Dressing Box with 3 drawers

Peter Follansbee, 2025

March 9, 2026

The next item from the loft is a piece I worked on in 2024-2025 - a “dressing” box, based on 2 examples made in northern Essex County, Massachusetts c. 1680s. Mine isn’t a copy of either of them, but uses the format and decorative vocabulary of the originals.

A shallow box under the pine lid, divided into a few compartments, as well as a very small drawer. Under the box section, the middle tier is 2 side-by-side drawers and below them a single, full-width drawer.

The narrowest compartments are thought to be for combs in the 17th century, these would be made either in brass or horn.

The rear compartment has a raised bottom that extends beyond the side and houses a tiny drawer. Removing that drawer exposes a small opening under the raised bottom. Hard to access, but there it is.

There’s a variety of woods, some following the originals. Maple stiles, oak rails, panels, drawers and some moldings. Pine for the lid, box & drawer bottoms and rear panels. Turned decorations and feet are maple. The odd substitutions I made were Spanish cedar for the base molding and some Alaska yellow cedar for the square blocks on the side panels.

The two side-by-side drawers are captured/locked by sliding tapered keys that fit in slots in the top rail. They slide down through that rail and catch in a notch in the drawer front’s top edge.

A different arrangement captures the bottom drawer. There, a thin, flexible slat is glued to a notch in the drawer bottom. When you close the drawer, the slat springs in place to bear against the bottom rail’s inside face.