About the design...

I would like to talk about the design of the jewelry armoire, something I neglected to do in my previous posts. The actual dimensions of the armoire were arrived at after close consultation with my client and discussing their needs. The client wanted a particular look and after producing a few sketches and drawings we arrived at a sort of design compromise. We discussed the woods to be used, the design, proportions, and detail work. I also considered a few structural factors, since the armoire design is sixty-five inches high and not on a very deep or wide footprint. This introduces a possible stability issue, which was worked around by maintaining a minimum depth and width for maximum stability in light of the small width and depth. The client also gave me artistic freedom to embellish the design as I felt comfortable with and to add any elements which would add to the uniqueness of the piece. The style of the armoire is contemporary therefore no pre-existing furniture period is really involved. I have, in the process, created a scale representation to show my client what the proportions look like in real life.

The joinery will involve primarily mortise and tenons for the door members and multiple dowel construction for the main carcase. At the rear of the armoire there will be a frame and panel back which is completely rabbeted into the frame of the armoire. Interior joinery will primarily consist of dovetailed drawers. I haven't discussed the base of the armoire at this point, since it is not yet definite how I will assemble this. The armoire and base will be two separate sections for ease of transport and it generally makes much more sense to build this way. One feature of the armoire I am looking forward to working on are the tapered legs with contrasting toe caps. This is sort of uncharted territory for me and to top this off I hope to add some string inlay into the individual legs.

The armoire is designed to hide its contents completely for obvious reasons, so this was a no-brainer in the preliminary design criteria. I worked with the Golden rectangle or carcase ratios as much as possible, yet I needed to modify these proportions for both functional and aesthetic reasons. The functional reasons are basically the stability of the armoire given its height, width, and depth. The aesthetic (form) reasons are specifically to keep the depth of the armoire down to the minimum necessary. More about the design later as the project progresses...