Hot off the work bench! Check out this really cool chest perfect for all of your personal treasures. For a while now we have been holding onto a bundle of assorted Koa veneer panels we acquired from a regional lumber yard, not quite sure what we wanted to do with them. Finally, we decided to attempt a new chest, something we haven’t made in a while. We went with the classic frame and panel construction, because we also had assorted Koa chunks and slabs sitting around that we wanted to combine with the veneer. So we used those pieces to make corners/legs, chest frame rails, feet and lid frame. We then used the Koa veneers over 1/2” birch plywood panels for the sides of the chest and lid center. The lid was constructed using lap joints with the corners held together with screws hidden by exotic Ebony plugs.

The lid has Koa veneer on both sides of the birch panel, and the interior of the birch chest panels is quilted with a double thick layer of batting and a cool Indonesian Batik leaf print fabric, all fastened with oil rubbed bronze upholstery tacks. The piece is finished in multiple coats of a semi gloss oil and urethane hand rubbed finish that really makes all the natural shades of the Koa tree pop. This chest has the golden colors, the rich reds and the deep brown grains. The chest is really stylish, but it wouldn’t be a Puffball design without adding just a little bit of an odd twist. So, when shaping the feet, we kept the sides underneath the chest vertical while angling the other two sides to stick out beyond the edges of the chest, and we ‘wrapped’ the angle of these cuts so that when you look at the chest from just the right view, it kinda looks like it’s walking. Like it’s ‘turning right’. Just a little bit.

This chest measures 24” long x 14” deep x 14” tall (on the outside, and not including the amount that the feet stick out beyond the body) and is local pickup only.