Poplar & Dowel Sideboard

A custom designed and built sideboard using hand-Picked poplar boards and Wood dowels

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When we bought this house, I purchased a basic and boring white Ikea Bookcase as a sideboard in our dining room. With all intentions to perform an “Ikea Hack” on it, I attached it to the wall and swore I would get to it. That was 6 years ago.

Before

I finally decided to just build one instead. I had seen a photo online of a far more expensive version, but the Dowel design was similar. I had also been hoarding carefully selected Poplar boards. Having no idea what I would build with them, I couldn’t help but buy one whenever their colors and grains were too good to pass up.

*Side Note: Poplar wood isn’t typically chosen for its beauty and wood grain. It is a soft, relatively inexpensive wood usually with a greenish hue. However, every once in a while I find one with purple and dark charcoal/black streaks through it. I always grab those when i see them.

After

This was also a great chance to finally use my Ryobi Biscuit Joiner whos box was still unopened and collecting dust.

In the future, I hope to document projects with a bit more detail, but for now I’ve created this quick video of the process for this one. The part where I attached and glued the dowels is missing because it took much longer and was more difficult than i expected. No one wants to watch me spend an hour trying to place umpteen dowels and sandwich the boards together….even when the video speed is ramped up!