Furniture & Carpentry Books

The Complete Illustrated Guide to Furniture and Cabinet Construction

Andy Rae

Amazon Price: $26.37 List Price: $39.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Taunton Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $21.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 44 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

disappointed 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I found this book very disappointing. The pictures were very pretty but that is pretty much it. The illustrations were confusing and of little use. It gives too much of an overview and no real specifics. I found woodworking for dummies to be a much better book for the beginning woodworker.

A little too general 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Given the scope of this work, I'm not sure what I expected, but I feel like, after reading a book on furniture and cabinet making, I ought to have some idea of how to construct a basic cabinet. While this book covers a wide variety of general techniques and types of joints commonly used, at no point does it tie them together; it discusses possibilities, but never synthesizes them into anything tangible, leaving me, at least, wondering which of the book's assorted grab bag of clever tricks might be combined to actually produce a cabinet. I already knew what a sliding dovetail was before I bought this book; what I sought to learn was the architecture and structural elements needed to design a cabinet. Strangely, I feel like I'm no closer to that knowledge than I was before I read the book.

Editorial Review:

The Complete Illustrated Guide to Furniture and Cabinet Construction is the ultimate reference work -- a graphic, step-by-step presentation of basic furniture-construction techniques. Expert woodworker Andy Rae brings organization, enthusiasm, and more than 20 years' experience to this essential book. Readers will acquire a working knowledge of woodworking materials, a higher level of control over their work and tools, and an understanding of basic design principles.

Building Kitchen Cabinets

Udo Schmidt

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Taunton Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $9.32

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Build Like A Pro-just like says!! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book is well written, and easy to understand. The author gives you a solid understanding of the basics and some of the more advanced "how-tos" of cabinet making. I would recommend this book to people who have some knowledge of power tools and want to learn how to build kitchen cabinets.

Excellent book if you actually want to build cabinets 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book and Danny Proulx's Build Your Own Kitchen Cabinets (Popular Woodworking). Proulx's book focused on particleboard construction and mostly 32mm cabinets. I was very dissapointed as I was anxious to start building cabinets and particleboard is not what I was looking for. This book however, was just what the Dr. ordered. I'm very comfortable with my tools and have been woodworking for years now, but I still found some usefull tips in the book. I skimmed the book without reading all of it and immediately bought the lumber I needed and began construction. I had a completed bathroom vanity cabinet in 1 afternoon (not including stain and finish). As others have mentioned, his dimensions are not perfect, but since my house doesn't perfectly match the book, I used my own tape measure.

Even with the dimension issues here and there, I highly recommend this book for anyone who actually wants to make cabinets. I have a few other books that discuss the "idea" of making cabinets. This one tells you the tools you need and how to do it. It focuses on pocket-hole joinery but it also shows how you can use other joinery techniques as well. I can't stress this point enough... if you are planning on building cabinets, you will love this book. If you just want to read about building cabinets, this book isn't what you want.

I'm off to buy more lumber for more cabinets!!!!

Editorial Review:

Building instead of buying cabinets means not only cost savings but also better materials and a truly custom kitchen. This book shows anyone how to build a complete set of kitchen cabinets. Professional cabinetmaker Udo Schmidt covers the entire process, from preparing materials and selecting the right tools to finishing and installing hardware.

Illustrated Cabinetmaking: How to Design and Construct Furniture That Works

Bill Hylton

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Fox Chapel Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 35 new & used starting at $15.65

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not about cabinets 3 out of 5 stars.
7 of 9 people found this review helpful.

If you're looking for a book on how to build cabinets, this ain't it. This is a primer on how to build furniture (which is often referred to as cabinet-making) but references to building cabinets are brief and limited. It's really an overview of furniture building rather than a hands-on, how-to book.

Editorial Review:

Featuring each piece in highly-detailed, exploded drawings and applying time-honored dimension and ergonomic standards, this comprehensive visual sourcebook takes the guesswork out of furniture joinery, assembly, dimension, and style. Woodworkers of any skill level will benefit from more than 1,300 crisp and detailed drawings that explain classic solutions to age-old problems, such as hanging a drawer, attaching a tabletop, and pegging a mortise. Covering hundreds of pieces of furniture, including kitchen cabinets, dining tables, desks, bookcases, and chests, readers will unlock the mysteries of legs, moldings, separate braces, and dozens of other subassemblies.

Taunton's Complete Illustrated Guide to Finishing (Complete Illustrated Guide)

Jeff Jewitt, Susan Jewitt

Amazon Price: $26.37 List Price: $39.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Taunton Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $21.23

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Finishing Favorite 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Before I read Jeff Jewitt's book on finishing I knew almost nothing about the finishing process. After reading this book cover to cover almost five times now, I feel confident about applying a finish to my first project. Jeff's writing style and knack for explaining make learning the often misunderstood art of finishing a pure pleasure. You will learn all types of finishing and application styles from padding, wiping, brushing and spraying. Jeff covers preparation of the wood surface all the way through staining, filling, sealing, top coats, and finally buffing. The plethora of color photos really gives you a good idea of what he is describing and enhance the text tremendously. You will not be disappointed with this encyclopedic description of wood finishing.

Editorial Review:

Taunton's Complete Illustrated Guide to Finishing features advanced techniques on controlling and adjusting color, disguising defects, and repairing finishes. This clear and comprehensive volume for woodworkers includes 850 color photos as well as 30 color illustrations.

How to Carve Wood: A Book of Projects and Techniques (Fine Woodworking Book)

Richard Butz

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Best Beginner's Book 5 out of 5 stars.
105 of 105 people found this review helpful.

To an experienced woodcarver this book may seem unfocused and thinly spread, but for the beginner it does exactly what it should do. The book begins with a good grounding in the tools of the craft and how to care for and sharpen each type. After that it gives you a sampler of carving styles with at least one project for each. It's guaranteed there is at least one or two chapters the reader will not care for. Even this is useful since the reader avoids launching into the craft with a project they really have little enthusiasm for, and then lose interest in wood carving all together. This book should be required reading before the beginner spends a single dime on tools, equipment, or wood. If it's not 'the' best beginner's book, it's in the top five.

Editorial Review:

Woodcarver Richard Butz teaches chapter by chapter whittling, chip carving, wildlife carving, relief carving, lettering, and architectural carving. The reader learns by doing, working through carefully illustrated and progressively more challenging exercises and projects. Butz provides scaled patterns for each project and ends each chapter with a gallery of additional projects using the techniques learned.

Upholstery Basics (Singer Sewing Reference Library)

Cowles Creative Publishing

List Price: $18.95 By: Cowles Creative Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 17 new & used starting at $6.84

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Book, at least for beginners like me 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book because I couldn't afford to buy new living room furniture and wanted to at least recover the cushions. However, the instructions and illustrations were clear enough that I was able to reupholster both the couch and chair. And they look amazingly good--which, I confess, amazes me!

Great book for beginning upholsterers 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book has great pictures and illustrations and the instructions are easy to follow. I checked it out at the library and loved it so much, I added a copy to my own personal library. It is a great reference book and well written.

Very basic but informative 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I have taken an upholstery class before, but have never tried to do a large sofa. I found this book gave me just enough information following the directions for an overstuffed chair to tackle the project. If I were a beginner, I don't think I would have been as confident using this book, but would have wanted something a bit more detailed.

Editorial Review:

Think of the money you can save by recovering your favorite chair instead of replacing it. This book covers all of the basic techniques you'll need to reupholster outdated furniture.

From wood footstools to over stuffed chairs, there's a good variety of projects you can accomplish with the help of this bestselling book. The fantastic how-to photos and easy-to-understand text make this a must-have for anyone interested in learning upholstery.

New Masters of Woodturning: Expanding the Boundaries of Wood Art

Kevin Wallace, Terry Martin

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Fox Chapel Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 18 new & used starting at $18.78

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

New Masters of Woodturning 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Fabulous photography of work by new masters pointing out the direction wood turning is going as an art form. It was great seeing some of the artists that I know and would have picked if I was the author.

Great book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is another great book from Kevin Wallace and associates. The book highlights multiple existing woodturning masters. Whether you are looking for inspiring art or just want to see how it's done this book overachieves in many areas. You'll be happy you bought it.

Editorial Review:

In this unique collection of contemporary art that has redefined the limits of shaped wood, crafters and designers alike are treated to a wealth of knowledge from 31 leading wood artists who share their personal motivations, thought processes, and the studio techniques employed to bring out the breath-taking beauty of wood. Contemporary artists such as Virginia Dodson, Binh Pho, Harvey Fein, Paul Fennell, and Marilyn Campbell are among those whose works are given studio-quality photographic treatment. Each featured piece encourages crafters to find new ways of connecting with their own creative channels and makes this book an important document of the modern craft—sure to become a treasure in every woodworking library.

Mid-Century Modern: Interiors, Furniture, Design Details (Conran Octopus Interiors)

Bradley Quinn

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Great Design Ideas 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This book is filled with spectacular color photos of mid-century modern home interiors. Lots of ideas here for color schemes, furniture layout and incorporating mid-century aspects into any room of your home.

Mid Century Modern 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

An absolutely stunning book & a must for any mid ce
ntury enthusiast. Fabulous photographs & narration.
Very inspiring.

Editorial Review:

The 1950’s house was a scientific triumph, designed in a laboratory and tested on inhabitants of all ages before being built for the masses. Never had homes been so thoroughly contemporary, with antiques and period styles entirely banished. Mid-Century Modern explores the interior decor of this seminal decade, concentrating on all aspects of a home's decoration—walls, flooring, surfaces, lighting, and, of course, furniture. Case studies examine beautiful present-day homes that exhibit mid-century style in an exemplary way, and suggest ideas for taking the 1950’s look—complete with collector's pieces—and mixing and matching it with elements from other eras.

The Art of Turned Bowls: Designing Spectacular Bowls with a World-Class Turner

Richard Raffan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An essential book for any woodturner 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

"The Art of Turned Bowls" by Richard Raffan is one of the most important and useful books ever written about woodturning. Its predecessor, "Turned Bowl Design" (1987), now out of print and selling for a premium on the used market, was excellent, and until now, the best book on woodturning design ever written. I read or referred it repeatedly over the years and will undoubtedly do so for this new version.

If you are a woodturner, you will learn, in detail, what you can do to design well-proportioned and aesthetically pleasing bowls and vessels. It doesn't teach you how to turn; there are numerous other good books for that, the latest edition of "Woodturning With Richard Raffan" and its companion DVD are excellent. I taught myself how to turn with the first editions of those. Presented are not only basic general principles of design, like the Rule of Thirds and the Golden Mean, but detailed guidelines on how to prepare bowl blanks from the tree or the lumberyard to show grain patterns to best effect, generate smoothly flowing curves, find the most pleasing relationship between the diameter and shape of a bowl to its base, add interest to your turnings with color, carving, piercing, and other techniques, and a lot of other useful information.

For those unfortunate souls who are not woodturners, this book is good for you too. It is chock-full of beautiful color photographs of Raffan's world-class turnings, as well as those of other expert woodturning artists, an improvement over the mostly black and white photos in "Turned Bowl Design." More importantly, this book will help you understand, when you look at a wood (or ceramic, or glass) bowl that you like, WHY you like it, and why a lot of bowls out there are not well-done.

Overall, "The Art of Turned Bowls" is a peek inside the mind of one of the world's best woodturners (and a very nice and interesting man in person). If you appreciate art and craft in any of its myriad forms, this book will leave you with a good feeling.

Editorial Review:

When first published in 1987, The Art of Turned Bowls was a work ahead of its time. Now, considering the resurgence in popularity of this woodworking genre, the book is perfectly poised for rediscovery. Retooled with fresh full-color photographs of contemporary bowls featuring the work of award-winning turners from around the world, Richard Raffan's classic has been totally updated to meet the demands of today's turner. With a unique talent for making even the most abstract ideas accessible, the world's most admired turning teacher offers an invaluable wealth of design advice. Practical, informative, and undeniably inspiring, this new edition also expands its exploration of form and developing profiles. Along with a good lathe and a reliable set of tools, The Art of Turned Bowls belongs in the shop of every serious bowl turner.

Build Your Own Kitchen Cabinets

Danny Rubie

List Price: $23.99 By: Betterway Books Amazon Marketplace: 15 new & used starting at $7.50

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Superbly detailed, this fully updated step-by-step guide walks readers through all the stages of planning, design, construction and installation of kitchen cabinets. It makes it all possible, even with only a few basic tools. And its practical approach anticipates readers' questions and concerns every step of the way. Danny Proulx covers:

Planning, cutting and assembly details for upper and lower cabinets

A range of cabinetry-from simple cabinets and custom appliance garages, to over-the- sink cupboards, lazy-Susan shelving and stemware storage

Practical information on kitchen design, material selection and tool shortcuts

Unique information on customizing cabinets, building strong cabinets quickly, combining traditional methods with European cabinetry techniques and hardware

Plus, a full-color gallery of kitchen designs

Danny Proulx opened his own custom kitchen-remodeling shop, Rideau Cabinets, in 1989. He is the author of Display Cases You Can Build, Build Your Own Home Office Furniture, Building More Classic Garden Furniture, Fast & Easy Technique for Building Modern Cabinetry and Smart Shelving & Storage Solutions. He lives in Ottawa, Canada.