My grown daughter asked for a “hope chest” some time ago, so I reckoned it was time to comply. I made a quick drawing, then commenced to cut all the pieces needed. I assembled the main body just before dinner. I asked Katy to look in the shop and tell me what she thinks. She does and informs me that it is too small. I asked what she was going to put in it and she said, “I don’t know but I want it to be a little wider.” “Oh, like a quilt chest ?” “Yeah, like that.”
So I am going to finish this one as planned and have fun doing it. The boss says she wants to put old pictures, high school annuals, diplomas, discs of more pictures, stuff from when the kids were little, etc. in it. So it will be a “memory chest”, then. I’m good with that.
It will be made from three woods: birch (main body and lid), maple (drawer fronts, scribe mold and lid rim accent trim) and select pine (base mold, beauty mold, and lid wood edge). Each of the three woods will have their very own stain color (no paint on this project). The maple is Minwax Puritan Pine (light), the birch is Minwax Provincial (medium), and the pine is Minwax Jacobean 1st, then a quick wipe of Minwax Ebony over that (dark).
Here’s the beginning: 
