Oak Dresser Bases

A dresser base is the lower half of a dresser used on its own: drawers across the top, cupboards or an open board below, and a solid top at worktop height. It is one of the pieces this workshop makes most often. It stores more than a sideboard and leaves the wall above free for pictures, a mirror or nothing at all.

Buy it as a piece in its own right, or add the rack later. The construction is identical either way.

What you are actually buying

A cabinet, not a table. The carcase is framed and panelled, with framed side panels rather than a flat board, so the piece stays square as it is loaded and as humidity changes.

Drawers built to be used. Cock beaded fronts on the formal patterns — a fine raised bead run round each drawer front, which catches the light and hides the gap — running on timber rather than metal.

A solid top, and ironmongery you can feel. Exposed butt hinges, brass knobs and swan neck handles on the Denbigh and Oakamoor patterns, or turned wooden knobs where you want it quieter.

The bases we make

Denbigh three-door and four-door. The flagship, and the base most people mean when they ask for a dresser base. Raised and fielded panelled doors, framed side panels, cock beaded flat drawer fronts, moulded detail below the top and above the doors, a moulded plinth with a decorative cut-out, and a thumbnail profile to the top edge. Made with square or shaped fielded doors — the shaped version arches the top of each panel and reads considerably softer.

Oakamoor three-drawer base. Chunky, plain and timber-led. A simple historic frieze frames the space between the legs, the legs are substantial with a small bevel to the inside edge, and the front framing is deliberately generous to show off the patternation of the oak.

Montgomeryshire base, and the architectural variant. The standard base, and an architectural version with a stronger cornice and plinth treatment for a room that already has deep skirtings.

Corwen base with false drawers. A front that reads as a run of drawers but opens as cupboards, the drawer fronts being applied to the doors.

Georgian-style dresser base. From the Georgian range, and the pattern most often specified with a painted base and an oak top, in pippy or standard oak.

Windrush limed oak base. Four doors and a row of four drawers, in limed oak. Liming works white pigment into the open grain and polishes back, so the figure shows as pale lines against a darker ground.

Gothic dresser base, three drawers. From the Gothic range: pointed-arch tracery and ecclesiastical detail, frequently made in cherry.

Cherry versions. The three-door and four-door bases are made in cherry as well as oak. Cherry darkens markedly over the first few years into a deep red-brown, so the piece looks settled rather than new.

Timbers

Oak, cherry, mahogany and walnut are the standard four, and every base is made in all of them.

Specials, quoted on application: character oak, with knots and movement left in; pippy oak in light, medium and heavy grades, for tops; oak selected for medullary ray, the silver-grey figure across quarter-sawn oak, within or without the timber; and clean timber with no knots at all, worth considering where a fielded panel repeats four times.

Finishes: polished, painted, limed, sand-blasted, rub-through paint, natural, or colour matched to a sample. Sand-blasting erodes the softer growth and leaves the harder grain proud, so a new base reads as long-scrubbed. We can match furniture that is 100 years old to new reproduction purchases made the year before.

Order timber and finish samples before deciding between oak and cherry. The difference between them widens over the first five years rather than narrowing.

Made to your size

A dresser base almost always has to fit something: an alcove, a wall between two doors, or a run of kitchen units.

Common changes: width and depth set to the space; height set to match a worktop; the door and drawer layout rearranged; false drawers substituted for real ones or the reverse; a potboard put in place of the cupboards, covered on the potboard dresser bases page; a heavier or thinner top; brass handles changed for turned wooden knobs; the plinth cut out for an uneven stone floor; the piece made in two sections for difficult access.

We are also asked to make bases that match furniture a client already owns, including antiques. Send photographs, dimensions and a sample of the finish. See matching antique furniture, bespoke and commissioning.

Prices

Quoted individually, because no two bases are the same size. Tell us the pattern, the width, the depth, the timber and the finish and we will give you a guide price. Special timbers and finishes are priced on application. Standard lead time is normally twelve weeks, and up to sixteen when the workshop is busy. Your date is confirmed when you order.

A dresser base is often one part of a larger scheme. When it is, the panelling and built-in work alongside it come from Reeve & Co Interiors, and the kitchen from Square & True — the same benches, the same hands.

Every size, timber and finish for our dresser bases is priced on the Dresser bases order page, where you can choose the options and pay the deposit online.

If you want the length without the depth, a server table is the lighter alternative to a dresser base: legs and drawers, with the space open below.

Frequently asked questions