Thanks for the kind words everyone. John - I really like the look of elm too...the grain is amazing, and I agree with you about ash too....hard to believe it isn't used more...it's cheap, stable, mills well, has beautiful flowing grain that reminds me of the better examples of oak, and stains nicely. It's also becoming endangered.
I wasn't quite sure where I was heading with the dovetails Vaughn...I basically just wanted to try some, and that's what I ended up with!
I do like them, but they're not really tied in with anything else.
OK Mr. Questions...the color wasn't really a match to anything else, but I had a color in mind that I was trying to achieve that was kind of a cross between golden oak and early American. The color idea came from an antique piece that my MIL has. Elm has some good natural red color but also has a lot of color variation that includes some brown and pronounced blond areas, so different boards required a different mix to get them to blend the way I wanted. The ash also stains differently than elm and took more cherry to get it close. I'm sure there are better ways to achieve uniform color, but it was kind of an afterthought on the fly using what was available.
The side panels are just about 7/16". The 4 upright pieces are ~ 1-1/8". The tenons on the cross braces are actually sliding dovetails....another hair brain idea I had to add strength, but what a major pain to slide into place once they had glue on them.
The original plan called for a couple of nice corbels at the top, but the fluting up the sides interferred with their location, so I abandoned them for now
. I'm still toying with the idea of adding something decorative, whether a unique looking corbel that fits, or some pegs, but since I didn't have any "good" ideas yet, I decided to leave well enough alone until I see how the pedestal feet look.