Cabinet maker also crafts custom furniture

From what Peter Del Gandio hears in business circles, the future of cabinet making is bleak.

COURTESY PHOTO Peter Del Gandio designs and builds custom cabinetry and furniture. He built this bedroom dresser, which showcases his specialty of contrasting light with dark wood, for his son. Good thing the 63-year-old proprietor of Del Design has the wherewithal to design and create custom furniture in addition to cabinetry.

The New Jersey transplant says his interest in design piqued when he was 13. He had classes in mechanical drawing and drafting but did not receive formal training once he reached adulthood. Instead, he taught himself the design and build trades while holding jobs in engineering, such as designing circuit boards, and in woodworking. He specialized in cabinetry as a Home Depot employee before eventually branching out into his own company. He has more than 15 years of experience making custom furniture and cabinetry.

"The hardest part of the job is coming up with a design," he says. "If I can design it, I can build it. The problem with design is coming up with an idea."

He reads woodworking or related books and watches TV woodworking shows to get ideas. He maintains a notebook of designs in pencil. The dimensions of a current project are detailed over three pages taped to the door of his home shop. He makes a thorough design in anticipation of trouble spots. "When you're designing a piece of furniture, you're actually going through the designing process as you're building it," he says.

He prefers to create furniture that contrasts light and dark woods, which requires a combination of woods. He enjoys working with maple as a base because it's available and easy to work.

For example, he recently completed a bedroom dresser for his son, Robert. He says he got the idea from an art deco piece he saw in a book. Designed for a male, the dresser is 53 inches high and 43 inches wide. The case and top are made of maple quarter cut, the drawers of maple and the handles bloodwood. The top drawer fronts are sycamore with blood wood edging, and bottom drawer fronts are kewazinga and waterfall bubinga. The dresser's end panels have three matching drawers, while four shelves occupy the taller center panel.

"If I designed for a female, it would be lower with a chair and have a mirror," he indicates. "I think that this piece could be made into mass production."

The bedroom set showcases Mr. Del Gandio's distinctive design, the use of unique angles. A living room chest resembling the shape of a trapezoid also has light and dark features. Because the piece's sides angle in and down, he created three angled drawer fronts, with the end two symmetrical. The 2-inch edging of lacewood curves down around the sides and front of the top. Among the featured woods are bird's eye, mahogany and curly maple.

"Sometimes the wood will tell you what type of project to make," he says. "Sometimes the project will tell you what type of wood to use."

Mr. Del Gandio's home, which he shares with wife Francesca, features many of his works, including a number of first efforts. His first bookcase — spanning a wall in the library — is 8 feet wide and 7½ feet high. The maplestained mass has two partitions, allowing for multiple shelves in each of its three sections. A deep drawer along the bottom of each section provides additional storage.

His first chair, featuring a back and seat of dowels fixed horizontally, stays in the dining room. "It was hard putting the dowels in," he says. "My wife loves it."

That chair and others he built, including one that won second place in woodworking at a Cape Coral show, are arranged around a maple table of three leaves in the dining room. The table has the veneer top common in his custom works. Although he says the process of applying masking tape to pieces of wood, squeezing the pieces together and then gluing them is tedious and challenging, the undulating pattern in the veneer stands out.

A huge entertainment center in the living room is a symmetrical beauty. Four bottom drawers and five shelves below the wide-screen hold audiovisual equipment. Two side panels of stacked shelving have frosted glass fronts.

Mr. Del Gandio hasn't been entering his work in shows as much as in past years, he says, because it's difficult for him to transport such large pieces of furniture. His grown son has relocated, and Mr. Del Gandio has double knee replacements. Still, he and his wife continue to attend shows.

Examples of his kitchen designs can be seen on the Custom Made site at www.custommade.com.