Mahogany Jewelry Box
A heavy mahogany jewelry box built as a gift, with a lift-out box-jointed tray, a cedar bracket for a bit of fresh smell, and a misaligned miter turned into a design feature.
I built this mahogany jewelry box as a gift, and the goal from the start was simple: something that looked and felt like a real, finished product instead of an obviously homemade one. Simple, strong, and presentable enough to sit on a counter without anyone squinting at the joints.
It’s not perfect. The waterfall miter corners on the walls didn’t line up quite as cleanly as I wanted, so instead of fighting to hide it, I routed a small decorative groove along the miter edge on the lid and let it read as an intentional design line instead of a mistake. It’s the kind of fix that only works if you commit to it, and I think it landed.
Inside, there’s a lift-out tray instead of a drawer — the brass hardware I wanted on the front would have eaten into the corners a pull-out drawer needed, and I didn’t want to break up the solid, one-piece look of the box. The tray sits on an internal bracket made from unfinished cedar, mostly so the box gets a little cedar smell every time it’s opened, and so the transition from dark mahogany to the beige fabric lining feels a little smoother.
Less technically ambitious than some of my other builds, but a lot of the actual effort here went into finish and color-matching instead — which, on a piece meant to just sit there and look nice, might matter more anyway.
