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I thought I'd share these pictures of a hope chest that I built for my daughter for Christmas. The chest is made of oak that I salvaged several years ago from a neighbour that was throwing out after her husband died. It was planed on the sides but not on the edges. I used 1/2" for the sides and top and 1" for the bottom and ends.

Since I don't posses a jointer or planer, I jointed the boards by clamping them on the work bench and then running my circular saw down the joint. Even though the result wasn't perfectly straight, it was the same on both sides and made a pretty good joint. On many of the boards, several passes, reclamping between each, were necessary. Variations in the boards after clamping were cleaned up with my block plane. I cut a dado on the edges of the bottom and set the sides and ends into that rather than just a but joint. The top was just nailed on and then I used my circular saw to cut the lid out - roughly 2" down from the top. The flush trimming bit on my router took care of some rather bad measuring and I rounded over the top. To keep the lid from moving around, I attached another strip of oak inside the lid. Some work with the block plane was necessary to bevel the edge so that the lid would open and close easily.

At the bottom, to make for easier moving and to prevent damage to the floor or chest, I used my hole saw to create some feet out of pine.

This chest is roughly based on the sea chest of an old aquaintance who was in the merchant marine. His daughter was nice enough to let me take measurements of it a number of years ago. I had to adjust the dimensions to match the available material. In the spring we'll probably put a few coats of varnish on it.