by Thomas Miller
This is New Hampshire country furniture from the mid 1700's to early 1800's. The highboy is built using design elements of the Dunlap family furniture. I live in the south central New Hampshire in which the Dunlaps produced their whimsical furniture. The Dunlaps were cabinet makers, farmers, joiners, and handymen. They sold their furniture and bartered for supplies. This area of NH during the 1700's had towns in which populations were under 1,000 people. This highboy was built using woods that the Dunlaps used most often, including Tiger maple and White pine. Construction details are as follows: I drafted the plans using elements of different Dunlap highboys. The Tiger maple was hand planed and scraped. All dados were cut using hand dado planes. Round and hollow planes were used to construct all the moldings. Dovetails were hand cut. The assembly was done using Hide glue. Seedlac shellac was used as the finish. I chose the Seedlac thinking it may have been what the Dunlaps had on hand.