Closet and cabinets for an historic house

I recently built bookshelves, cabinets and a new closet for the historic Foster Grant house in Ipswich.

There was a tiny existing closet in the front bedroom

The new closet. This 1720 house has old-style 1″ thick 4-panel doors. I picked up these two doors that were being thrown out on the street, repaired and refinished them. I found the white porcelain doorknobs at White Elephant Antiques in Essex. The door casings and baseboards are beaded to match the other woodwork in the room. The floor of the earlier closet had several layers of paint, which I removed and refinished to match the rest of the room.

I made new bookshelves for both sides of the rear room in my shop, and installed them on site. The house has settled over the years such that this set on the left had to be made two inches shorter than the set on the right (not shown).

All of the casings in the house have a simple round beaded edge. I was able to reproduce this on my router table with a small beading bit, and using a rounding bit for the edges.

It was impossible to bring the assembled bookcases up the narrow front stairs. A previous owner installed a large trap door in the second floor room, which is how we brought in the new bookshelves.

A section of the house is being renovated, and the owners asked me to create 2 cabinets for the office that would reuse these handmade panel doors.

The new closet, cabinets and bookshelves were installed in the Foster Grant house, a First Period home constructed in 1717.