Old Sturbridge Village is a recreated New England Village of the 1830s that includes a remarkable collection of antique buildings and the objects you would expect to find in them. They have more than 58 restored buildings and approximately 60,000 historic artifacts that were made or would have been used in rural New England in the early 1800s. Unfortunately, not all the Village’s holdings of period furniture can be displayed at any one time. Many objects remain out of public view. Recently, Norm, who is a trustee of the museum, asked the curators to put a stunning Bowfront Chest they had in storage on display in one of the Village’s historic homes, the Salem Towne House, to inspire his New Yankee viewers. The stunning Bowfront four-drawer chest was built by Alden Spooner working in nearby Athol, Massachusetts in 1807. Spooner, like many furniture makers of the time, was probably well aware of pattern books and high-style designs being made in Europe and America, and this chest may well have been inspired by furniture brought here from Great Britain. Norm builds his version of mahogany and is challenged to form the French feet and the dovetailed Bowfront drawers. While not a project for a beginner, the Bowfront Chest will be of great interest to serious woodworkers.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is a treasure house of the first order that boasts remarkable collections of early American furniture, including some incomparable pieces by Goddard and Townsend, the famous Colonial-era Rhode Island furniture makers.

Norm is drawn to a simple chest that is undergoing laboratory investigation at the museum. Known as the Taunton Chest, the piece was named for the Massachusetts town where Robert Crosman (1710-1799) built it nearly three hundred years ago. This highly decorated small chest is one of only a handful of Crosman originals that remain intact today. One like it was offered by Christie’s Auction House not long ago and went for the amazing sum of close to three million.

Norm builds his version out of poplar and calls on decorative artist Natalie Gardner to precisely copy the paintwork of the original design.

Never in the history of The New Yankee Workshop has there been a more challenging project. This bonnet-topped Queen Anne-legged tiger maple highboy is a classic in every sense of the word. Even the reproduction hardware is rare. Joining Norm in the search for a suitable highboy that Norm can reproduce are Leigh and Leslie Keno, much respected furniture experts from the PBS show "FIND." They take Norm to Leigh’s gallery in New York City and show him a glorious original they believe was built in Wethersfield, Connecticut in the early 19th century. It takes Norm two programs to complete the magnificent project and those who have seen it say it is well worth his time and effort.

Bermudans call themselves "Onions" perhaps because of those succulent pungent bulbs they have grown for hundreds of years. But onions also appear as wooden buns, or feet, to keep their blanket chests off the damp floors of that seaside nation. Norm, on his trip to Bermuda, finds a historic example in the form of a well-proportioned solid mahogany chest which he is able to reproduce faithfully back at the shop.

Pennsylvania Dutch is an endearing style created by early furniture makers. Many pieces of this delightful furniture, painted with colorful primitive design, can be found at the Winterthur estate, in Delware, Henry DuPont’s fabulous treasure house of American antiques. With curator Greg Landry, Norm tours the collection and finds an interesting dower chest dating back to 1840. Norm builds his own of tulip poplar and calls on a decorative painter to recreate typical Pennsylvania Dutch artwork.

If you’ve been looking for a small elegant chest of drawers then this Chippendale-inspired beauty is for you. Locating one is not easy, so Norm was delighted to find an original in an antique store. Norm’s version is built of high quality mahogany veneer plywood and fitted with period reproduction hardware. This four drawer classic is perfect for a small space or next to a bed.

Norm spied this regal nineteenth-century English mahogany, seven-drawer chest in the back room of Alex Raskin's renowned antique shop on Monterey Square in Savannah. This well-proportioned, chest-on-chest features period brass hardware pulls, edge banding, and dovetail drawers.

In the 1800s, a dough box provided a warm hiding place for bread dough to rise. When Norm crafts his version of this simple design out of antique pine and adds a hinge to the lid, he turns it into a great-looking, modern-day, chest-on-legs.

Here is a practical project that harks back to the first half of the season: the design for this nest of drawers is based on an antique found in a Nantucket shop. A 10-drawer storage unit built of recycled pine, this versatile piece will be equally coveted by the handy person, who will want it for the workshop, and the decorator, who will want to display it on a table or hang it on a wall. The compartments are perfect for storing odds and ends like stamps, hardware or craft supplies.

Norm spies this beautifully proportioned double dresser in a private collection of antique pine furniture in Napa Valley. This six-drawer desk is long but narrow, making it versatile enough for a hallway and other small spaces, as well as for a bedroom. Norm crafts his version of the design out of recycled pine, complete with recessed side panels, banded drawer fronts and wooden knobs.

The New Yankee Workshop travels to the Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Massachusetts, to look at a rare Shaker tall chest similar to one recently auctioned for $160,000. Norm designs a tall chest more daunting in size than in difficulty of construction. Its repetitive design makes it simpler to build than its size suggests.

Norm visits the Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, Shaker village to take a look at its fine collection of furniture. His version of the blanket chest is pine, finished with acrylic latex paint on the outside and clear urethane on the inside. Its joinery is simple throughout, including the two storage drawers in the chest's base.

With this eight-drawer, cherry chest-on-chest Norm simplifies a complicated project that may, at first glance, seem daunting to the home woodworker. Norm demonstrates techniques of biscuit joinery on the side panels and dovetail joinery on the drawers and cross-rails, then shows how to craft sculpted, contoured feet for the base using a band saw, table saw, template and router.

Norm visits the Shelbourne Museum in Burlington, Vermont to examine an antique pencil-post bed with a rope support system and a hay-filled mattress. Norm then adapts this design to accommodate a standard full-size mattress and box spring, and builds his pencil-post bed of poplar featuring mortise and tenon joints in the construction. The bedposts are tapered on the two inner sides, then beveled on all four corners to produce eight-sided, asymmetrically tapered posts.

Norm draws inspiration for a chest of drawers from a piece he inspects at the Hancock Shaker Village in western Massachusetts. Norm constructs his own chest of drawers from Ponderosa pine, demonstrating how to cut and plane the wood, glue the boards for the top and sides and build the drawers, drawer case and frames, and base.

Norm travels to the island of Nantucket off the Massachusetts coast to look at a handmade blanket chest in a sea captain's house dating from 1790. Incorporating elements of this antique in his own design, Norm builds a blanket chest of pine, lined with aromatic cedar panels.

Old Sturbridge Village is a recreated New England Village of the 1830s that includes a remarkable collection of antique buildings and the objects you would expect to find in them. They have more than 58 restored buildings and approximately 60,000 historic artifacts that were made or would have been used in rural New England in the early 1800s. Unfortunately, not all the Village’s holdings of period furniture can be displayed at any one time. Many objects remain out of public view. Recently, Norm, who is a trustee of the museum, asked the curators to put a stunning Bowfront Chest they had in storage on display in one of the Village’s historic homes, the Salem Towne House, to inspire his New Yankee viewers. The stunning Bowfront four-drawer chest was built by Alden Spooner working in nearby Athol, Massachusetts in 1807. Spooner, like many furniture makers of the time, was probably well aware of pattern books and high-style designs being made in Europe and America, and this chest may well have been inspired by furniture brought here from Great Britain. Norm builds his version of mahogany and is challenged to form the French feet and the dovetailed Bowfront drawers. While not a project for a beginner, the Bowfront Chest will be of great interest to serious woodworkers.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is a treasure house of the first order that boasts remarkable collections of early American furniture, including some incomparable pieces by Goddard and Townsend, the famous Colonial-era Rhode Island furniture makers.

Norm is drawn to a simple chest that is undergoing laboratory investigation at the museum. Known as the Taunton Chest, the piece was named for the Massachusetts town where Robert Crosman (1710-1799) built it nearly three hundred years ago. This highly decorated small chest is one of only a handful of Crosman originals that remain intact today. One like it was offered by Christie’s Auction House not long ago and went for the amazing sum of close to three million.

Norm builds his version out of poplar and calls on decorative artist Natalie Gardner to precisely copy the paintwork of the original design.