Sideboards are an item of furniture traditionally created for the use in dining rooms for serving out meals or for displaying and storing serving dishes.

Bespoke Sideboard Designs normally consist of having a set of cabinets or cupboards and drawers. There top surface is ideal for holding food, serving dishes, and even spot lights. Sideboards normally are on average about waist height.

Classical Sideboard Designs

The first Sideboard Designs made there appearance during the 18th century but unfortunately didn’t become popular until the 19th century. Sideboards soon became a must have when homes were large enough to accommodate a dining room.

Sideboard designs were available in a wide variety of styles and were frequently updated with expensive Veneers and inlays. In the later years of production sideboards were placed in lounges and other rooms where other household furniture and items may be displayed.

Traditionally formal dining rooms today and Antique Sideboard Designs are desirable and a fashionable piece of furniture to define one’s kitchen or dining area. The most popular versions are styles that are taken from the late 18th century or the early 19th century these are the most sought after pieces and are very expensive.

Among its other modern brothers and sisters the traditional sideboard is also often referred to as a server.

Adding Veneers to Sideboards

Veneers are small strips of wood usually around 3mm thick which can be used to strengthen furniture such as sideboards. Veneer Layers are normally glued to surfaces where bare wood is present.

Veneer is obtained by extracting the existing veneer from the trunk of a tree, this part of the tree is the most commonly used area used for architectural veneers.

The appearance of the grain in the wood comes from slicing through the growth rings of the tree and depends upon the angle at which the wood is cut.

There are three main types of veneer slicing equipment used industrially:

• A Rotary Lathe is a mechanical device which holds a piece of wood that is turned against a very sharp blade.
• A Slicing Machine holds the wood and elevates and lowers it against the blade, cutting into it.
• A Half Round Lathe is device in which the wood can be turned and moved in such a way to expose the most interesting parts of the grain.

These slicing processes help give a distinctive type of grain, depending upon the species of tree. In any of the veneer slicing methods, when the veneer is sliced, a distortion of the grain occurs.