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Minimalist Update on an Antique Furniture Form: Heidi Earnshaw's Seven Day Dresser

By Rain Noe - November 12

From the Continent, there is an antique style of dresser called a semainier. "Semaine" is French for "week," and the semainier contained seven drawers, each holding garments for a day of the week.

Examples of semainiers

Canada-based furniture designer/builder Heidi Earnshaw has produced a modern update on the semainier with her Seven Day Dresser. Absent are the baroque design elements and fancy veneers; Earnshaw, whose style melds Scandinavian, Japanese and Shaker influences, opted for quarter-sawn white oak in a minimalist, open-frame and rectilinear design that still manages to look gentle.

A single brace on the back prevents racking, and is the only evidence of metal fasteners I can see. The rest of the unit appears to be constructed using traditional joinery.

Formerly a longtime Toronto resident, Earnshaw is one of the many creative-types who has given up the city for country life; last year, prior to the pandemic, "I packed up home and studio and moved to a tiny hamlet in the Ottawa Valley," she writes. "It had been a long held dream to live in a rural place and when our studio building on Sterling Road inevitably sold, the time felt right."

You can see more of Earnshaw's work here, and I also recommend checking out her Instagram.

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Minimalist Update on an Antique Furniture Form: Heidi Earnshaw's Seven Day Dresser

Frank Borsboom

20 days ago

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oof, My Sunday drawer definitely doesn't need to be that big.. only needs to have sweatpants... :P
Did need to look up Shaker design style though, thanks for that! :) It's interesting. :)

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Rain Noe

I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.