2026 Final Project

The Proposal: A Little Library! I have wanted to make one forever. It will be mounted on a post, designed to function as a neighborhood community tool. The library will be a small house-shaped wooden cabinet with a hinged door, interior shelf(ves?), and a post/base to stand.

The Aesthetic: Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is a very decorative aesthetic defined by organic and nature-inspired forms. I want to base the making of this on flowing lines, etching leaves/vines/flowers, carving branch shapes, etc. It works perfectly since none of it should interfere with the structural integrity too.

• Organic flow / whiplash: Surface decoration! I am hoping to etch the wood (interior or exterior, who knows yet) with continuous flowing vine and stem patterns that curve across surfaces. Maybe make the edge of the shelf a curved surface instead of straight, that type of pattern.

• Gesamtkunstwerk (the total work of art): Part of the wood (possibly depending on my skills) carved to reflect branches and roots rather than just plain straight wood, the etchings of vines, all of this makes the whole object a unified whole being.

• Nature motifs: Everything. The laser etchings, possibly carving branches, it is a heavy overlap with total work of art.

The Process: Sacrificed almost 4 hours of my life for etching the design into wood but it looks amazing so no regerts!! I also drilled all the pilot holes, curved the edges of the roof, and added slots for the shelf. My next steps are assembling the whole thing, adding design elements (some of which are tbd, maybe I’ll add roof shingles somehow) like corner brackets, eaves brackets, maybe carving some things. I’m excited to do some more work on it! Did a lot in the last week for this project. I added a shelf inside by just making a slot for it to sit on, turns out just going for it is a mistake and I put it too high up and it was above the door, so completely blocked off. But that actually was fine because it led to me deciding to make a little window. I added one of the big hole drill bits for the window, and that went well, but then I made another hole in scrap wood to maybe learn to carve (did not happen that’s too much) and the piece below it to not drill into the plate went flying and I smacked my fingers really hard :((. But all good now. Then we have more and more laser cutting for the roof since when I tried to do the shingles I realized it would be impossible to do them all flat with angles, so I had to build up the roof below each shingle level. That was miserable, but turned out amazing and I loved how it turned out! I got some cool hinges and a latch! Overall very happy 🙂