Design Decisions

Now I must decide how to join the carcase. The standard method in country furniture is to use dovetails to join the casework, then hide the ugly things with moulding. Now, granted that nowadays we see dovetails as being a desireable feature in furniture, but back then it was strictly utilitarian joinery, done for structural reasons only, and hidden away if at all possible. The only ones you could see without trying hard was dovetails in drawers, where it was just too much work to hide them, and when the drawer was closed you couldn't see them, anyway. So this is my current dilemma. Do I dovetail the carcase and add moulding (which I don't really want to do) or do I use the dovetails and leave them exposed with the knowledge that someone would have to be crawling on the floor to see them, and even then they'll be painted and not very prominent. Tough choice. Of course, I could claim it's a Shaker-inspired design and just bang it together with cut nails. :)

Below we see an exploded view of how dovetails would normally be hidden in country furniture. The side and top of the case are dovetailed and then the applied top covers the view from the top and the moulding covers the view from the side. A tall case that was too high to see the top of under normal circumstances wouldn't have an applied top, it would just have tall moulding around the sides. By the way, this is my first real attempt at using SketchUp, so be kind. :)