This cabinet was designed for the butler’s pantry of a late-Victorian house on the National Register of Historic Places. My clients, Jamee and Scott Wissink, wanted their cabinetry to look like a massive piece of Victorian furniture that had been brought into their house and then built in to fit its space.

Since the house has many architectural elements featuring Middle-Eastern motifs, I incorporated Moorish arches, pomegranate-shaped finials, chip-carved almonds, sunbursts, and of course a peacock. The model for the peacock was “Bob,” a stuffed peacock that Jamee and Scott had purchased at an antique store.

 For the frieze I used a dazzlingly-figured piece of quartersawn white oak: a beam salvaged from a state sanitarium built at the same time as my clients’ house. A few old splits in the board hint at its previous life.

This cabinetry was published in Fine Woodworking.

 Photography by Kendall Reeves, Spectrum Studio of Photography and Design