Hearthside Settle

Overview

Norm travels to the Massachusetts harbor of Gloucester to look at a high-backed, curved hearthside settle at Beauport, the home of tarry 20th-century interior decorator and antiquarian Henry Sleeper. The house is now a museum run by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. Norm's version of this pine piece closes in the area beneath the seat to create a storage space and adds an access hatch in the seat. Norm shows how to cut the settle's curved cross-members and shaped side pieces, how to join the back boards with tongue-and-groove joints, and how to bend the back base board along the bottom of the frame.