After a tour of The New Yankee Workshop to preview the collection of furniture he will build in the first season, Norm visits a "retiring room" at the Hancock Shaker Village in western Massachusetts to find a model for a handcrafted medicine cabinet. Drawing inspiration from a looking glass and cabinet, Norm uses durable red oak and oak plywood to construct a medicine chest of his own design featuring box-joint joinery

A good workshop begins with a well-equipped workbench, and master woodworker Norm uses one from his own shop as a model for the conveniently-sized and affordable workbench he builds in this episode. After a look at a workbench used 100 years ago by the craftsmen at Hancock Shaker Village in western Massachusetts, Norm builds a workbench featuring an oak-edged hardwood top, a bench vice, a recessed tool storage area on top and a shelf beneath.

Norm uses ash, a durable hardwood, to fashion a drop-leaf table featuring turned legs, a top and leaves made from glued up stock. Norm shows how to turn the table legs on a duplicating lathe and reveals a few tricks for making mortise and tenons joints. Using a router and two special bits, he shows how the drop-leaf joint is made.

Norm travels to the island of Nantucket off the Massachusetts coast to look at a handmade blanket chest in a sea captain's house dating from 1790. Incorporating elements of this antique in his own design, Norm builds a blanket chest of pine, lined with aromatic cedar panels.

Norm constructs a bedside table inspired by one found at the Hancock Shaker Village in western Massachusetts. Norm's design, made from pine, features a shallow drawer, table legs tapered on the inner sides and a table top with a breadboard design (glued boards edged with wood on two ends).

Norm demonstrates how to build a bathroom vanity with dovetailed joints. He uses oak and a laminate top with double doors and a flat panel outside and raised panel inside mimicking the Shaker style. The vanity dimensions are 34" high x 38" wide x 23" deep. Inspired by a dry sink he found at a 1790 Shaker house in Harvard, Norm's oak unit features dovetailed joints and a high-pressure laminate top.

After a look at a pine trestle table in a Shaker house on the island of Nantucket off the Massachusetts coast, Norm constructs his own easily-disassembled trestle table of cherry, a hardwood which, if kiln-dried, resists twisting or shrinking over time. Norm shows how to glue up the boards that comprise the expansive table top and demonstrates how to make the two trestles and the stretcher which connects them.

Norm builds a free standing bookcase with a cornice detail, adjustable shelves, and a removable base. He uses pine for the base and birch plywood for the rest. The bookcase dimensions are 80" high x 36" wide x 12 1/2" deep.

Norm demonstrates how to build a chest of drawers using Ponderosa pine. He cuts and planes the wood, glues the boards fro the top and sides. He also illustrates how to build the drawers including the drawer case, the frames, and the base. The chest measures 42" high x 41 1/2" wide x 19" deep. Norm makes his own design from Ponderosa pine, showing how to cut and plane the wood, glue the boards and build the drawers, frame and base.

Norm travels to the Hancock Shaker Village in western Massachusetts to gather ideas for his own design for a candle stand. Returning to his workshop, Norm shows home woodworkers how to build an exact replica using power tools, including a lathe, router and band saw.

Norm demonstrates how to build a hutch using knotty pine. The hutch consists of a base cabinet that has raised panel doors and an open shelf section. It measures 81 1/2" high x 56" wide x 18" deep. In the kitchen of the Fitch house at Old Stourbridge, Norm shows us an early American `hutch' then builds his own pine version back at the workshop.

Norm builds a writing desk with a slanted top that is constructed mostly of maple. The desk features a shallow drawer, a nest of small drawers, and a open bins in the top. The dimensions are 42" high x 36" wide x 20" deep. Made mostly of maple, this desk is one of the more complicated projects ever tackled by Norm.

Norm constructs a corner cupboard of pine and plywood. His design employees a top section that is enclosed by glass paned doors and a base cabinet with raised panel doors. The cupboard dimensions are 86 1/2" high x 42" wide x 30" deep. Norm makes his own corner cupboard from pine and plywood, incorporating a top section with glass doors and a base cabinet with raised panel doors.

After a look at a collection of wooden toys at Old Sturbridge Village, a "living history" museum in central Massachusetts, Norm builds a child's rocking horse from ash- a durable hardwood.

Norm designs his own version of the rustic Adirondack chair out of cypress, an excellent wood that needs no preservatives or treatment.

Norm visits Kingscote, an elegant Gothic Revival house in Newport, Rhode Island, for a look at a mahogany butler's table with four leaves that fold down on solid brass hinges. For his version of this stylish antique, Norm demonstrates the technique of biscuit joinery to glue together the boards for the tray, crafts mortise-and-tenon joints to connect the rails of the base, uses a molding head cutter on his table saw to add a decorative bead to the rails, and shows how to mount the tray's special hinges.

After a look at an early 18th-century kitchen cupboard at Old Sturbridge Village, a "living history" museum in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, Norm constructs his own version from pine featuring open shelves above a base cabinet whose door sports an antique-style hinge. He shows a pattern to draw the curved outline of the side pieces, then uses a hand-held saber saw to make the cut, saving the cut-out portions to make shelves. Using a molding head cutter on his table saw, Norm demonstrates how to add a decorative bead to the shelves.

Norm travels to the Massachusetts harbor of Gloucester to look at a high-backed, curved hearthside settle at Beauport, the home of tarry 20th-century interior decorator and antiquarian Henry Sleeper. The house is now a museum run by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. Norm's version of this pine piece closes in the area beneath the seat to create a storage space and adds an access hatch in the seat. Norm shows how to cut the settle's curved cross-members and shaped side pieces, how to join the back boards with tongue-and-groove joints, and how to bend the back base board along the bottom of the frame.

Norm visits the Shelbourne Museum in Burlington, Vermont to examine an antique pencil-post bed with a rope support system and a hay-filled mattress. Norm then adapts this design to accommodate a standard full-size mattress and box spring, and builds his pencil-post bed of poplar featuring mortise and tenon joints in the construction. The bedposts are tapered on the two inner sides, then beveled on all four corners to produce eight-sided, asymmetrically tapered posts.

Norm drops in on the Fitch House in Old Sturbridge Village, central Massachusetts' "living history" museum, to look at a chair table, with a tabletop that pivots back to form a back rest and a seat with a drawer underneath. Norm's version of this unusual but comfortable and serviceable piece features hardwood (maple) where needed - on the tabletop, arms and feet - and poplar for the sides, seat and drawer front. Norm cuts the shaped side pieces and curved arms and feet on the band saw, shows how to create a sliding dovetail joint to attach the seat and drawer support to the sides, and demonstrates a trick for cutting the large circular tabletop by mounting a specially made jig on the band saw.

Norm constructs a kitchen table that functions equally well as a dining table or a worktable. Built of pine, the table features tapered legs and storage drawers, with a center rail joining the pairs of legs. Norm employs a specially made tapering jig to fashion the legs and uses mortise-and-tenon joints to put the table together.

In a departure from the traditional New England-style furniture usually featured on The New Yankee Workshop, Norm draws inspiration from the furniture craftsmen of the southwestern United States to constructs mission-style sofa whose signature simple lines and oak frame allow for cushions. Despite its distinctive regional flavor, Norm's design for this project features the same woodworking techniques - including mortise-and-tenon joinery - he employs in creating his other pieces.

In a change of pace, Norm shows how to build picture and mirror frames, emphasizing tools and clamps designed specifically for this purpose. Norm uses a mitre box and a table saw outfitted with a jig to cut frames and demonstrates a variety of techniques to fasten corners.

With this eight-drawer, cherry chest-on-chest Norm simplifies a complicated project that may, at first glance, seem daunting to the home woodworker. Norm demonstrates techniques of biscuit joinery on the side panels and dovetail joinery on the drawers and cross-rails, then shows how to craft sculpted, contoured feet for the base using a band saw, table saw, template and router.

Norm leaves his trademark plaid shirt and jeans at home and dons a stylish suit and derby when he visits London for a look at an authentic English garden bench. Norm constructs his version from teak. The bench is assembled entirely with mortise and tenon joinery and pegs to ensure its strength and durability. Norm shows how to shape the bench's many curved pieces on the band saw, demonstrates how to create tenons with a tenoning jig mounted on the table saw, and reveals a trick for cutting angled mortises on the drill press.