At this point, most of the significant work on the shoe rack’s joints are done. the side frames are complete, with both consisting of six mortise and tenon joints like this:

In addition to this, there are three shelf frames that are on their way to completion. They’ll take just a little more time to complete, but all of the boards have been cut and now it’s just a matter of making 36 more joints. This sounds worse than it actually is, because the mortises and tenons on the remaining joints are quite small.

I have made a few decisions on this project. The first is that I’ll use some sort of bottled hide glue for the joints to see how it works. The second is that this will be a knockdown project and I will use some fastening hardware to attach the sides to the shelves. These decisions reflect a desire to experiment a little more, while at the same time saving some time, because this thing really needs to get done so that I can move on the the next project.

I also figure that since this is not meant to be the finest piece of furniture in the land, it doesn’t matter too much if some flaws show up a couple of years down the road. This became even more so when, a few weeks ago, I saw a design I liked a lot better than my current one.