IKEA's Got Nothing on Me -- 'cept $$$

     Adding furniture to Diane's studio has really gotten me to thinking about furniture pricing and quality as a whole.  Adam recently purchased a very nice dining table plus 6 chairs for under $400.00.  Sure he had to spend a small amount of time to assemble it but you know what?; it doesn't look half bad and after having dinner at his house last night, the set is functional and comfortable too.  To replicate it I couldn't even buy the materials!  I know that what I build is quality so maybe I have that over IKEA too.
     For Diane's studio she wanted white laminate so I used a Nevermar product on it.  I really liked working with the ultralight MDF as well.  This always strikes me as odd, when the forklift driver brought it over to the truck for loading I noticed that is was marked "Made in New Zealand".  I mean light or not, that's still a long way to ship material.  The driver said the other big supplier for that is in Chile!  Only thing that I can figure out is that American labor has priced itself out of the market or/and the EPA has put so many restrictions on manufacturing that it's no longer feasible or profitable to manufacture this in the USA.
     Okay, off the soapbox.  Here's a shot of the shelving cube in process:

IKEA Quality Plus

     The bottom is dado'd, glued, and nailed in as are the corner blocks and back.  To fit the back I used my somewhat antique Stanley #78 -- not sure that's what it was originally intended for but it sure made some long, continuous shavings!

Stanley # 78

     Since the entire studio has been repainted the doors looked pretty awful.  Decided that they too should get a fresh coat of paint.  I'm really liking the Earlex sprayer.  Can you imagine trying to brush all of the panels in the doors, not for me!

Spraying Again 

     What looks like half of a table is actually the legs for the shelving cube.  I figured that if these were bolted to the cube it would be plenty strong.  The overall length of the unit is 55", making the leg section a separate bolt on unit will alleviate any concern about the strength.  It seems to have been successful:

Shelving Cube and Work Station Installed

     As you can see all of the studio furniture has the same appearance, not matchy matchy like I hear the HGTV designers bad mouth.  This one has the power strip mounted to the side and each of the new units has a hole and grommet in the top to manage the cords.
     Diane has told me she really loves her new space and it's amazing how much more room it seems she has.  Putting all of the furniture against the walls really opened up her studio.  She's blogged it on her website as well, you can link to that here.