Catrina’s Jewelry Cabinet

Viewer Project - By Devin Stenson from Victoria
Added on December 31, 2012

The inspiration for this project was my wife. I’d been playing around with a few jewelry cabinet designs and sketches for her for a while. I knew I wanted to use bubinga and maple, but for the functional design, I tried to think of what would work for my wife. She definitely prefers not to open (or at least close) little doors and drawers, so I figured it had to be primarily open for use. In the end, I wound up adding a few drawers anyway, but I think they will be more for storage of rarely used items. Her every day stuff would be stored in the open.

Necklaces hang from the eight hooks at the top, and earrings (stud and hook) can be stored just below them using the exposed slotted bar and the black ring bar. The two top boxes will likely hold the less used pieces, the empty space under the mirror is for pictures or perhaps other small jewelry or ring boxes. The bottom three drawers were basically needed to complete the look I wanted for the piece and we all know that a few more drawers for storage is always good. There is an integrated french cleat that makes up part of the back when the piece is sitting on a table or dresser, but can be removed and mounted on the wall if you want to hang the cabinet.

I was going for a bit of an asian/arts and crafts blend and think that comes across. There is a slight curve in the top rail and the sides. In hindsight, I wish I had made the curve a little more obvious.

The cabinet measures about 20″x 20″x 6″ and is definitely my most detailed piece yet, comprised of 16 sliding dovetail joints, dozens of pieces, and dozens of mortise and tenon joints. The two top boxes with the lift lids are all made with 1/8″ dados, rabbets and tenons (finicky router table work). I’m not sure of the actual time spent on this. I started sketching on paper at least three years ago and finally got started with real sketchup designs about a year ago. If I had to guess, I’d say over a hundred hours, but hopefully less then two hundred :).

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