Hutch design

Kevin Morris

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11
I have been asked to design and build two hutches for the living room of a new home. The hutches will be placed in two recessed areas in the living room walls that are appx 53”x 89” each. Problem I’m having is…each recessed area has an arch at the top and I am trying to figure out a way to design the top of the hutches to match. Any suggestions or ideas will be greatly appreciated.
 
Sounds like a fun project Kevin. Any guidelines for the style to use? Do you have an idea of what they will be using the hutches for? How familiar are you with sketchup?
 
why not just hold a 1/4 inch piece of whatever sheet goods you have, over the arch from the outside, and trace the angle from the inside.
Then you have that as a template to design the same size arch.
 
The design choice for me, regardless of style would vary if these are to be two pieces of furniture versus two built-ins. If they are to be two pieces of furniture "standing" in the spaces, I would scale them to make the arches and the openings obviously belong to the "space" and top the "furnishing" so that it obviously belongs to the hutch.

If they are to be built-ins, I will defer to our cabinet pros who do a much, much better job of offering design ideas for built-ins. These guys amaze me with their ability to make something that I might try that just doesn't seem right, to appear as a seamless design that was always intended to be there.
 
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The hutches will be used for knick-knacks, pictures, etc. and the guidelines for building them are completely up to me. I probably should have been a little more specific in my first post, making the arch is not a problem, I just want it too be a little more than just a plain piece of rounded wood.
 
Without seeing a photo of the area, my first thought is to do built-ins. I'd create an arch with an attractive profile and continue that profile down the edges all the way to the floor. The internal areas could be an enclosed cabinet on bottom up to about a 30" level then have open, adjustable shelves above that for display.
 
Bil, what you just described is what I had in mind also. Problem I'm having is figuring out how to make the attractive profile on the arch.

Without seeing a photo of the area, my first thought is to do built-ins. I'd create an arch with an attractive profile and continue that profile down the edges all the way to the floor. The internal areas could be an enclosed cabinet on bottom up to about a 30" level then have open, adjustable shelves above that for display.
 
Running a profile on a large arch is not something most home shops are equipped for. If you Google "profile an arched piece of molding" and select 'videos' you will get some results for using a tilting router lift and other machines. For smaller pieces you can capture them in a template sandwich if a bearing guided profile suits your needs (an example shown here: http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Making_Custom_Curved_Moulding_for_Arched_Doors.html )

There are flexible molding products available from most lumber yards but, I do not like the cast woodgrain and colors. For painted pieces they would work well. Depending on the profile you want you may be able to double-stick tape a template to the piece and do the profiles in steps; inside, outside, center-cove(?).

Nothing concrete like a "how-to", I'm just throwing out ideas that might make you go "Ah-Ha!"
 
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