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Sideboard with Faux Painted Bookshelves Wellesley, Massachusetts

As clients begin to realize the potential of custom furniture design, they open their minds to a range of possibilities never before seen or imagined. This couple had previously ordered a complete dining room and media center, and had now come to a small adjoining room without definition. They realized that they needed and wanted a 'bar' for entertaining, but didn't wish it to be a focus for their home or their children.

The resulting 'bookcase' would seem like a perfectly normal, and formal, focus of this small room. However, a considerable amount of faux painting - of the books, the Grecian urns, the bust of Caesar - covers this modified stepback cupboard, in addition to extensive marquetry. When the locks are opened, the interior reveals an ice maker and refrigerator behind the Grecian urns, copper-shielded ice bins behind the narrow lower doors, and liquor bottles and stemware behind the reverse painted books. The carefully veneered drawers of the lower case hold bottle openers and bar tools, while the untraditional and impregnable granite shelf provides a perfectly clean bar top, every time.