This cabinet was inspired by my wife, she wanted something impressive for the entry way of the house. We looked at several commercial cabinets but were not satisfied with the design or price. I had some cherry that I had been saving for years and had been to a flea market where I found a nice piece of marble. I decided to use them both for this design. The cabinet size was determined by the marble and we wanted something a bit taller then most entry cabinets we had seen. I designed this in Autocad and for the recessed panels my wife had spotted a wall hanging from Ballard Designs on the web. I was able to snag the one inch jpeg from the website then inserted it into Autocad, traced and modified it to work for the cabinet. I resawed cherry to 1/4″ then planed and butt joined, then added 1/8″ plywood to the backside. Next I took the two pieces and placed them face to face. put the Autocad tracing on the wood and using a jigsaw to cut it out. I used black waterbased stain on the cherry inserts and just tongue oil on the rest of the cabinet. Hardware was purchase from Lee Valley. The construction of the cabinet is tognue and groove with Poplar plywood for the frame under the marbe. Total cost of cabinet was less then $100, $60 of which was the marble top. I am pleased with the outcome but if I was to do something simular, I would just use quality plywood for the inserts as the cherry is very soft and with the black stain you can’t tell the type of wood it is.

Launch Gallery