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This is my bedside table project. I made a pair of Shaker-style tables to go beside my bed.

I got my inspiration from several Fine Woodworking articles I read (thanks to my online subscription). The basic dimensions for this table are from some online furniture catalogs. It’s about 27″ tall, with a table top about 18″ x 22″. I used a CAD program to draw up a design first.

I first milled all the cherry stock to rough dimensions and glued up the top panel. Tried to be careful to pay attention to grain orientation and color matching as much as possible.

Then I added breadboard ends on the top panels to help keep the tops flat. The mortise and tenon part was probably overkill for this little table, but I wanted longer tenons to support where the pins are going to be placed. I planned to pin the ends with cherry dowels. Note that the tenons will end up being closer to the sides of the panel once it’s cut down to final dimension.

Of course, in order to allow for wood movement the middle and back holes in the wide panel had to be elongated. The front hole is not elongated - the breadboard is glued and pinned on the front tenon so all the expansion occurs out the back.

I started looking around the shop for a round file to elongate the holes, then I remembered I had this piece of threaded rod lying around collecting dust. I figured it was worth a try. I clamped the panel in place and ran the threaded rod through, and it made surprisingly quick work of elongating those holes! In fact I probably made them a little wider than necessary, but that won’t hurt anything! This worked pretty well I think:

I had to be careful to avoid disturbing the outer edge of the holes, otherwise the breadboard ends would be loose. The end result is that the panel is allowed to move while the dowel still holds the breadboard end tight against the panel. You can see the elongated hole in the pic at right.

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