Amish Furniture Drawer Construction

Handcrafted Dovetailed Drawers

It’s all in the fine details of Amish handcrafted drawers; finished inside and out to protect your items from damage.

There are nearly endless combinations of construction methods that can be used to build a drawer box, but few stand out as the best blends of beauty, strength, and efficiency.

Your Amish handcrafted drawers from Countryside will be constructed with solid wood sides, dovetail joints (all four corners), dadoed plywood bottoms, and will be finished on the inside.

Amish Drawer Construction & Materials

Every drawer box is made using solid wood five piece construction, with dovetails in front and in the back to ensure that the box will retain its integrity for years to come. Dovetail drawers are considered a sign of premium quality and solid construction. The glue surface area on a dovetail joint is increased significantly, and the interlocking geometry of the dovetail joints holds together even if the glue fails.

The majority of our drawer boxes are built from solid Maple hardwood, which results in storage that is strong and resistant to everyday wear and tear. Drawer box faces will be built in the same wood as the rest of the furniture piece. The front is the primary wood, of course, but rarely are the sides and back made from the primary wood. The goal is to build the boxes to be sturdy and tight, not too heavy, and easy to open and close.

A well-built dovetail drawer is not only incredibly strong and long-lasting, but is aesthetically beautiful.

The Drawer Bottom
There are several types of drawer-bottom construction depending on the the style of the drawer and furniture piece, and the size of the drawer and the strength needed. Typically, our furniture drawer bottoms are built using 1/4” dado plywood bottom, which is slid and secured into the drawer. A dado joint is a strong joinery formed by cutting a groove across one board and inserting the adjoining board into that groove.

It is not feasible to use solid hardwood for the bottom of the drawer due to the natural expansion of the wood.  Plywood bottoms can be slipped in after assembly of the drawer box quickly and efficiently. The dado allows the 1/4-inch plywood bottom of the drawer to slide into the sides of the drawer for support and alignment.

Full Extension Drawer Slides
A strong, long-lasting drawer needs not only good joinery, but also good support and a way to guide its movement seamlessly.

Our drawers feature heavy-duty slides that are fully enclosed and mounted from below or the side of the drawer. This premium hardware offers year after year of quiet, reliable operation. They offer a smooth opening-and-closing action that’s not affected by wood movement. Most of our furniture also features full extension access and soft close. This prevents slamming by the drawer self-closing inches from the piece of furniture. 

Bailiegh Basham is Lead Sales & Marketing Strategist at Countryside Amish Furniture. She's been a team member since 2014. Bailiegh is deeply passionate about furniture design and home decor.