Designing your rooms around an ethnic theme can be exciting and fun and allows you to bring elements of other cultures and distant lands into your home. You can be more daring in your approach to colour and with such a wide variety of textures and patterns available, this can collectively add a whole new dimension to your interior design project. Unusual artifacts from different cultures can work very well as focal points in a room and as there are no hard and fast rules to stick to and because there are so many variations, you can go beyond the usual or traditional to portray a style that is not only beautiful, it is unique.

So what do we mean by ethnic?

Ethnic basically means native or indigenous people from a particular area so in relation to Interior Design it means to bring the natural elements that are representative of whatever culture, land or peoples you choose to portray into your own home to define your space.

Naturally the world is your oyster as they say so there are countless cultures to choose from, all you have to do is bring a particular ensemble of colours, patterns, materials and artifacts together to create a "look" that is recognisable and distinctive. What about a Mediterranean flavour, Native American Indian symbolism, or perhaps Tibetan Buddhism? Popular themes include African, Mexican, and Asian but you can go with whatever inspires or appeals to you. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

African Theme

Think of Africa and all that it conjures up in your mind, the landscape, the sounds, the smells, the colours, the mood, and then if you try to pick out the key points, what would they be? Colour schemes might include earthy colours like green, beige, browns and tans, set off with orange and splashes of red. Think about floor and wall coverings, natural substances would probably work best. Finishing touches can include wall hangings, African artifacts, drums, rugs, African fabrics and prints, animals made of stone, clay or wood, ceremonial masks hung on the wall, brightly coloured African bowls and pots, and so on.

Mexican Theme

What does Mexico mean to you? Perhaps desert colours with sandy tones, beige and khaki, along with reddish, rustic colours and hues. Blankets and woven fabrics in bright colours, perhaps terra cotta pots and bowls, pine wood is popular for furniture. Artifacts can include symbols of the South West or from the Spanish influence, or from the Aztecs, Mayans and other ancient civilisations, all of which can add an interesting and authentic Mexican look and feel.

Asian Theme

There are many variations within an Asian theme but two quite popular ones are Japanese and Chinese. Japanese themes tend to lean towards a more minimalist look and have a tranquil and peaceful feel. Consider a futon and using screens to get that Japanese ambiance. Colours tend to be natural and objects from nature often feature as focal points, for example, smooth stones and pebbles, water fountains and bonsai trees. Chinese themes on the other hand might involve brighter and bolder colours, lanterns, dragons and other mythological creatures, artwork depicting the traditional people colours and landscapes and Chinese handwriting.

How to get started

Once you have established which particular ethnic culture appeals to you, browse through books and magazines and the Internet to get ideas that will spark off your own imaginative flair. Identify what elements go together to make up that particular look or feel that you want to create.

Consider the walls, ceilings and floors carefully as this will provide a base for you to work from and then you can add in the details to finish it off. For example, is the texture and appearance of the walls and ceilings rough or smooth? What floor covering is appropriate, should it be wood, stone, tiles or carpets? Will rugs and mats make a difference and if so what are they made of? Are the windows better suited to drapes, blinds or shutters? What style of furniture works? What about plants, motifs, pictures and wall hangings?

The theme you adopt and the way that you choose to portray specific elements of that theme is entirely up to you and your imagination, the end result will be your own unique interpretation of a culture or a place and you will have added a touch of the exotic to your home.

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After slicing (resawing) and dicing (ripping, cross-cutting) the rough blanks for the interior parts, I am now left with a few fairly identically sized boards. The individual boards are thicker than the final dimension to allow for any cupping ,bowing, or twist that may result from the resawing operation and acclimatization of the boards. I have also resawn a few extra boards to allow for any problems or mismatched grain when creating the wider panels for the drawer cases. The boards are fairly similar in width but differ in length. Half are destined for the single drawer case, the other half to the stacked drawer case. Some wane or bark can be seen on a few of the boards and this will be trimmed off to create square edges with minimal removal.

I left off in the previous post with a few boards to flatten and smooth with handplanes. I typically use a planing board with a plane stop at the end to perform this type of work. The boards are relatively small and are easily held against the plane stop. This allows me to quickly flip the board around to plane either side without needing to clamp the board again. If I were planing a larger panel I would most likely fasten it between bench dogs.

The handplaning of these particular boards is straightforward along their length with little diagonal planing... so it works out well. Handplaning these boards which will comprise the panels for the drawer cases begins with a long fore or jointer plane to flatten the faces of the boards and ensure they are flat and parallel to each other. I also have the final thickness of each board in mind and work towards this. After the individual boards were resawn a little cupping was introduced , inherent to resawing, and although acclimatization to the studio environment helps to relieve this cup and any other tension in the boards, some minimal cupping remains in each of these boards.

I use a jointer plane in this case, I have it tuned and ready most of the time for work like this. A shorter fore plane would also be ideal since the boards are relatively short in length. Once the boards faces are flat with parallel faces I then move on to a finely tuned smoother plane to ensure the faces of the boards are flat as can be. The term which is used for this type of board preparation is four-squaring the board which ensures that both faces and the two long edges are parallel to each other, and the ends and edges are perpendicular. After completing this process on each of the other boards which will comprise the drawer case panels, I will be squaring the ends to achieve both the correct length of each board and to ensure the boards are perfectly square.

Editor's note: Because it's "Workbench Week Internazionale" I decided to tie up a loose end from my book: "Workbenches: from Blah, blah blah to Yadda yadda yadda." On page 57 I discuss Thomas Stangeland's bench and point out how the best woodworking I've seen has been built on the most minimal of workbenches.

Helpful reader Tom Moore visited Stangeland's shop recently and snapped the above photo of the bench. Below is the story that goes with that workbench.


In 2006 I taught a class in handwork at a school where Thomas Stangeland, a maestro at Greene & Greene-inspired work, was also teaching a class. Though we both strive for the same result in craftsmanship, the process we each use couldn’t be more different. He builds furniture for a living, and he enjoys it. I build furniture because I enjoy it, and I sell an occasional piece.

One evening we each gave a presentation to the students about our work. One of the pieces I showed was an image of my French workbench. I discussed its unusual workholding devices and how the bench was a bit of a Thor Heyerdahl experience.

Thomas then got up and said he wished he had a picture to show of his workbench for the last decade: a door on a couple horses. He said that a commercial shop had no time to waste on building a traditional bench. And with his power-tool approach, he just needed a flat surface and some clamps to work.

It’s hard to argue with the end result. His furniture is beautiful.

But what’s important to note here is that you can get by with the door-off-the-floor approach, but there are many commercial woodworkers who still see the utility of a traditional workbench. Chairmaker and furnituremaker Brian Boggs uses more newfangled routers and shop-made devices with aluminum extrusions than I have ever seen in a shop. And he still has two enormous traditional workbenches that see constant use.

The point here is that a good bench won’t make you a better woodworker. And a not-quite-a-bench won’t doom you to failure. But a good bench in any shop will make many power-tool operations easier and open the door to permit you to try many hand-tool operations. The bench is simply another tool. It’s the biggest wooden clamp in the shop.

As Thomas was wrapping up his part of the show he showed an interesting slide of an enormous and thick slab of an exotic wood he had been stashing for years and years in his shop.

“I just need to find the right project for it,” he said.

“Hey Thomas,” I heckled, “that slab sure would make a great benchtop.”

He laughed. Next slide, please.

— Christopher Schwarz

I have begun work on the front doors in the past day or so. I'm not sure if you recall, but in an earlier post I decided to create the doors of the cabinet as veneered panels rather than solid wood. The primary reason for this is the width of each of the doors and the large expansion and contraction coefficient of the solid wood, along with the exceptional stability of veneered panels. Although I had originally intended to use quarter-sawn wood, the expansion rate is still uncomfortably large with the approximate 13 inches of width for each door. The first part of creating the individual doors is to have a straight, flat and solid substrate. I have selected multi-ply baltic birch for the substrate, the virtues of this wood are dimensional stability and strength. It is very well suited for use as a substrate for veneering.

After cutting the pieces for each door to approximate size, I added some solid beech edging to all four sides of each panel. This allows me to overlap the veneer the full expanse of each panel and in turn I gain solid wood at each of the ends and sides. As part of the design I need to have solid wood at the junction of the doors to be able to create a rabbeted lip. The strips of beech I use along with the substrate together provide me with two oversized door panels which I will trim after veneering.

While the glue is setting on the substrate door panels, I take the opportunity to lay out some veneer pieces from solid European Beech stock I have. Once the stock is marked I begin to resaw the veneers. This operation is fairly slow as each piece of veneer needs to be sawn fairly uniform in thickness and with minimal saw marks and due to the depth or width of the veneers, the stock can only be passed through the bandsaw at a low feed speed. While laying out the veneers I stumbled across some nicely figured stock which I will use to create the veneers for the front of the doors. This was not anticipated and a welcome surprise, the inherent beauty of wood and the surprises it holds. I now need to spend a little more time bookmatching the figured veneer for each door panel. Hopefully this will work out and the veneered sheets come out fine.

Next I will continue to work on the veneers and use the individual veneer slices to create sheets large enough to cover each side of the door panels. Working with thin sheets of veneer like this involves careful attention to their fragile nature. Although the resawn veneers I am creating are an order of magnitude thicker than commercial veneers, they can still be fragile.

Sometimes I spend time researching past furniture styles. I often read that much today has already been done before, and after seeing some good examples of period furniture, find some truth in this old adage. My favorite influential maker is George Hepplewhite and the associated furniture of his era. Furniture of the late 18th century has been mostly characterized by Chippendale and the cabriole leg design element. George Hepplewhite, however, is much less written about and known, and was characterized by the slight, tapered legs of his furniture and lightness and delicacy of his pieces. A considerable amount of 20th century furniture has been derived from this late 18th , early 19th century period and in particular the makers Chippendale and Hepplewhite. American Federal style furniture had its origins in the Hepplewhite style. Much of the design elements of this particular period have made their way into furniture of the past century. This can be considered a "revival" of a previous style in time, but I like to think of it as simply embracing design elements which were and continue to be pleasing to the eye..

When I flip through examples of furniture representative of previous periods and styles, it is easy to see what worked and what didn't work. The design elements which are pleasing and well-proportioned are carried into later periods, whereas the not so pleasing styles typically die off. Another trend which I notice is how previous styles of furniture are sometimes renounced and discarded only to be replaced with a radically different style of furniture. We see this very same phenomenon today in everything ranging from fashion, automobiles, and continue to see it in furniture styles. A "revival" of a previous period or style of furniture then occurs, much like what occurs in the fashion world today.

The reason I raise this is that this is something to consider for furniture makers today. We all have our favorite style as makers, but it may be important to incorporate proven design elements in our designs, the elements which have demonstrated the most success over the past few centuries. Since what we are designing is often derived from a previous style or work, it makes more sense to derive elements from the successful styles of furniture.

I'm a big fan of clean, simple lines with minimal adornment, although I like to incorporate some inlay into my work. The inlay work sparks my creativity and in a strange way provides me the impetus to complete the furniture so as to add the inlay detail. I can relate the piece of furniture to a large canvas and the inlay is the artwork. Other makers might define themselves through another feature on their work, perhaps some carving or marquetry. George Hepplewhite often distinguished his work with added inlay. A large proportion of Hepplewhite and Federal style furniture is inlaid with the exotic woods which had come into popularity by the late part of the 18th century and early 19th century.

More on this later...