For the growing family, saving space always seems to be a top priority. A bunk bed helps solve this problem by opening up more floor space and permitting greater flexibility.

We've seen variations of these clever railing-mounted planter boxes in the garden shops, but if you've got a table saw, it's cheaper to make them yourself. We show two types of planters: a straight version and a corner version.

Fishing rods don't usually fare very well when stored in closets, garages, basements or attics. Better to keep them in a rack like this, where they can be given a measure of protection. It also makes a handsome display for the living room or den.

This elegant little end table, fashioned mainly of ash and walnut, is an ideal way to show off an especially fine board. That richly figured walnut crotch that you've been saving, or some other prized board that's gathering dust in the corner, might just find a home with this design.

Though there's nothing spectacular about salad tongs, a serving board, a cooling rack and a recipe box, each of these projects has some unique feature. The four projects aren't intended as a set, though by using the same wood for each you could achieve a uniformity in appearance.

As a lawn or patio chair, this project is something like a chaise lounge, allowing you to stretch out and relax. The wide arms are ideal for that paper plate picnic lunch and a tall glass of lemonade. Best of all, the chair is easy to make.

Our handsome wall desk is a practical alternative to a floor standing desk. It's got a large drop-down writing surface, twin built-in corkboards for notes and reminders, plus a pencil holder and two shelves for storage. But best of all, it can be mounted just about anywhere you have 30 inches of free wall space.

This stylish napkin holder will make an attractive addition to any dining room setting. In use, the angled bottom makes the two halves tip together so the napkins stay neatly in place. The leather acts like a hinge.

The punched-tin panels, black iron hinges and simple casework make this little pine cabinet a country gem you'll want to put in a prominent spot.

In our part of the country (the Midwest), there are many variations of these simple candle holders. We give instructions for a five-candle holder, but you can vary the number of candles to suit your taste. The holders are designed to take 1/2 inch diameter candles.

The angel has been a favorite woodcarving subject for several hundred years. In early America, carved angels like this were often seen in the form of weather vanes. This project is an example of shallow relief carving where a silhouette shape is rounded and then detailed.

Here is a simply sturdy and effective way to store your pipe or bar clamps. It's also easy to make and doesn't require a lot of expensive materials, just some 3/4 inch construction-grade fir plywood.

A sturdy bench was a commodity much valued in the American colonies. It provided a welcome place to rest weary legs after a long day of hard work. Most early homes enjoyed several benches. Back then, country cabinetmakers found benches quick and easy to make. Today, a bench like this can still be made with a minimum of time and effort.

Time and technology march on. Interestingly, the construction of this CD Holder is loosely based on an old and venerable design - a traditional Early American revolving bookcase.

Here's a gift project you can make on a quiet Saturday afternoon. All you need is a few scraps of pine and the cookie jars.

A small occasional table like this can be used in many ways around the house. It's perfect as an end or lamp table, or alongside your favorite chair. Since it doesn't weigh much (about 7 pounds), it makes a great portable table for the dining room or even in the den to hold extra TV snacks.

A good solid desk is always a valued piece of furniture. This one, with its classic Early American styling, can be put to use almost anywhere. Consider it for a living room, bedroom, den, study, or hallway.

With this handsome coin bank on your dresser top, it will always be the right time to save. It's an attractive and interesting alternative to the tray that many of us use to hold our loose change when we empty our pockets at day's end.

This traditional Early American design is as useful today as it was 200 years ago. It's perfect for displaying curios or any other small items. Ours is made from bird's-eye maple, but walnut, cherry, and pine are other appropriate woods.

The design of this deck table is based on an idea that's been used for everything from stools to small tables. As a side table for your barbecue grill, an extra serving table in the dining room, or in some other capacity, this little fold-away table will find many uses.

Kids love to play with toys that require active involvement. This toy, with a fork that cranks up and down, should prove especially inviting. It even includes a pallet to help with the loading and unloading.

If you've check the furniture store circulars that usually come with the Sunday paper, chances are you know just how costly beds can be. Canopy-top four posters like ours usually sell for about $1,000, and that's for the bed only, without the mattress and box spring. For our bed, your materials expense should be around $200.

When in close proximity to this Grasshopper Pull Toy, small faces tend to break out in wide smiles. Even adults may have trouble suppressing little muscles pulling at the corners of the mouth. It's altogether too goofy looking to take with a straight face.

As woodworking plans go, this is one that invites creativity. To keep the plan simple, the designer included just a simple wedge and chute along the gumball path, but there is plenty of room to innovate.

We've called this piece a gun cabinet and bookcase, but that's just for starters. Whether your cabinet is destined for display and storage of a firearms collection, or for housing first editions of Tolstoy and Thoreau behind its glass-paneled doors, building the piece will be about the same.

Not all birds eat fruit, but orioles, cardinals, tanagers and woodpeckers are among those that love, especially apples and oranges. These colorful feeders are easy to make and are a great way to attract the fruit-eating feathered friends around your neighborhood.

The woodworking required for this project can be completed in an afternoon. It's a perfect scrap wood project for that special cutoff you've been saving.

If the ability to make a box is the foundation of most every carcase construction in woodworking, then this jewelry box carries the concept even further. If you can make a drawer, then you can make this box and conversely, if you can make this box, then you can make not only drawers but chests, cases and cabinets.

This box combines a simple design with a unique modular drawer system.

The mountain or lap dulcimer is a simple-to-build, easy-to-play stringed instrument.

You'll find this piece a pleasure to use, especially if you are accustomed to those rickety tubular steel stands sold by most music stores. The sliding shaft and pivoting bracket permit a variety of height and angle adjustments, so the stand can be used while sitting or standing.

Massachusetts furniture maker Gene Cosloy designed this table so that it forms a perfect oval without any extensions. With with both extensions in place, though, the table has an elegant look and doesn't appear stretched out of proportion.

Our Perpetual Calendar is a welcome relief from the annual ritual of changing calendars. And it's a bit more elegant than the paper calendars that boast a pretty picture but also trumpet the local bank or insurance agency. In the kitchen or family room it's a unique and attractive way to keep count of the days. The calendar may look complicated, but it's easy to make.

This small but elegant cabinet can have many faces and a multitude of uses, not just a spice cabinet. The piece can be just as at home in the living room, perhaps as a collector's display cabinet.

This small Country-style vanity is perfect for a dresser top. Ours is made from pine, but it will look good made from any wood.

This Early American style cabinet will look good in any room, although it seems particularly well suited for the kitchen or bathroom. To make it easy to build, we simplified the joinery, using a basic butt joint secured with countersunk and plugged wood screws.

Although not an exact copy of an original, this plant stand was inspired by a similar stand in walnut built about 200 years ago. We used bird's-eye maple instead of the walnut, and added chamfers and lamb's tongues to the legs. By careful layout of the various parts you can make this plant stand from a single 1 inch thick by 6 inch wide by 6 foot long board. You'll have almost no waste left over.

A few hours in the workshop should be all that's needed to make this fanciful napkin holder. We've also found that it doubles nicely as a letter rack. It's a great project for scroll saw enthusiasts, although the band or saber saw can also be used.

These sanding blocks are a low-cost alternative to the store-bought variety. The step-by-step technique shown yields three separate blocks - one each for coarse, medium and fine sandpaper.

The availability of inexpensive sanding drums has made possible the construction of low-cost shop-built spindle sanders. Our design takes the simple motor-in-a-box spindle sander one step further. Its adjustable table and replaceable insert enable the owner to use any number of different size and design sanding drums, from shaft type to threaded.

This cupboard captures the essence of a primitive slant-back cupboard without being pretentious. Best of all, though, you don't need to have a supply of old wood or moldings on hand to make the piece. The cupboard can be constructed entirely of 3/4 inch pine boards and stock molding available at your local lumber-yard.

We've seen cutting boards in all kinds of shapes and sizes, but this variation has to be one of the most useful. It fits on the sink-top, with a hole added to make it easy to push the scraps off the board and into your sink where the garbage disposal takes over.

The special jig adapts a portable router, preferably a plunge router, for use as a stationary tool. This "master" jig supplies a host of work setups in one compact package.

This sturdy desk set features a good sized "cubby," which is handy for storing books, papers, and supplies. Also, the four plastic cups are ideal for holding pencils, crayons, and paintbrushes.

These lovely heart-shaped boxes will make perfect Valentine's Day gifts. They are made almost entirely with the band saw, and with a refined procedure of only a few basic steps, you'll find these boxes surprisingly easy to make.

This figure lacks the jolly smile of modern Santas. Instead he has a somber expression typical of many older St. Nicholas figures. His thoughtful look reflects the Saint's role as judge of the deeds of children and adults over the past year.

These two clever little holiday scenes work both as puzzles and as decorations. For display, the individual parts are pulled out and stood upright in front of the frame. The frame serves as a backdrop for the individual pieces, and also as a storage container when you're ready to fit the pieces back together. Kids will love arranging and playing with the individual pieces.

The English refer to it as a high chest of drawers; we call it a highboy. By either name it is certainly one of the most distinctive and beautiful pieces of furniture designed in the 18th century. The general style of our pieces is representative of the rural Massachusetts or Connecticut River Valley tradition.

This handy Router Storage Cabinet solves the problem of not only storing routers, but also of organizing all your bits and accessories. The interior dimensions will store both a full-size plunge router and a standard-size router. Bits and accessories fit in the two drawers.

Well-designed, well-constructed furniture in the Santa Fe style can be a pleasant break from both traditional and modern furniture styles. Our Santa Fe style bench, made entirely of pine, utilizes the classic pegged, through mortise-and-tenon joint. Its brightly painted finish makes this a piece that one decorates a room around.

The Shaker Tall Clock is an heirloom piece that will repay your weeks or months of dedicated woodworking with untold years of satisfaction. A clock built by Shaker Erastus Rude inspired this version, which has been changed to accommodate modern woodworking techniques. The Rude clock can still be seen at the Shaker Museum in Old Chatham, New York.

You don't have to be famous for your shoe collection to appreciate a handy closet organizer like our shoe rack. The racks are designed to stack on top of each other, so you can make as many as you need. You can also vary the length of the racks to fit your closet.

There's no arguing the value of a step stool in the home. The trouble is, most step stools just aren't meant to be seen. That's why, when we discovered this handsome step stool, we knew it was something special.

Builder Richard Wonderlich, of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, says the inspiration for this sunburst mirror came from the shutters on an historic home that he helped restore in his hometown. Coincidentally, Mr. Wonderlich adds that it was his great-grandfather who, back in 1854, did the original trim work on the house. Wonderlich says the position of the shutters above the window gave him the idea of substituting a mirror and frame for the window sash and frame.

This Sushi Set is easy to make. If you don't like sushi, the set also makes an attractive serving tray for cheese and meat.

Here's a simple table patterned after a piece commonly found in Early American taverns. Many a settler took stock of his fortunes and made plans for a new life seated at one of these small tables. The construction is fairly simple, with trestle style legs that fit into chamfered feet. The joinery consists of double mortise-and-tenon joints that are pegged. The pegs add an interesting detail, and were commonly used instead of glue when these tables were originally made.

Dressed-up tissue boxes are hardly a novel idea, but our cover goes the standard color-printed cardboard box one. In addition to providing an attractive sleeve for a standard 4-1/2 inch square by 5-1/4 inch high tissue box, it lends the box a little added weight. No longer will you need two hands to extricate a stubborn tissue.

This cart provides ample storage for the tot who likes to tote those toys about. We just can't guarantee that they'll load the toys back into the cart after play time is through.

A couple of evenings in the workshop should be about all that's needed to make this toy. The two carts are identical except for the location of the cart couplers.

Here's a train set that will inspire many young and perhaps even a few older imaginations. At first glance the train set may seem like a lot of work. But don't be fooled. You'll discover that the train is designed around a simplified common chassis system, where all the cars except the locomotive share identical undercarriages.