Victorian butler's pantry
This cabinet was designed for the butler’s pantry of a late-Victorian house on the National Register of Historic Places. My clients, Jamee and Scott Wissink, wanted their cabinetry to look like a massive piece of Victorian furniture that had been brought into their house and then built in, to fit its space.
The clients and I designed the piece to harmonize with the rest of the house, which has many decorative elements that feature middle-eastern motifs. We incorporated moorish arches, "pomegranate" finials, chip-carved almonds, sunbursts, and, of course, a peacock. The model for the peacock carving in the cabinet’s frieze was "Bob," the clients’ own stuffed peacock, a magnificent animal they had purchased from an antique store.
The interior of the cabinet is designed to serve contemporary storage needs, with adjustable shelves and full-extension drawer slides.
For the frieze, I used a dazzlingly-figured piece of quartersawn white oak sawn from a beam that had been salvaged from a state sanitarium built at the same time as my clients’ house. A few old checks in the board hint at its previous life and give the pantry cabinet an even more authentically Victorian appearance.
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NR Hiller Design produces handcrafted period-style furniture, baths, kitchens, and children's furniture, Colonial, Arts and Crafts, Gothic, Mission, Shaker, English Arts and Crafts, and Victorian. Bloomington, Cincinnati, Columbus, Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, Terre Haute, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Ohio.