An advent calendar in Proofgrade Medium Cherry Plywood (mostly).

I accidentally used one of the sheets of cherry I’d been saving for this project, so I ended up making the drawer bottoms out of Maple Ply instead (and using every scrap of cherry I could scrounge up to make enough drawers). The much-improved camera alignment I’ve been seeing lately was a huge help in getting the most from my scraps.

The drawers pull out easily, but won’t fall out if left part way open.

I really wanted a clean look on the front with a continuous grain pattern, so the drawer fronts and face frame are cut from a single piece of plywood. The face frame hides the dark edge of the cubby dividers and the drawer fronts hide the details of the box construction.

The drawer fronts are glued to the front of the boxes. I had originally planned to put a “false back” on as well, so that the drawers could be reversed day-by-day to reveal a scene or design, but as I prototyped it, full-size backs didn’t slide in & out well and smaller backs didn’t look good, so I abandoned that idea.

Next up: a decorative arch or scene to put on top.