This white oak library chest takes its inspiration from the portable book chests once circulated among lighthouse keepers and their families. Updated with a sideboard-style storage base, drawers, adjustable shelving, and frame-and-panel doors, this woodworking project turns a fascinating piece of history into a practical storage cabinet for the modern home.
Around the turn of the 20th century, the United States Lighthouse Service supplied these portable library chests to lighthouse keepers stationed in remote locations. Filled with books and periodically exchanged between lighthouses, the traveling libraries provided a welcome source of entertainment for keepers and their families.
Today, lighthouses are largely automated and books are easier than ever to find, but these historic library chests remain impressive examples of practical furniture design. Their sturdy construction, compact size, and straightforward storage made them well-suited for life at a lighthouse — and provide plenty of inspiration for a woodworking project more than a century later.
Our version pairs the library chest with a sideboard-style base that adds two drawers and an open shelf for even more storage. White oak replaces the historically accurate yellow pine, giving the cabinet a more substantial feel while highlighting its distinctive joinery. The result is a unique furniture project that combines woodworking history, useful storage, and a variety of rewarding techniques.
This chest provides a plethora of storage options. The main enclosure is well-suited for books, of course, but the quartet of drawers is also convenient for small items.
The “dovetailed” rabbets are a recurring motif throughout the project and come from the original piece that inspired this chest.
KICK OFF WITH THE LEGS & RAILS
This project begins at the base. The stand isn’t just a place to put the chest. It offers storage of its own, with a pair of drawers and a shelf.
LEGS
The legs start out as 8/4 lumber, and, after sizing them, they need some stopped grooves and mortises. Prior to any cutting, mark out where each leg will be positioned. The joinery on these legs differs slightly depending on which rails they’re mating with.
STOPPED GROOVES
I began with the stopped grooves. Details ‘a’ and ‘b’ show these on the front legs. Detail ‘c’ shows the grooves on the back legs. I cut these at the router table (as in Figure 1). Note that there are two lengths of grooves: long ones for the side and back rails, and short grooves on the front legs for the double tenons.
ROUTING MORTISES
Long mortises in the legs accept tenons in the lower rails (detail ‘d’) and short ones in the front legs fit the lower front rail (detail ‘b’). I cut these using a plunge router.
RAIL TENONS
With mortises made, it’s time for some tenons. For now, we have two lower rails, two side rails, and a back rail. Despite their different dimensions, making these parts is largely the same. After sizing them, cut the tenons to match the leg mortises. I did this by rabbeting both faces at the table saw. Next, I added a groove along their bottom edges to accept the tongues of the drawer shelf (Figure 2).
FRONT RAILS
The top of this base has a pair of drawers. To make room for those, we used an I-shaped assembly for the front rails. These have double-tenoned ends, and the box shows how to cut those. You’ll also need the drawer divider. This part simply needs to be cut to size, but you’ll also need to cut a dado in the center of each front rail for it.
DRAWER SHELF
The drawer shelf supports the drawers and provides a place to secure their guides. Rabbets along its perimeter create tongues to fit into the grooves in the rails (Figure 3). Notches in the corners fit the legs, which I cut at the band saw.
BASE ASSEMBLY
Gluing up these parts begins with the side assemblies, joining the legs with the lower and side rails. I also glued up the front rails around the drawer divider to make the I-shaped assembly. Next, glue up the parts and back rail around the drawer shelf, slotting tongues into grooves and tenons into mortises.
DRAWER GUIDES & SHELF
The body of the base is made, and now there are a few more things to add on top, beginning with a shelf.
BASE SHELF
The shelf spans the stretchers and is supported by cleats (detail ‘b’). Screws do the work here, so after cutting the shelf to fit and cleats to size, just screw everything in place.
DRAWER GUIDES
The drawers of this project are kept on track by hardwood guides. The side guides fit between the legs, while the center guide is located behind the drawer divider. Once these are cut, screw them in.
ADDING A TOP
The top of this base is attached by a pair of cleats. You can see how these come together in detail ‘a’. To allow for wood movement, the screws in the top are given wider clearance holes in the cleat tops and secured with washers.
DOVETAILED & DOWELED CASE
Now that the base is done (excluding the drawers — we’ll get to those), it’s time to work on the case of this library chest. This consists of sides, a top and bottom, and a back, but it also contains a compartment for two drawers at the bottom, along with an adjustable shelf.
CASE EXTERIOR
The first parts of the case to make are the sides, top, and bottom that form its exterior. The rabbets for the back panel came first (detail ‘a’). I cut these at the table saw, as you can see in Figure 1.
Angled rabbet joints connect the sides to the top and bottom. The rabbeted portion was cut at the router table using a dovetail bit (Figure 2), while the ends of the top and bottom were beveled at the table saw.
The last tasks on these parts address the interior. First, that means a few holes in the sides for the shelf supports, which you can see in the main illustration. After that, the sides and bottom need stopped dadoes. In the sides, these accept the case divider, while the bottom one is for a tongue in the drawer divider. I cut these using my plunge router and a guide for its base, as in Figure 3.
DIVIDERS
Two dividers segment the compartments of the case. The horizontal divider separates the main enclosure of the case from the drawers. The drawer divider separates the drawers in their section.
After cutting these to size, the first thing I did was repeat the routing from the bottom panel to create the dado for the drawer divider in the horizontal divider. After that, I rabbeted the ends of the horizontal divider and the edges of the drawer divider to create the tenons and tongues.
ASSEMBLY
Now we’re ready to assemble the case. Note the dowels shown in the illustration. After gluing up the case, drill the holes for these, tap them in, and trim them flush. At this point, there are two more parts to make for the case itself. Cut the back to fit within the rabbets behind the case and glue it on. Next, cut a shelf to fit between the sides, then insert the shelf supports and set it in place.
A PAIR OF DOORS
The main compartment of the case is enclosed by a pair of framed doors. There are three parts to the doors, and I began with the stiles.
FRAME & PANEL JOINERY
After sizing the stiles, cut a groove down the center of their inner edges (details ‘a’ and ‘d’). While you’re at it, the rails need similar grooves on their inner edges (detail ‘c’). Then, cut the tongues and tenons for those grooves. These are made by rabbeting the back edges of the panels and the ends of the rails.
RING PULLS
Before putting the doors together, make the mortises for the ring pulls. These sit flush to the stiles’ faces, and you can see how to make them above. Once you’ve cut the mortises, screw the pulls in place.
DOOR ASSEMBLY
To assemble the doors, the tongues on the door panels are slotted in the grooves in the stiles and the rails, and the tenons of the rails are glued into the stiles’ grooves. We used no-mortise hinges to hang the doors, which makes these pretty quick and easy to install.
FINISH WITH THE DRAWERS
The last pieces of this project are the drawers for the base and case. The construction of these drawers is somewhat reminiscent of the case. Angled rabbets in the sides accept the beveled ends of the fronts and backs. Dowels are added after assembly to reinforce the joints and add visual interest.
RABBETING THE SIDES
The dovetailed rabbets in the drawer sides are made at the router table, much like the ones in the case sides. However, a little extra consideration is required to cut these. Due to the width of these parts (or lack thereof) supporting them during the cut with just your hand leaves your fingers uncomfortably close to the bit.
It also leaves a chance of the piece tipping if the throat of your insert is too wide. Neither of these are ideal. To avoid mishaps, I made the cutting jig you see in Figure 1.
This is simply three pieces of plywood: one to serve as a backer and two to sandwich the workpiece in place. Pin nails or even just double-sided tape work fine to assemble this cutting jig. Conveniently, this jig will also help eliminate any chipout on the back edges. Once you have the jig made, slide the workpiece into it and make the cut.
FRONT, BACK, & BOTTOM
The remaining drawer work is fairly straightforward. After cutting the fronts and backs to size, trim a bevel on their ends to match the dovetailed rabbets in the sides (as in Figure 2). To accept the bottom panel, cut a groove along the inner, lower edges of the sides, fronts, and backs (Figure 3). After you cut the bottom panels to size, you’re now ready to glue up the drawers.
FINISHING TOUCHES
Like the angled rabbets on the case, we added dowels to the joints after the fact. Once the clamps come off the drawers, drill out the holes for those dowels, mallet them in, then trim them flush.
A false front for each drawer masks the end grain of the drawer sides and completes these drawers. After cutting these to size, you’ll need to cut the mortises for the ring pulls. Use the same process described earlier for mortising the ring pulls. After screwing the ring pulls onto the false fronts, they can be screwed to the drawer fronts in turn.
CASE DRAWERS
The last task to complete this library chest is to make the set of drawers for the case. These are nearly identical to the ones in the base, save for being a bit narrower, which means you’ll need a narrower jig for cutting the rabbets in the sides. Aside from that, the same process will lead you to success.
With the last drawers complete, it’s time for the finish. We found tung oil to be a great choice for highlighting the white oak. After that, all that’s left is deciding where your new library will spend its days.
