As you might know, I’ve been renovating my kitchen since the day after Thanksgiving 2025, when I began tearing out the old cabinets and vinyl flooring. And just in time for Thanksgiving 2026, my kitchen is once again functional, with upper and lower cabinets done and installed (well, they still need doors and drawer fronts, but they’re functional), a soapstone countertop, and a working range, dishwasher and sink.
Now I’m on to the not-as-critical items, including this shallow shelving unit that lips over the backsplash and rests on the counter. There are cleats glued under the top and the fixed shelf, through which I’ve screwed the unit to studs.
Overall, the carcase is 25-1/4″ wide x 8″ deep x 80″ high, and the exterior pieces and fixed shelf are just under 3/4″ thick. I was aiming for 3/4″, but I had a bit more twist in one board than I’d realized, so I finished up a little shy of that goal – but no matter. The seven movable shelves and drawer dividers are 5/8″ because ~3/4″ looked a little too inelegant to my eye (and the Sagulator deemed them “acceptable”). And of course, it’s all cherry.
The back is rabbeted to accept a 1/4″ plywood back that I covered with William Morris and Kate Faulkner “Mallow” pre-pasted wallpaper (just add water and a squeegee) before screwing it in place – an idea I borrowed from a number of British kitchen design feeds (this one is a favorite).
The build is fairly straightforward. The corners are dovetailed, and there’s a fixed shelf in the center to keep it from racking, plus two drawers dividers, captured in 1/4″-deep dados … that I decided to add mid-build.
What made the build a little tricky is the size. I had to saw the tails on the 80″-long sides with the board flat on a low bench which, while not difficult per se, takes some getting used to given that it’s a rare need. And the transfer required a bit of extra room, plus it was a little fiddly to ensure that everything was lined up square.
After cutting the backsplash notch (pictured above) and semi-dry-fitting the dovetails, I laid out and cut the 1/4″-deep dados with a crosscut saw, chisel and router plane. Then grabbed a bottle of fish glue for assembly. (I needed the long open time to get from one end to the other of this behemoth!)
Once the glue was dry and everything was out of clamps, I used a shelf-hole jig to drill the support holes for the movable shelves. Then I had to go back to our favorite local(ish) lumberyard, because all the cherry I have left in my stash is 11″ or wider, and I certainly wasn’t about to cut that down for 7-7/8″-wide shelves!
The drawers are per usual: half-blind dovetails on the 5/8″-thick cherry front, and through-dovetails at the back. The secondary wood is 1/2″-thick poplar, the bottoms are 1/4″ plywood captured in grooves in the fronts and sides, and kept from sliding out the back with a nail in a slot. The bottom drawer is shallower front to back by 1-1/2″ because of the backsplash, but both are large enough to hold boxes of tea. The 7/8″ tenoned Shaker pulls are from Nice Knobs.
The finish is soft wax. And on the bottom, I applied some black adhesive-backed felt so as not to scratch my countertop as I slid it in place.
Now it’s on to designing and building a long, narrow island – more of an ait, really (in sticking with the British theme).
– Fitz
p.s. At the risk of self-aggrandizement/looking like a prat…if you’d like thorough instruction on through-dovetails and dados, you’ll find it in “Dutch Tool Chests.”
p.p.s. You might be wondering how I can possibly access the stuff at the top. After I’m done with the island, and the cabinet doors and drawer fronts, I’m installing a ladder rail on that wide panel between the upper and lower upper cabinets, then building a ladder that will hook over it. Stole Borrowed that from a British site, too…and ordered the hardware from the U.K. where it’s a lot easier to find.
Great Mug Shot! 🙂
Dovetailing the long board on a low bench was worth the price of admission alone. I just shipped a piece with dovetails on a 60″ board and bought a Japanese saw and cut them while kneeling under the board on my western-height bench. The ergonomics were subpar. Thank you for sharing this tip.
I must admit, the paper covered rear panel is not my choice, it tends to distract from the items on the shelves, but my preference here.
If someone had just described it to me I don’t think I would have liked it, but seeing it visually I’m more into it than I would have expected. Def giving this a shot for the next shelf/cabinet I make
I know it’s a bit weird!
If we all liked the same thing, the world would be boring, eh?
80″ above the counter top!?! Holy smokes! Is that room a kitchen or cathedral? No matter, it looks stunning!
My house is circa 1905…high ceilings so as to better store the heat where it can’t get to you (same in summer and winter, though!)
I enjoy your project posts. In my house I’d be worried about cats climbing up there. I never heard of niceknobs before, they look like a keeper.
Out of curiosity, would there be any suggestions if someone wanted to make a project like this but couldn’t deal with one continuous 80″ board for whatever reason? I would imagine just stacking two 40″ shelves would do the trick, but combining them in a safe way might be tricky
Oh sure. You could use pegs on top of the bottom one that register in holes on the bottom of the top one (a traditional apprpach), or simply screw them together.
Beautiful piece! My orange cat Charlie would try, probably get to the second shelf 🙂
Toby is a good boy…who is too old for troublemaking. I do worry about any new cat that might adopt me, tgough!
Megan,
Is that Hadley Pottery?
I lived in Louisville for about 7 years and have many pieces.
Jim
There are a few pieces of Hadley, but most are Louisville Stoneware. I like both!
I recently did a cabinet sort of like this but I put the tails on the top and bottom boards instead of the sides. It doesn’t look as nice. My thought was that the glue- up would be easier if I could get the shelves glued into their dadoes and the sides clamped on first, then put the dovetailed boards over the pins on the top and bottom. This made it a two-stage glue up.
I had four shelves set into dadoes with little tenons poking through the sides like fig. 296 in Wearing’s book, with wedges in each of the 32 little tenons. It took some time to get them all lined up and clamped.
Hindsight, I should have put the tails on the side like you did and just gotten a buddy to assist with the gluing. The Fishstick glue works great–that was my best decision on the project.
Are dovetails just an aesthetic choice at this point? If their strength isn’t needed in either direction I wonder if we couldn’t choose dowels and do just as well
Pretty much, yes. But they are stronger than dowels, and this is a big cabinet, so I prefer the insurance of the DT joint. But a good dowel joint would work, too.