Using a Story Stick to aid in the designing and laying out furniture.

Laying out all of your joints and built up moldings for any given piece of furniture on a story stick removes most of the fuzzy math and guess work.
A story Stick can be made using any scrap lumber. I salvage the left over wood after ripping long lumber or plywood. Begin by cutting a piece of scrap the exact overall length of the piece that you are designing. Using a Ruler, sharp pencil and a Combination Square measure the height of the base or legs and mark it on the stick. Next measure and mark the capital, Top or Crown on the other end of the stick. The area that is left over area can be used to layout drawers, doors and any face frame areas. Using this will allow you to mark out all door parts as stiles and rails. If the door has a divided light section you can even mark all of the muntins and even glass sizes can easily be calculated.

For instance, suppose that I am going to build a small Curio Cabinet. This cabinet will be 40” tall with a 3” crown on the top, a wood framed glass door including muntins and a small drawer at the bottom. I will start by cutting a stick 40” then I will mark the height of the drawer on the stick and the 3” crown on the top. I will then mark the face frame and any reviles. Then mark out the door parts Rails and muntins. If you make a mistake just sand out the pencil marks and start over. Make a stick for both the vertical and horizontal cabinet and lay out all of the joints and components on the sticks.
On a much larger scale you can use story sticks to layout built in cabinets and complete kitchens. Start by cutting and assembling a stick the full length of the wall or room the cabinets will occupy. Screw any pieces together and mark them for reassembly. Mark all of the existing conditions on the stick as plumbing, electrical outlets, doors and windows. Assemble the stick in the room on the wall that the cabinets will be installed. Armed with this you can take apart the stick parts, go into the shop and layout all of the cabinets without any mistakes.