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3 Cut to length the shelf supports and drawer guides and fix in place. The shelf supports in this case were simply 12 mm x 12 mm cabinet timber strips cut to 350 mm (that is, 50 mm short of the front) and at 45°, and glued and nailed in place. An alternative would be to drill holes and use plastic or metal shelf supports instead. If the shelves were to be housed in the sides, the housings should be routed or cut out to a depth of 5 mm at this stage.

4 The drawer guides are 19 mm x 12 mm cabinet timber cut to 385 mm, and must be accurately glued and nailed (or screwed) to the sides. (You may prefer to fit the drawer guides when the drawers are ready, to double-check that the position is right.)

5 Mark and cut out the bottom shelf, 400 mm deep by 462 mm wide. When finished this will give a total width of 500 mm for the whole unit.

6 Mark and cut rear and front top members of cabinet from 75 mm x 25 mm and 100 mm x 25 mm cabinet timber. These are also 462 mm long. (more…)

Deciding upon a style of decoration that is both appropriate for the room and pleasing to the eye is the most important part of any interior design project. Careful consideration must be given to this critical aspect right from the beginning, as it is not something that can easily or cheaply be rectified halfway through the exercise. Though it can be tempting to take advantage of a bargain, it is generally a better idea to wait until you know roughly what look you are aiming for before you venture forth armed with a cheque book. While it’s easy to relegate an unsuitable item of clothing to the local charity shop, getting rid of an ill-chosen three-piece suite can prove rather more problematical. (more…)

BLINDS

Blinds can be made of fabric, paper, nylon, wood or various other materials. Fabric blinds can be as decorative as curtains, but because the fabric itself is collected at the top rather than the sides of the window, it doesn’t get in the way of other furnishings or of activity in the room. Basic kits to make them are inexpensive to buy, easy to use and come with full instructions and fabric measuring guidelines. Plastic and wood Venetian slatted designs are particularly useful for kitchens and bathrooms as they are neat, uncluttered and practical to clean. And simple paper roller blinds can be used either on their own or as a supplement to curtains. (more…)

Windows are a natural focal point and, in modern houses particularly, they can take the place of a fireplace or chimney breast in giving architectural interest to a blank wall. Curtains, blinds and shutters come in all shapes and sizes, to suit all kinds of window, and some windows look good enough to need barely any dressing at all.

The two main elements to consider with a window are the amount of light it lets in and the amount of privacy it gives you.

Remember that the more you get of one, the less you’ll have of the other. Rooms where you spend a lot of time — living rooms and kitchens, for instance — will generally benefit from a good supply of light, and you probably won’t feel it necessary to keep the window heavily screened unless your house fronts a busy street. In bedrooms and bathrooms, on the other hand, light and privacy need to be carefully balanced. (more…)

Although timber is a renewable, natural material we are using the resources at such an alarming rate that they may cease to be sustainable. The tropical rainforests are fast disappearing and, in the West, acid rain and the indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers are damaging vast tracts of woodland. The practice, for commercial gain, of replacing slow-growing deciduous forests with the faster conifer plantations places increasing demands on the import of hardwood, and causes the degradation of the landscapes from which they come. And the demand is not only for construction and joinery timbers; we fell millions of trees annually for the production of woodpulp for paper and packaging materials.

We can help to conserve the dwindling supplies of timber by making better use of existingresources. We can reuse old construction timbers, purchase second-hand furniture, and recycle others; for interior use we can also use certain composite boards if they meet health and ecological criteria. Cork and linoleum are again popular and far healthier than their synthetic counterparts. (more…)

Raw materials

Paint is a compound material consisting basically of a solid pigment, ground and suspended in a liquid medium such as water or oil. Pigments give opacity, colour, and consistency to paints. They are mainly of mineral origin, such as those quarried from the earth - the red, brownish, and yellow ochres, the brown umbers, and the red oxides. Brighter colours come from metal ores.

Paris green was prepared from acetate of copper and arsenic trioxide; it is highly poisonous and has long since been discontinued. White pigments come from zinc oxide, titanium oxide (the most opaque), and from antimony oxide, now that white lead has been banned.

Pure plant pigments, similar to those used in natural dyeing, were also used and are now being reintroduced. They are ideal for translucent colour washes or glazes on a white wall base. Some natural pigments tend to fade gradually in sunlight, endowing surfaces with a delicate coloured patina. (more…)

Stinkwood (Ocotea Bullata): This popular wood is now very scarce. Stinkwood is an excellent furniture timber that lends itself to beautiful finishing, sound jointing, and unlimited indoor life. It shows up brightly against light (like tiger’s eye). The older darker wood is almost unobtainable and the second growth and lighter coloured stinkwood has very little to recommend it in preference to blackwood.

Green stinkwood has an unpleasant smell, hence the name. Grain medium open.

Blackwood (Acacia Melanoxylon): This is not an indigenous wood but has been cultivated extensively in South Africa. Colour varies from black to light redbrown and furniture can appear piebald if the wood has not been selected carefully for colour matching. (more…)

Timber is classified as hardwood and softwood. Softwood, from conifers which grow fast, is comparatively cheap. It is used for constructing buildings and cladding. Formerly it was used only for cheap (nursery and kitchen) furniture, but now “pine” is fashionable and not so cheap. Hardwood has denser grain, matures more slowly and is therefore always more expensive. It is used for fine furniture and sometimes for parts of a building that show — the doors, the window frames and occasionally also the wall cladding.

Because both mass production methods and the prevalence of central heating call for a dimensionally stable material which solid timber is not, (more…)