To accompany a table and chairs, we occasionally build case furniture for a dining room. This month, we built a walnut corner cabinet to accompany a Mitchell Trestle Table and twelve Wilson Chairs. For our patrons, we provide a drawing, or drawings, in whatever detail is necessary to insure that their needs are met. This is the floorplan showing the “foot print” of this furniture in the room.
![corner cabinet and drawing](https://garyweeks.com/assets/uploads/images/_fullWidth/87676/18-164-2-Edit.webp)
The elevation sketch below relates the start of a conversation to its result.
![corner cabinet design sketch](https://garyweeks.com/assets/uploads/images/_fullWidth/168918/IMG_1595.webp)
After making detailed, full-scale drawings, I made a list of parts with their dimensions. Each part has requirements for figure and the orientation of the growth rings—some parts must meet a certain standard, some can be much less restricted. A board for the back would never make a part for a door.
To accommodate any movement inherently possible in solid wood, the shelves are frame and panel. After assembling the shelves, I cut them to uniform size and shape.
![sawing corner cabinet panel](https://garyweeks.com/assets/uploads/images/_fullWidth/168919/IP-1289.webp)
To allow as much glass as possible in the upper doors, we did not use a vertical “face frame” in the plane of the opening, but hinged the doors to the sides of the case–the sides that are perpendicular to the wall. I built a fixture to assist in mortising the hinges into this angled edge.
![mortising for hinges](https://garyweeks.com/assets/uploads/images/_fullWidth/168920/IP-1292.webp)
The primary structural members of this case are the very back and the two sides with the hinge gains. These members finished at 1-1/4” thick. The remaining spaces were filled with beveled-edge, tongue-and-groove boards, 1/2” thick.
![cabinet in progress](https://garyweeks.com/assets/uploads/images/_fullWidth/168921/IP-1304.webp)
We had shaper cutters made to produce a beveled molding around our door panels and to cope the rails and mulls to it. Tenons, 1-1/8” long, on the rails and mulls of our doors extend into a mortise to secure them from racking use and abuse. We finish door panels before assembly.
![assembling frame and panel](https://garyweeks.com/assets/uploads/images/_fullWidth/168922/IP-1286.webp)