Dawn,
If you ever have the chance to look at an older piece of furniture, you will see that in most all cases, the apron was attached to the legs with mortise and tennon. I am talking about hand built furniture here, not factory built. There is a tremendous amount of fine fine furniture out there well over 100 + years old that was constructed this way and it is still solid today. Not all furniture was constructed as exact and some of it was made incorrectly just because the person making it didn't know any better. A case in point, I have repaired a lot of antiques that had splits in the sides of the case which was caused by the maker or someone who may have repaired it throught the years glued the drawer guides or kickers to the sides the full length. This prohibited the wood from its normal expansion and contraction and it had nothing to do but split. Sorry, got off the topic for a sec. So, I guess my .02 will be for mortise and tennon. I do use other methods of joinery depending on the design. Love dovetails and I don't use no fancy smanchey machine. :rolf: Seriously, given time, you will learn when to use a particular type of joint and depending on the piece of furniture you are building, you will probably use several types of joints in it. Whether it be mortise and tennon, dowels, sliding dovetails, biscuits or some other method, you will get many different opinions on which is the best one. The fun part is that you get to do them all and decide for yourself. :icon_thum
Mike