Hand Refinished Oak Serpentine Washstand Commode, Drawers and Door, American, c. 1890–1910

The Piece

A small American serpentine-front washstand from the turn of the last century, hand refinished in our own workshop and brought back to the warm, deep, honey-and-walnut glow it was made to have. It is the compact commode form that furnished a bedroom before plumbing reached upstairs: a shaped top with a thumb-molded edge following the serpentine curve of the case, one long drawer across the top above two short drawers at the left, a paneled cupboard door at the right where the chamber set lived, a scalloped apron, and square, gently splayed legs that run up through the case as the corner posts. The top drawer front and the long top rail are cut from boldly figured stock, the bird's eye and curl flashing through the finish, and the cupboard door is a proper frame-and-panel, the grain of the panel running the other way for contrast. Three turned-brass bail pulls and a round brass knob on the door are later replacements in the Colonial Revival taste and sit well on it.

The refinishing was done by hand: the old darkened varnish taken down to clean wood, the surfaces sanded only as far as they needed, then stained to a deep amber brown that lets the figure show and sealed to a soft hand-rubbed sheen rather than a plastic gloss. The result keeps the age in the piece, the small dents and shrinkage lines of a hundred years in a dry house, the slight movement in the top, the darker tones at the edges where hands have been, while giving it a surface that will take daily use again. Structurally sound and square: the drawers run, the door closes, the legs are tight, the back and dust boards are present. Offered as a finished, ready-to-use piece.

History & Provenance

The washstand, or commode washstand, was the hardest-working piece of furniture in the American bedroom between the Civil War and the First World War. It held the pitcher and basin on top, the towels and soap in the drawers, and the chamber pot behind the door, and every furniture factory in the country made it in oak, ash, elm and birch by the tens of thousands, shipped by rail to the general stores and mail-order catalogs that furnished the farmhouses, boarding houses, hotels and new suburban homes of a growing country. The serpentine front with a long drawer over two short drawers and a cupboard is the classic late form, made from the 1890s into the 1910s, when the Grand Rapids and Midwestern factories dressed their inexpensive case goods with shaped fronts, molded tops and figured veneers to compete for the catalog buyer's eye. Once indoor plumbing arrived the washstand lost its job overnight, and the survivors were painted, pushed into back halls and basements, or cut down into other things. A complete one, with its door and drawers and apron intact, is now the ideal small chest for a bedside, an entry or a bathroom, exactly the scale modern rooms need and almost nothing new is made to.

The piece is unmarked and offered as an unattributed American factory washstand. The dating rests on the construction rather than style alone: the solid secondary wood and machine-cut joinery of the factory period, the serpentine front and molded top of the 1890s–1910s catalog style, the frame-and-panel door and the corner-post legs of the pre-1915 commode form. It is dated c. 1890–1910. The brass hardware is a later replacement, as it is on most of these. Hand refinished by Viridian Eclection in Reno, Nevada.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

This is the small chest every room is missing: the right height for a bedside with a lamp and a book, deep enough for an entry with a tray and a bowl for keys, handsome enough for a powder room with towels behind the door, and narrow enough to go where a dresser cannot. The serpentine front and the glowing figure give it presence out of proportion to its size, and the refinished surface means it can be used hard without worry. It belongs in a farmhouse bedroom, a craftsman bungalow, a cabin, a cottage, or as the single warm antique in a clean modern room. For a designer client it is the ready-to-place piece that solves a corner; for a shop it is the quick-turning small furniture that sells to the first couple who open the door and smell the wood.