The hard maple was sourced from a local woodworker who mills lumber to support his hobby. Nothing beats watching this rough sawn lumber clean up in the planer.

After planing all the boards to 1" thick I stickered them and allowed them to acclimate for a few days before jointing the edges.

I don't have a jointer, so in this case, I use my tracksaw to get clean up one edge, then run that edge on my tablesaw fence to bring the piece to final width. Then, I used biscuits to join the two boards together.

Next, I clamped the boards together. I left the ends rough and trimmed them down with the tracksaw after glue-up.

I then added a pretty hefty 1/2" chamfer on the top edges of the top panel and the bottom edges of the bottom panel.

Next, I carefully lined up biscuits to join the vertical dividers to the top and bottom panels.

Then clamped up with a few clamps over each divider.

This photo shows my concept of joining the legs together. The legs are splayed at about 6 degrees and tapered from 2" at the top to 1" at the bottom. I used an offcut of the taper for a clamping wedge on each side of the leg and set a biscuit slot where the legs and stretcher meet.

I then used glue and a biscuit to join the boards. I was trying to avoid any complicated joinery since I am not there yet with proficiency. Time will tell if this joint is strong enough, but 7 months later and it's still standing.

I used serrated metal dowels to attach the interior stretcher to the legs and plugged the holes with dowels. You'll never see the underside so I went with a simple approach here.

The drawer box is constructed with 1/2" maple sides and a 1/2" walnut front. I used rabbets and glue for the corner joinery; and the bottom panel is slid into a 1/4" dado.

I finished the piece with boiled linseed oil. For, what I consider, to be my first piece of real furniture, I am very happy with this. The credenza is perfectly level; except my basement floor is far from level. I consciously made the legs inset from the front and back by 3" so that the top sits flush against the wall without interfering with the hot water baseboards.

I used a simple brass pull on the drawer. The drawer slides on a thin piece of plastic attached to the bottom without any side slides.

This is probably my favorite picture of the final product.

This photo highlights the chamfer on the panels and the splayed and tapered legs.

This photo highlights the walnut drawer front. I selected the board so that the drawer pull sits in the middle of the grainline "confluence". Thanks for looking through my project!