Shaker Cabinet History

When you need to know about the history of a Shaker cabinet, you can find that it is a little different than other cabinet histories. Shakers are known as having been a small group of merchants in early America who founded the land-based cooperatives.

A Shaker cabinet does not look like one of the more common types of cabinet. It has two vertical drawers that go together and there is no lip between the two drawers. It has no doors and there is not a flap on the top.

One of the key differences with a Shaker cabinet history is that they do not have a back. In fact, the cabinet history will say that their aim was to have cabinets that were double-functioning as a piece of furniture, but it was to avoid duplication of items and thus, not to make duplication a part of their philosophy. The reason for the back being unnecessary was because the individual pieces of the cabinet were placed together in a certain way so that the whole cabinet was considered to be a single unit.

While there are no doors to a Shaker cabinet, the Shaker idea of how things should be coordinated means that there will be a vertical drawer and a horizontal drawer. There is also a shelf on the top.

Shaker furniture has a very simple style. It tends to be made from spruce, maple, walnut and mahogany. They also are found to use different types of wood, depending on the use for which they were intended.

The book called, "Shaker Woodcraft" by John Taylor Gatto is a very good source for Shaker cabinet history. In it, you will learn about the furniture that was made in this country. You will also learn about the pieces that were used by the Shakers.

In the book, you will also find the parts of the Shaker cabinet such as a Shaker vase, an end table, a vanity set, a sideboard, and many others. You will also learn about the new type of cabinet that was made by the Shakers.

Other Shaker cabinet history that can be found through Shaker resources is how the Shakers made their own standards for the type of materials that would be used in their cabinets. They wanted the cabinets to be of a very high quality and this meant that they could not have any nails used for fastening the piece together. You will find that even today, Shaker cabinets are known for their unique character.

A Shaker cabinet will have a series of doors that goes across from front to back. The doors are made from wood that is not nearly as hard as the wood used for the cabinet. The wood that they use was called bucatum.

Shaker cabinet history will tell you that some of the doors that are in a Shaker cabinet were found to have hand stitched inside of them. If you look at a Shaker cabinet, you will notice that it will have a lot of lovely hand carved detail that it will have in the details of the cabinet's door. There are very few Shaker cabinets that use nailed together doors because they felt that the doors made from the bucatum type of wood were very fine and did not need nail holes.

If you visit an antique dealer, you will find that you will be able to buy a Shaker cabinet. If you do not want to buy one yourself, you can have the cabinet sold to you by an antique dealer. Although, if you get a Shaker cabinet yourself, you will have to be careful in choosing which door to put on the front so that it will match the other doors in the cabinet.

Remember, a Shaker cabinet is a bit different than a traditional cabinet and should not be confused with them. You can easily look up Shaker cabinet history through Shaker resources and the Internet. You will also find Shaker cabinet history if you look into purchasing an antique Shaker cabinet that you find at an estate sale or through an antique dealer.