wait to get this in place if only because it will clean up the mess that is all the gear (towels, coffee, tampers, portafilters, etc) that currently dominate the shelf in the dining room.  I can’t believe I thought I would get it done in the few days I had around the holidays when I was awaiting the new Elektra.  Obviously it was not even close.  

The pencil is there because my camera won't focus on the door for some reason without the color of the pencil.

Note the board on top is not the real top - just a random piece of plywood.