Made entirely of solid cherry, this chest is based on designs spanning the 17th through the 19th centuries, and features fully authentic traditional joinery and finishing methods in use around 1820; even the bottom has the ridges left from using a "scrub plane". It was built with wood movement in mind, and therefore has a loose-fit tongue-and-groove bottom, floating panels, and lid battens with slotted screw mounts. Cabinet scrapers (nothing like paint scrapers!) were used to prepare it for the oil finish. To darken the wood slightly prior to this finish, the parts were set out in the sun for an afternoon. An assortment of handplanes and antique tools were used to achieve the proper look of the piece.