Toy Chest: Design

A friend came to me with the idea of a toy chest for her daughter’s first birthday.  What a great idea – rather than buying some plastic stuff, she’s investing in a solid piece of fine furniture that can last a lifetime!  It will start life as a toy chest and grow into a blanket chest.  This project is named after her daughter, “For Kyra”.

I had the idea of using the letter K on the front of the chest, so I started sketching some ideas.  I quickly came upon something I liked, so I took it to Google Sketchup.  I worked with the some dimension contraints from my friend and designed around those.

The chest is built from walnut for the frame and cherry for the panels.  I had a piece of curly walnut in the shop (from Exotic Lumber) that will be for the K on the front.  I went to my favorite lumber shop, Artisan Lumber, and picked up another stick of walnut (8/4 x 12″ x 10′) for the remaining frame parts.  I have a lot of cherry in the shop that I will use for the panels.

I start with building the front of the chest, the K, as that curve may not end up with exact dimensions from my sketch.  Once built, I can take the measurements for the rest of the chest.

From sketchup, I printed out the actual size + shape of the K, which spans 5 pieces of paper.  I taped those together and layed them over the walnut.  I chalked the outline and it’s time to start cutting.