A George III Mahogany Cabinet-on-Chest

**Woodwould** · 31st August 2011, 01:29 PM

Some years ago we moved into a larger house and to help furnish a small bedroom, we bought a no-frills pine open-bookcase atop a chest of drawers.

Aside from being unutterably ugly, the issue I have had with the piece since carrying it through the front door is the unenclosed shelves. The shelves are home to a motley collection of catalogues, folders, odd-sized books and orphaned objects that can't be found a home for elsewhere. And the dust!

Hideous as it is, the pine bookcase-on-chest is now a veteran of several house moves simply because it is such a practical piece of furniture. With William Morris' words "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." ever in the forefront of my mind, I think the time has come to replace the useful bookcase with, hopefully, a beautiful version. In a rare afflatus I have decided on enclosed shelves – not the more commonly glazed doors, but solid panelled doors – to hide the eyesore contained within.

This arrangement of an enclosed bookcase or cupboard over a chest of drawers (actually termed a 'cabinet-on-chest') is relatively rare in Georgian furniture; bookcase doors are usually glazed and reside on secretaire chests (fig. 1) or occasionally plain chests of drawers (fig. 2).

Fig. 1. George III mahogany secretaire-bookcase, c. 1780.

Fig. 2. George III mahogany bookcase-on-chest, c. 1780.

A close relative of the cabinet-on-chest is the linen press; basically a wide chest of drawers (or cupboard) with a full depth press on top (fig. 3), usually fitted with drawer-like linen shelves (fig. 4).

Fig. 3. George III mahogany linen press, c. 1760. (Millington Adams)

Fig. 4. Interior showing the slide-out linen shelves. (Millington Adams)

Lying somewhere between the secretaire-bookcase and the linen press is the estate cabinet (fig. 5); typically found in estate managers' offices for storing deeds, maps, inventories and other documents.

Fig. 5.George III mahogany estate cabinet, c. 1770. (Jamb Ltd.)

I came across a rather smart Chippendale cabinet-on-chest (fig. 6) on which to base my exemplar.

Fig.6.George III mahogany cabinet-on-chest, c.1775. (Christie's)

**KevM** · 31st August 2011, 01:49 PM

I look forward to watching this build, front row seat booked.

**Woody1** · 31st August 2011, 02:16 PM

I will also take a front seat.

**RufflyRustic** · 31st August 2011, 02:47 PM

Me too!

**Ozkaban** · 31st August 2011, 03:20 PM

Front seat birth booked too

Originally Posted by Woodwould

...but solid panelled doors – to hide the eyesore contained within.

Interesting idea, though in my house, that would end up making the mess much worse as it's out of sight, out of mind

Very interested to see how it comes out though.

Cheers,
Dave

**Pat** · 31st August 2011, 05:41 PM

Move over you lot, gotta make room before Ray runs me over, again

**Waldo** · 31st August 2011, 05:44 PM

Another fine WIP coming up.

**ajw** · 31st August 2011, 08:44 PM

Me too.

ajw

**Superbunny** · 31st August 2011, 09:34 PM

with baited breath.

SB

**Phil Spencer** · 2nd September 2011, 04:40 PM

Looking forward to this one WW so is Mrs Phil

**wun4us** · 2nd September 2011, 11:09 PM

A masterpiece of fine cabinet skills perhaps? Await the first glimpses with bated breath.

"Fortis es qui vado qua angelus vereor ut tred"

**Rattrap** · 3rd September 2011, 09:24 AM

Pulling up a chair for this one.

**Woodwould** · 3rd September 2011, 10:54 AM

I started with the chest – a classic 5-6-7-8 chest (the drawer heights are 5", 6", 7" and 8") – but I prepared all the mahogany and pine for both the chest and the cabinet while I was at it. The top and sides of the chest are solid mahogany while the base is pine with a 5/16" mahogany lipping glued to its front edge.

The four chest panels consist of two boards each, rubbed together.

I cut the half-lapped dovetails and also the trenches for the drawer dividers and dustboards. Drawer dividers by this date were normally 3/4" thick and 2" to 3" deep. The dustboards varied between 1/4" and 1/2" thick – a significant saving on timber without sacrificing strength or the integrity of the carcase.

With some chests, the trenches were cut a uniform 3/4" wide for the full depth of the sides and thin dustboards were then secured in the trenches with rows of packers hammered into the trenches below the boards (sometimes glued, sometimes not). This practice was swift and cheap as the dustboards didn't necessarily have to be planed to a consistent thickness – their undersides were often exceedingly roughly planed with a scrub plane – and the packers were a convenient way of using up off-cuts.

A more refined method of installing the dustboards was to plane them to a uniform thickness, matching them to the width of the trenches and then cut the front few inches of the trenches somewhat wider to accommodate the thicker dividers. The dividers were either housed in plain trenches or they had dovetails cut in their bottom edges which engaged in commensurate dovetailed trenches in the carcase sides. The quality of the original cabinet-on-chest would decree only quality cabinetwork throughout, so I matched the dustboards to 7/16" trenches and dovetailed the drawer dividers into the carcase sides too.

The bare carcase assembled.

Narrow dustboard trenches with wider, dovetailed divider housings.

Mahogany-lipped drawer divider dovetailed into carcase.

I glued lengths of mahogany onto some pine backing and cut the moulding for the base of the chest. The moulding was glued in place and the bracket feet were cut out, mitred and glued to the base moulding. Small glue blocks were rubbed in behind the feet and pine corner blocks (diagonally-split with a hatchet) were glued into the internal corners of the feet. The bracket feet are essentially decorative; the corner blocks extend 1/8" beyond the brackets and will bear the entire weight of the chest and cabinet.

The base moulding and bracket feet glued in place.

The rear feet are half-lapped over triangular pine brackets which are glued and nailed together with cut nails.

Rear foot arrangement.

Base moulding and bracket foot.

I formed the top moulding and glued it around the top of the chest.

Top moulding.

The bare chest carcase ready for drawers and back boards.

**Blue-deviled** · 3rd September 2011, 06:36 PM

Very nice! So the bracket feet are just beautiful supports for the corner blocks?

**Woodwould** · 3rd September 2011, 06:49 PM

Originally Posted by Blue-deviled

Very nice! So the bracket feet are just beautiful supports for the corner blocks?

In a nut shell.

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