Dovetail: Worth It?

            Throughout the years, dovetail drawer boxes have been a symbol of quality and durability in furniture. Does that fact still hold true today or is it just an unnecessary added expense?

 

Dovetail drawers boxes are constructed of solid wood with the corners dovetailed, or interlaced like fingers, together. This construction style gives extra strength to the box and offers a longer life for the drawer. When you open the drawer, there have a very finished, pretty look on the sides. Solid wood gives you more opportunities to customize them to match your cabinets. They can be made in any wood species and even stained to match your cabinets. Because they are solid wood, there could be more of a tendency to warp than a drawer box made out of plywood. The material and extra labor needed to produce these drawer boxes makes them more expensive than a plywood box.

 

Another option for the construction of drawer boxes is half inch plywood that is nailed together. Often times the top side of the plywood is edgebanded to clean up the unfinished look of the veneer layers. Depending on the quality of material used and the care taken in putting them together, these drawers could very well last just as long as the dovetail drawer boxes and be just at sturdy. Plywood boxes will run about one third to one fourth the cost of dovetail drawer boxes.

 

In my kitchen, I opted for plywood boxes and was able to use the money that I saved and splurge on my backsplash. Don’t let the absence of dovetail drawers scare you but examine the plywood boxes for durability and stability. You may find that the added expense of dovetail is really not worth it at after all.