Sheesham Dressing Table with Cane Fronted Drawers

Sheesham Dressing Table With Cane Fronted Drawers This is a full length sheesham dressing table, and we have made it so that nothing in it sits flat on the floor the way an ordinary dresser does. The whole piece hangs off two uprights, and the gaps you see between the parts are there on purpose, they are not missing wood. The mirror runs the full length, and we have cut the frame with a soft round at the top corners and a long sweep down into the bottom left, so it is not just a plain rectangle with the corners taken off. It stands on two turned posts capped in brass, and it pivots on brass pins, so you can tilt it. You tilt it up when you are standing and doing your hair, and you tilt it down when the child of the house is getting ready, and the one mirror does for everybody. To the left there is a separate flat panel that runs the full height, cut through with a circle at the top and a long slot below it that holds a brass rod. Two small shelves come out of it on brass supports, held out into the air with nothing under them, for the little things you reach for every morning.

Why The Drawers Are Caned

The lower unit is four drawers on two levels, and the two levels are set back from each other, front to back, so it does not look like one flat box. The two wide drawers in front have hand caned panels set into them, and the two narrower ones on the right have a brass line worked into the timber instead. We put cane on the front ones on purpose, because cane lets the air move and the clothes inside get to breathe in the Jodhpur heat, and it is the old way of doing a drawer front, not just a thing that looks nice. Brass knobs on all of them, and the top is a plain slab with a single brass line running across the width. The legs are turned and slim, and we have sleeved them in brass at the collar and again at the foot, so the metal catches the eye at both ends.

Keeping The Brass The Way You Like It

The brass will darken over time, and that is not a fault, it is just what brass does. If you like that old darkened look you can leave it as it is, and if you want it bright again you may rub it with a cloth and a little Brasso, both are correct, it is your table and your choice. It looks best against a plain wall, with the daylight coming in from the side. Put it in front of patterned wallpaper and the cane, the brass inlay and the cutouts all start fighting each other, and the piece stops making sense.