Why do the drawers stick in winter?

Wood expands when it absorbs moisture from the air. Central heating dries houses out in winter, but in damp old cottages, the reverse happens and the runners swell up. Rubbing a simple candle wax along the runners often sorts it out. It gives the timber just enough slip to glide freely again.

I inherited a tall chest from my grandmother recently and I noticed the wooden knobs on the drawers seem a bit wonky and misaligned. Was that normal?

Cabinet makers usually aligned handles with precision when the piece was new. The timber carcase settles and warps slightly over decades, which throws the drawer fronts out of square. Sometimes a previous owner replaced the original brass drops with turned wooden knobs later in the nineteenth century. They often drilled the new holes in a hurry, leaving the spacing uneven.

How heavy is a solid mahogany chest?

They weigh a considerable amount. Dense Cuban mahogany is a heavy timber, and a large chest can require two strong people to lift. Remove the drawers before trying to move one. The empty carcase is much easier to manage on a staircase.

We are looking to buy one for a nursery to store baby clothes and want to know if there is anything we should check before using it for that.

Smell the inside of the drawers before you buy. Musty odours from years of damp storage can linger in the porous secondary woods and transfer to clean fabrics. Check the drawer stops are still attached inside the carcase. If they are missing, a heavy drawer can be pulled clear out and fall, which is a hazard around small children. Make sure the backboards sit flush against the wall. A tall, loaded antique mahogany chest of drawers needs a level floor so it doesn't tip forward when opened.

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Chippendale Mahogany Chest of Drawers

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A solid, practical piece of case furniture featuring stacked pull-out compartments, built to store folded clothing and linen while displaying the dense, dark grain of imported timber.