Modern SIDEBOARD

A counter-height cabinet with wraparound charm

- Sarah Marriage

I love a tambour cabinet. Whether it takes the form of a sideboard, a roll-top desk, or even a humble bread box, there's something magical about a case piece with a door that disappears around a corner, stowing itself within the cabinet walls. This clever mechanical structure (see p. 39 for Larissa Huff's Tambour Technique) allows a seemingly flat door to travel through a tight radius. And the tambour door, like its siblings-the sliding door and the cylinder fall-looks tidy whether it's open or closed.

Functional elegance. This sleek, counter-height design opens up to a variety of storage compartments below a durable butcher block worktop.

That's why tambours were the perfect choice for this sideboard, which I designed to serve as a formal dining room espresso bar with elements of kitchen utility. A butcher block top of curly cherry provides a counter-height work surface for prepping your daily grind while the tambour doors below enclose spacious storage compartments. The shorter upper compartments allow quick access to dishware and tools, with the lower compartments offering ample storage for larger items and back stock. Leave the doors open while you work, then slide them closed for a formal look.

Four-doored storage

The top, bottom, and side panels of the cabinet are dominoed together, creating a large box, encasing the interior components. A fixed shelf sits in dados in the sides, with its forward corners protruding through notches at the front.

More dominoes connect the false sides and center partitions to the shelf, top, and bottom. Canvasbacked tambour doors slide in from the back guided by matching grooves routed in the top, shelf, and bottom. A removable plywood back panel is screwed into rabbets in the tops and sides, and serves as a stop for the doors when they are open.