8 Drawer 2 Door Dresser

[Chestnut]

We'll need a changing table and dresser for our 3rd upstairs bedroom, which after the end of July will be our first kid's bedroom. I stumbled across the idea to have 2 doors for small cubby areas on the top of a dresser. The idea intrigued me. I showed Megan and she really liked the idea and then had to convince me that the extra complication was worth it. Here is the design.

The design is a bit more shaker than the typical "craftsman" or "arts and crafts" that I've usually done. I don't know a whole lot about shaker design but I'm going to try and add in some subtle details that will help the over all look of the piece. The dimensions may be hard to read. The height will be 37". Drawers are 24" wide by 6.5" leaving roughly 6" inside depth. The 2 smaller drawers will be 12" wide, that will leave the cubby area at 11.25" x 13.75"

The primary material will be cherry. I have some nice curly stock that I'll use for drawer fronts and the 2 door panels. Secondary material will be birch. As of now I plant to hand cut the dovetails for the drawers but we'll see. I'm using Horton brass for the door hinges because I've used them before and really like their quality. I know bruso is good but Horton has been sponsoring Cremona for a while and i try to support the company that sponsor the creators i follow. Pulls were requested to be turned cherry so that might be new for me.

I'm working on the sides first and so far I've got the legs milled and cut to length. The rail and dividers have also been cut and milled.

I have the pane material set aside. I"m going to do a book match about the center for the entire side with the dividers breaking up the panel. I figured this is the best way to do the side panel to get a bit of a pattern. The sides will likely be hard to see or hidden most of the time anyway. I was able to get some good rift sawn sections for the front legs and side dividers. The rear legs were closer to flat sawn but i'll just have to orient them in a manner to hide the swirly grain as best possible.

[JohnG]

Congrats!! The cubbies will probably come in handy for the changing table usage.

I like the design and always agree with the cherry decision. 

I’ll be interested to hear how you like the horton hardware. 

[Chestnut]

So there are some design questions that I was going to put in the main post for input. Instead of building dust frames I was goign to just use plywood. Does any one see an issue with this or would dust frames be better? The reason for the ply dust frames is mostly to have a seamless bottom for the cubby area.

The second question, should the vertical dividers be broken up by the horizontal dividers or should the vertical dividers run top to bottom? I"m leaning towards running top to bottom and having the horizontal dividers be 2 pieces. This is mostly driven by the fact that the internal cubby area would have a smooth side wall.

1 hour ago, JohnG said:

Congrats!! The cubbies will probably come in handy for the changing table usage.

I’ll be interested to hear how you like the horton hardware. 

Thanks. That was our main thought. it might also be good for other things in the future as well. It just seems like a clever idea.

I have used Horton before and it's great hardware. No slop and very well made. I've been using these hinges on our sideboard for over a year now and the doors swing like they are weightless.

 

[Chet]

On 1/10/2022 at 6:57 AM, Chestnut said:

should the vertical dividers run top to bottom

This is what I would do.  You could do your horizontals with sliding dovetails.

I don't see any reason why you couldn't use ply for the dust panels other then the possibility of adding some weight depending on the thickness you chose to use.

Congratulations to you and Megan.

[curlyoak]

On 1/10/2022 at 7:45 AM, Chestnut said:

our first kid's bedroom

Congratulations on your new baby!!! On average a baby is a 20 year project. And after every new baby you reset the clock. As skilled as you are on wood projects makes me think you can handle the 20 year project(s). Someday your kids may be making furniture for you...How many more kids do you want?

[Tom King]

I would use drawers instead of cubbies.  The diaper changing stage will pass before you know it, and then it would be more suitable for a regular bedroom in the future.

[treeslayer]

Congratulations on the baby news !! Always good to follow your projects Drew

[pkinneb]

Congrats to you and your wife Drew!!

I look forward to following along with this project.

[Tom King]

Pam and I have done a lot of fun things, but the most fun we've had was raising two children.   Enjoy!

[wtnhighlander]

Congratulations on creating an excuse for several iterations of new furniture!  Now you'll be able to keep the shop busy for decades!

Kidding aside, your design looks solid. As far as I know, there are only a few 'rules' to govern Shaker design. As I understand it, rule #1 is to use the most perfect materials available (meaning to avoid defects), and apply the best possible craftsmanship (you got that covered). Rule #2 is that every piece and every design component has a purpose, and Rule #3 is to exhibit modesty by avoiding ornamentation for ornamentation's sake. Naturally, this leads to designs that appear rather simple and sparse, but in truth are filled with attention to detail.

The only trouble spot I can imagine about using plywood dust barriers is some small chance that they could restrict movement of attached solid wood components. I'm sure your design will allow for any such possibility.

[Chestnut]

6 hours ago, Tom King said:

I would use drawers instead of cubbies.  The diaper changing stage will pass before you know it, and then it would be more suitable for a regular bedroom in the future.

I think it'll have good future uses. Megan puts lots of items in little baskets so she can remove them and move them around to places.

1 hour ago, wtnhighlander said:

Rule #3 is to exhibit modesty by avoiding ornamentation for ornamentation's sake.

Hum so I'll end up bending a few of those rules. My plan was to do shop veneer drawer fronts from curly cherry. They didn't like using veneer or "exotic" woods... I want to veneer the drawer fronts to cover the dovetails but not have to do half blind because I don't want to.

[Coop]

Please name the baby for it’s sake after Megan, or family or friends. Anything without the word “nut” in it!  Congrats to you two!

I’ll be watching this build closely! 

[Chestnut]

4 minutes ago, Coop said:

Anything without the word “nut” in it

So i can't call her my little peanut? I suppose hazelnut is off the table too...

[wtnhighlander]

1 hour ago, Chestnut said:

Hum so I'll end up bending a few of those rules. 

Well, YOU aren't a Shaker, so who says you have to follow the rules? 

[Coop]

Maybe a Mover and a Shaker! 

[legenddc]

Was searching for something else and just saw the part about you having a kid in July. Congrats!

Will have to read the rest of this later...

[JohnG]

On 1/10/2022 at 9:31 PM, Chestnut said:

So i can't call her my little peanut? I suppose hazelnut is off the table too...

So it’s a girl! Congrats again! 

[Chestnut]

On 1/10/2022 at 9:20 PM, wtnhighlander said:

Well, YOU aren't a Shaker, so who says you have to follow the rules? 

I suppose i don't have to follow the rules but I want to somewhat capture their design aesthetic. The part of this that has me excited is I plan to play with round overs and different reveals on the drawer fronts to add some depth on the face of the dresser. My plan is to have the dividers sit proud of the drawers by 3/32" and have a 3/32" round over. We'll see if I'm able to execute.

[legenddc]

With those small drawers you might be okay without dividers in them, but you may want to make some adjustable ones for the larger drawers. Babies clothes are super small and change sizes rapidly. It's crazy how much stuff you get for kids and it quickly is hard to find in big drawers.

Curious to see how you turn the knobs. Somewhere on my to-do list is learning to turn knobs for my shaker end table and the new sideboard.

[Chestnut]

On 1/12/2022 at 4:01 PM, legenddc said:

With those small drawers you might be okay without dividers in them, but you may want to make some adjustable ones for the larger drawers. Babies clothes are super small and change sizes rapidly. It's crazy how much stuff you get for kids and it quickly is hard to find in big drawers.

Curious to see how you turn the knobs. Somewhere on my to-do list is learning to turn knobs for my shaker end table and the new sideboard.

I may be alone on this but I rotate my drawers. Fresh clean cloths go on the bottom from the laundry. I put the not yet worn clean cloths back on top. That way I wear 100% of my stuff and nothing gets lost in the drawer. This goes for socks underwear, t-shirts, pants, sweaters, everything... I hang pants and sweaters and my system is to wear the left most article and return to the right side so everything filters through... man i sound like an engineer don't I.... .

[pkinneb]

On 1/14/2022 at 7:36 AM, Chestnut said:

I may be alone on this but I rotate my drawers. Fresh clean cloths go on the bottom from the laundry. I put the not yet worn clean cloths back on top. That way I wear 100% of my stuff and nothing gets lost in the drawer. This goes for socks underwear, t-shirts, pants, sweaters, everything... I hang pants and sweaters and my system is to wear the left most article and return to the right side so everything filters through... man i sound like an engineer don't I.... .

Wow and I thought I had an OCD problem 

[Chestnut]

I'm excited for this project to move along. Because of my excitement i feel like it's moving slowly but i have to remind myself I only started on it 5 days ago. In my previous post i had the frame and panel side laid out. Groove locations were identified, joinery located, and problems addressed. I cut the grooves on the router table with a slot cutting bit. I've done strait bits and dado stacks but the slot cutting bit I've found gives me a good balance of clean cut and quick setup. To get the groove width i ran all the parts through once and then raised the bit to make a 2nd pass.

After grooves were set panels were cut and sized to fit snugly. I cleaned up the stock with a hand plane after setting the thickness on the planer. To make the 3 panel side I decided to book match the panels and glue them together. I'll then cut the 3 panels from the book match to make the sides.

Before gluing up the side i put some round over and taper details into the legs. I went with a 1/8" radius on the panel corner of the leg. My thought here is this would allow for more depth in the panel but reduce how larger the reveal looks. The bottom of the leg taper was 3" tall and reduced the leg from 1.3" to 0.75". It's some what hard to get this in pictures.

The lower rail was given a simple curve that was 1" tall and roughly the width of the part. I used the same 1/8" round over on the bottom of the rail which gives the lower rail a softer lighter visual look. I experimented with a smaller radius round over like 1/32" but it caused too hard of lines and didn't meet the look I was going for. All the side parts were smoothed with the #4 and then assembled.

With the 3 panel side I decided to use space balls in the groove to keep the panels somewhat centered. The trouble with the space balls for a wider than 0.25" groove is they fall out, so i used CA glue to hold them in place. The above image shows some of the round overs better. The lower leg tapers are a bit easier to see as well.

The top rail posed some difficulties but I really wanted the thin look. I accidentally cut the length for a floating M&T joint but forgot that I was goign to make it with an integral tenon. The piece is 1"x 13/16" so after putting a 0.25" groove I'm left with 0.75" of material for a mortise. In the end there should be enough bracing between the front and read legs with the dust frames so I cut in a 4mm domino. It's tiny and for any other application I'd have re cut the top rail.

In hindsight I'd approach the panel differently in the future. I don't like how the strong cathedrals are cut off by the dividers. I really like the strait grain look from the rift sawn sections but the cathedral sections ruins the side look. I should have shifted and cut more of the cathedral off and kept the rift sections. Can't learn if you don't mess up.

The small clams in the above picture are clamping the dividers on the tenon inside them. Cutting the mortise for the floating tenon there left no side material so once the tenon stock was installed it could be separating the ends of the divider slightly. Easily fixed by a clamp. The floating tenon in the dividers is wider than what could have been cut integral so this provides more strength but for a divider it's not really needed. The main use of the dividers will be vertically supporting the middle of the dust frames but none of those forces would strain this joint.

[Chestnut]

4 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

Wow and I thought I had an OCD problem 

It's probably made worse when I realized I can't have the same number of pants and sweaters or a multiple on the t-shirts. If the numbers aligned I'd just end up wearing the exact same thing all the time.... not that any one would notice.

[pkinneb]

On 1/14/2022 at 9:54 AM, Chestnut said:

...I'd just end up wearing the exact same thing all the time.... 

That's my process. I only buy gray t-shirts so no trouble deciding on what to wear there for pants Its light jeans for home and dark jeans if I'm leaving the house...god forbid I have to dress up for a client meeting but one good thing about the pandemic is that in person meetings have been a no go for nearly 2 1/2 years LOL

[wtnhighlander]

6 hours ago, Chestnut said:

I may be alone on this but I rotate my drawers. Fresh clean cloths go on the bottom from the laundry. I put the not yet worn clean cloths back on top. That way I wear 100% of my stuff and nothing gets lost in the drawer. This goes for socks underwear, t-shirts, pants, sweaters, everything... I hang pants and sweaters and my system is to wear the left most article and return to the right side so everything filters through... man i sound like an engineer don't I.... .

Drew, it isn't weird until you are rotating through a series of the exact same outfit, like you-know-who.