A Contemporary

Mobile File Cabinet

nets underneath their desks to be easily accessible without occupying extra floor space. Locking casters and the ability to hold letter-size hanging file folders would also be nice. These guidelines created a set of dimensions to work from, and the fact that these cabinets are mobile also dictated that they be finished on all sides so that they could be enjoyed from all angles.

In terms of materials, we ruled out solid-wood panels because of their inevitable cross-grain expansion and contraction, and laying up the veneers myself would've been prohibitively expensive.

Fortunately I was able to locate some nicely figured ³/4"-thick birch plywood, and this allowed us to keep the look we were after without spending a fortune or sacrificing durable construction.

Cutting and Edge-banding the Cabinet Parts

First inspect the edges of the plywood, because the joint between the solid-wood edge-banding and the plywood panel needs to be crisp. Although it

by Chris Gleason

Chris Gleason designs and builds contemporary furniture and cabinetry for homes and commercial spaces in Madison, Wisconsin. You can see more of his work at interestingfurniture.com.

Elegant design emphasizes the contrast between birch and cherry while providing no-nonsense functionality.

A few years ago I built some office furniture for a local internet consulting company, and recently they called me back: Not only had they survived the dot-com crash, but they needed some mobile file cabinets. I had already developed a unique look for their computer workstations: birch surfaces surrounded by rounded-over solid cherry edge-banding. The style was crisp, clean and a nice fit for the company's bright and airy office.

My clients had a few ideas in mind: They planned to move the cabinets around so that people could share files, and they wanted to wheel the cabi-

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