A friend asked for a bread box and handed over every design decision, and that open brief is where this piece starts. Rather than knock together a plain storage container, Les Mason Woodworks answered with solid cherry in the Arts and Crafts style, and describes the result as fine furniture rather than a simple box. That framing shows through in the work described here.
The frame is built around tapered legs and a top cross rail, with decorative arched upper rails and upright dividers sitting between the rails. Rails and dividers carry grooves intended for panels that will be added later. Mortises were cut in a benchtop hollow chisel mortiser with a 1/4-inch bit, and tenons and tongues were test-fit into the mortises and slots before anything went together. Pocket holes drilled with a jig and a cordless drill complete the joinery picture.
Stock prep began with a 5/4 cherry board run over a benchtop thickness planer. Legs were tapered at the table saw and cut to length at the miter saw. A plywood template guided the arches: a jigsaw stayed close to the line, an oscillating drill press sanding drum cleaned up the curves, and a handheld plunge router with a bearing bit flush-trimmed the rails. A 1/4-inch stacked dado blade made stopped plunge cuts in the legs, and bar clamps held the assemblies through the dry fits.
Two details stand out to me: the floating shelf, and the bookmatched panels with their traditional craftsman details. The open item is those panel grooves, because the panels themselves are still to come, and I am genuinely curious how the grain will look once they go in.
Project by Les Mason Woodworks. Watch it on their YouTube channel: