Wednesday, January 20, 2010

No. 20 Chest on Stand -Bedroom Cases

     Today's piece is very minimalist and the write up will be as well.
     This piece basically consists of two half blind dovetailed boxes, a couple of drawers and four legs. This configuration could easily be modified to suit specific needs by simply swapping the legs with longer/shorter versions or getting rid of them entirely. The only attempt at cleverness in this piece is as follows. The sides of the lower box are the same thickness as the legs. The inside width of the top box is the same as the dimension between the legs, creating a common vertical line from the base through the top. The upper box sides are 1/3 to 1/2 the thickness of the legs. All of the horizontal members share the same thickness.
     The only curvature in this piece comes from the drawer pulls. Concave ovals are carved into the drawer fronts and a slightly tapered horizontal rectangle is inset (see detail). The wood should be quartered ash on all but the horizontal pulls which should be English oak.



The Good: I really like this piece...
The Bad : ...in my head because what I put down on paper is rubbish! The problem, as I examine the train wreck, is that my proportions fell apart. They are just about right in the front and side views but the perspective seems not to have been paying attention. ...(looking deeper)...OK found it: somebody (I will not name names here) squeezed the width out of it. Oh well, better luck next 345 times.

REMINDER: I'll be selecting the winning reader idea submissions tonight (Jan. 20) at 8:15 pm est live on Twitter if anybody cares to follow along. I will post all the winners tomorrow and the first sketch will roll out Friday.

Also, don't forget to submit your own designs and join the community over at furnituredesign.tumblr.com

3 comments:

Torch02 said...

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of cabinets up on that tall of legs. I like the idea of showing dovetails on the case sides, but I'm not sure they are in the proper position. Oriented as drawn, if would look like you were guarding against the case being pulled from the top and the bottom. I'd be more worried about it getting pulled side to side, or front to back.

On a positive note, I love the design for those drawer pulls! Would the inset rectangle be full all the way through the recess, or would it be cut out in the rear, so you could grab around it?

Marcus Sly said...

I like the basic idea behind this - a nice quiet design. Cabinet on legs is good - saves bending down :-) If it was me I would redesign the base a bit to get rid of the exposed dovetails. To me there's already plenty going on in the piece and they detract rather than add something in my view..

jamon schlimgen cabinetmaker said...

Torch02
All good points. Can't remember why I chose the doves anyway. The pulls could go either way and still look the same from the front (the important vantage point for this piece).
Marcus, great to have a new commenter. BTW I agree with you completely.