For my latest project, I wanted to build something and stain it, rather than painting it like I have done for all my previous projects. I decided to build a standalone shelving unit to put into my closet and hold all my shoes. To make things interesting, I figured I'd also try to use biscuit joinery as much as possible, like I did with pocket-hole joinery on my last project (http://ericdennis.com/content/project-pottery-barn-inspired-bookcase).

I chose to use 1/2" maple plywood instead of 3/4" to keep the weight down, and I used solid maple for the face frames. I ended up using biscuit joinery everywhere except for the face frames: they were just too small for biscuits, so I used my pocket hole jig on the frames.

I started by laying out and cutting all the pieces, then I cut the
biscuit slots. In hindsight, I would have saved time by routing a
simple groove for the upright pieces, as the biscuits made them
unnecessarily difficult. Here are some of the cut pieces:

After cutting pieces and biscuit slots, I stained everything, then applied three coats of water-based polyurethane, sanding between each coat with 220 grit. I decided to stain and finish as much as possible before assembly, and now I see why everyone recommends against it. It was very difficult to get everything assembled without marring the finish, and any glue really shows up on top of the finish, so you have to be very vigilant about cleaning up the glue. Here are some stained, unfinished pieces:

After a dry fit, I started glue-up:

After all the plywood was glued up, I started on the face frames:

And finally, after the face frames were assembled, stained and polyurethaned, I put everything together to get the final product:

More pictures are available at http://www.ericdennis.com/gallery2/v/projects/shoeorganizer/.