I feel that period furniture (seventeenth and eighteenth century) are examples of some of the best furniture ever created. The quality and design kept getting better in the years leading up to the industrial revolution. As the industrial revolution went on, I feel furniture design and craftmanship declined. This leads me to look back into the history books to see what techniques made that period of furniture better than all others. I want to find out what I can do to create pieces of similar quality. I have such a passion for this in fact, that I am hoping to continue my education at the Vermont Woodworking School after this senior year at Pacific Grove High School. I want to enter the furniture making field, where I will be able to make heritage quality furniture built with the techniques of yesterday.

I have chosen to focus my craft on the reproduction/recreation of period furniture in all aspects, from tools, wood choice, joinery, and finish. Furthermore, I prefer to work with hand tools as the men did during my favored time of craftsmanship, although with the space has not been available for this work. This usage, as well as challenge of using hand tools has helped me understand the wood in a way that power tools would not have in my opinion. The use of hand tools gives the work a superior finish that not even machines can replicate. So, for each project I have created thus far, including my chest of drawers presented here, I only used hand tools, meaning no piece of this wood touched a power tool.

I do all that I can to improve joinery, perfect drawer action, and overall increase skill in my trade. For that reason, some of the details I am proud of most on my chest of drawers are the small-pinned dovetails that join the top of the piece. I am also proud of the half blind that joins each drawer front to its side ensures a ridged build for the drawer's smooth action. I am also very pleased with how the finish turned out. The grain seems to move with each different angle from which it is viewed as seen specifically on of the legs where the figure grain is particularly tight. Chippendales style chest of drawers, with their mostly straight walls, and a very distinct style of bracket feet are the direct inspiration for my “Chest of Drawers”. I utilized the same type of wood, with the primary being figured maple, and the secondary being poplar. These woods were very popular in northeastern furniture building.