Modern Sideboard

Functional elegance. This sleek, counter-height design opens up to a variety of storage compartments below a durable butcher block worktop.

I love a tambour cabinet. Whether it takes the form of a sideboard, a roll-top desk, or even a humble bread box, there’s something magical about a case piece with a door that disappears around a corner, stowing itself within the cabinet walls. This clever mechanical structure (see Larissa Huff’s Tambour Technique) allows a seemingly flat door to travel through a tight radius. And the tambour door, like its siblings—the sliding door and the cylinder fall—looks tidy whether it’s open or closed.

That’s why tambours were the perfect choice for this sideboard, which I designed to serve as a formal dining room espresso bar with elements of kitchen utility. A butcher block top of curly cherry provides a counter-height work surface for prepping your daily grind while the tambour doors below enclose spacious storage compartments. The shorter upper compartments allow quick access to dishware and tools, with the lower compartments offering ample storage for larger items and back stock. Leave the doors open while you work, then slide them closed for a formal look.

Four-doored storage

The top, bottom, and side panels of the cabinet are dominoed together, creating a large box, encasing the interior components. A fixed shelf sits in dados in the sides, with its forward corners protruding through notches at the front. More dominoes connect the false sides and center partitions to the shelf, top, and bottom. Canvas-backed tambour doors slide in from the back guided by matching grooves routed in the top, shelf, and bottom. A removable plywood back panel is screwed into rabbets in the tops and sides, and serves as a stop for the doors when they are open. The solid cherry cabinet sits atop a simple cherry stand featuring round legs joined to the aprons with sliding dovetail joinery. For speed and accuracy, I used a Festool Domino in this build, but you could achieve similar results with a doweling jig and dowels.

Order of Work

• Make and assemble case
• Make and assemble stand
• Make and assemble doors
• Sand and finish
• Attach stand
• Install doors
• Attach back panel

Making a case for tambours

Mill stock for all the solid wood cabinet panels. Glue up the top, bottom, and sides and cut them to final size. Make the center partitions and false side panels overlong, and glue up the fixed shelf in two stages as shown. Lay out centerlines for the domino mortises on the outside faces of the sides and on the ends of the top and bottom. Cut the mortises, offsetting those on the top and bottom to create the slight reveal at the corners. Sand the fixed shelf to final grit before routing a 1/4"-deep dado across the side panels. To match the width of the dado to the thickness of your sanded shelf, rout it in two passes, the first with the router against the upper fence as shown and second with it against the lower fence. Deepen the dado to create the through notches and square the corners with a chisel. Rout the rabbets on the back edges of the top, bottom, and sides with a 9/16" rabbeting bit. 

Make a template for the tambour track (see Tambour Technique), and rout the tracks in the underside of the top, the topside of the bottom, and both sides of the shelf. Dry fit the case assembly, and use a spacer to layout the centerlines of all four false sides on the top, bottom, and shelf. Saw the center partitions and false sides to final height, fitting them to the assembly, before laying out the domino mortises on these vertical panels. Cut 20mm-deep mortises in the vertical panels, and then use the panels as mortising guides to lay out and cut 12mm-deep mortises in the top, bottom, and shelf as shown. Drill holes for adjustable shelves in the lower false sides and center partition. Finally, make a template for the rounded corners on the horizontal panels, and lay out the arcs. Cut close to the line with a jig saw before clamping the template in place and cleaning up with a router and flush trim bit.

Gluing up a notch. For the fixed shelf, make a 7⁄8 × 1 87⁄16 × 43" panel and edge join a longer 7⁄8 × 5"-wide strip to the front edge. After gluing, trim the front strip to 44", creating a 1⁄2" overhang on either side.

Routing the track. Mark your template’s centerline, left, right, and back edges. Use these marks to align the template to the cabinet parts and rout the tracks. Note: for the top and bottom panels, align the back edge of the template to the rabbet edge; for the shelf, align to its back edge.

Connect the corners. Set the Domino fence angle to 90° and fence height such that the bit is centered within the thickness of the sides and cut 25mm-deep mortises at your layout lines. Adjust the fence 1⁄8" higher and cut 15mm-deep mortises in the top and bottom panels.

Dado and notch the sides. Place the sides on a spoil board, inside faces up, and front edges abutting. Tape two fences in place to guide the router. Make test cuts in set up stock to dial in the fence locations. After plowing full-length grooves, add stops and rout the notches, plunging through to the spoil board.

Lay out the interior walls. Use a spacer pressed against the cabinet side to mark the location of the center of each false side, ensuring that the false sides will be parallel to the cabinet sides, even if the cabinet sides are slightly out of square. Align the Domino to cut mortises centered along each line, using its corresponding false side as a fence as shown.

A multi-layered glue-up

Before adding glue, make a sample portion of upper and lower tambour doors to test out your tracks while the assembly is dry fit. Make adjustments to the track and sample doors as needed, until the test doors run smoothly. Sand everything but the shelf and prefinish any parts you won’t be able to reach after glue-up. I used West System epoxy for its long open time and its strength in joints with end grain. I did this glue up alone, but I recommend having helpers if you can find some.

Make the stand

Mill the apron stock to final size and prepare two leg blanks at 1-1/2 × 1-1/2 × 20" plus an extra setup blank or two. Position the router table fence to center a 3/4" straight bit on the leg stock. Set a stop block to cut a 2-1/4" long groove. Raise the bit to 3/16" and cut grooves on two adjacent faces on each end of the leg blanks. Swap in a 3/8" straight bit and take a couple passes to cut a 7/16"-deep groove on each of the same faces, and then make one final pass with a 1/2" dovetail bit set to a height of 7/16". Lower the dovetail bit to 1/4" height and adjust the fence to cut sliding dovetails on the ends of each apron. Square the corners of the 3/4"-wide grooves with a chisel before rounding the leg stock with a 3/4" roundover bit. Crosscut the legs to length at the tablesaw. Handsaw a shoulder at the bottom edge of each dovetail tenon and clean up with a chisel. Sand and glue up.

Mortise the square stock. Safely and accurately rout all the leg joinery while the stock is square.

Rout round. Set a 3⁄4" roundover bit into a router fence and round the ends of the leg stock into 7" long, 11⁄2" dowels, leaving a square section in the middle for safety.

Make the tenons. Stabilize the long, narrow aprons with a backer and feather board as you cut the dovetail tenons at the router table.

Trim the shoulders. Handsaw a 1⁄4" shoulder at the bottom of each dovetail tenon and pare clean with a chisel. Continue to widen the shoulder until the apron sits flush with top of the leg when the base is assembled.

Closing the case

Sand and finish the glued-up cabinet and stand. I used Osmo Top Oil for countertops, in matte finish. Rout slots in the stand where indicated p. 32 and attach to the cabinet bottom with tabletop z-clips. Follow the procedures outlined in Tambour Technique at right to make and fit the tambour doors. Mill handle and locking slat stock to size and cut the handle tenons at the table saw before rounding their ends with a file. Rout pulls into the face of the handles with a 1/2" dia. core box bit. Drill pilot holes in the locking slat and handle. Cut the plywood back panel to fit into its rabbets. Mill adjustable shelves to size. Sand, finish, and install the doors, handles, shelves, and back panel. Then take a coffee break!

Lock in place. Pull the excess canvas at the leading edge of the door taut and tack to the back of the handle with hide glue. After it dries, poke holes through the canvas at the pilot holes with an awl before attaching the locking slat and trimming away excess fabric.