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Custom built Maple and Oak Cabinet - $4,000 (Olney)
condition:
like new
size / dimensions:
22x48x35
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-Top is a 1.5" thick slab of 1970s hard maple and 1920s oak, trimmed in 1/2" solid maple. No veneer, no plywood. Just beautiful hardwood with two coats of unpolished polyurethane over colonial maple stain to retain some felt texture whilst protecting the wood. Underside is unfinished.
-Front is approximately 80 pounds of solid hard maple made from new old stock 1970s 1x6 lumber of a superior grade than available today at most lumberyards. Polystained, but could be sanded and stained if natural grain is more your thing. Behind the panel is cloth, behind that is 3/4" ply.
-Frame is "lincoln log"-style Fir 4x4s, both glued and screwed together with structural screws. Inside is unfinished as I didn't want the interior storage to confer the odor of wood stain on anything placed inside and stain takes ages to dry on fir. Four feet made of pine 2x6s, beveled to allow for sliding over carpet and readily exchanged for taller feet if your application requires it. It does weigh a ton so carpet sliders are advised.
-Sides are various complementary solidhardwood panels. 3/8 to 1/2" thick These are glued with cyanoacrylic rather than wood glue to allow for rapid removal/sanding/restaining/reinstallating in the case of scratches.
-Back panel is unfinished 3/4" ply, as cabinet was placed against wall. For freestanding use I would be happy to make any design the buyer wishes out of any species of wood, or the rear could be removed altogether (as could the ply behind the front door maple panel to allow acoustic passthrough and no helmholtz effect, something twin LAB15 subwoofers failed to produce but the option isthere. The fir frame is enormously strong with or without it.
Presently the rear can be unscrewed for emergency access (via ~30 grk cabinet screws) if the remote controlled deadbolt fails, but could easily be glued for additional security.
Front panel folds down on 4" steel hinges and secures via a remote controlled double deadbolt (powered by AA batteries with a backup battery if they fail). Panel is backed with 3/4" ply which recesses into the 4x4 frame. When open door lays almost flat on the floor, just a small gap on the hinge side to protect the finish and it can be walked on without damage. A 200lb person could probably jump up and down on it for hours and it wouldn't notice. 3 remote FOBs are included.
I can help move it into your vehicle if you can lift half of it (got it inside by myself with a moving dolly), but professional movers are advised for moving it into your house.
Price firm.
You could have one custom built in lower quality newer wood for perhaps 5-6k, but nothing like it exists on the market at any price. It's the sort of thing some 18th century tsar might've commissioned for his winter palace just because it's so unique. It's regal, it's huge, it exudes mass, solidity and a raw, almost uncanny fusion of elegance with a rugged permanence. Like an encounter with big snapping turtle it gives the impression of a thing not subject to human timescales. A thing that thinks in centuries, not ikea plastic-coated particle board replacements every four years. Sure, in 200-300 years the stain will fade and the titebond ii will degrade..requiring replacement, but SOMEONE will still have it.
I use either vintage lumber or wood harvested from antique furniture on all my pieces (save for the Fir frame). For example the oak used in the top slab is from a british cabinet built in the 1920s and is tremendously hard material with old growth grain that simply doesn't exist in todays lumber market outside of a handful of boutique suppliers who salvage old growth from antiques. Design goals were classic elegance fused with a savagely overbuilt proto-brutalist aesthetic. It's timeless. Plus as a probably-not-useful-but-interesting factoid: In a tornado or earthquake a smaller person could seek refuge inside as the lock is easily actuated from within and it's sturdier than the modern osb & vinyl home collapsing on top. I'm 6' 175 and don't quite fit but 5'9" or 10" would. One could also remove the back and make it the entrance to a small panic room.
22" deep, 35" tall, 48" wide (including front panel total width is 49.5") 55