Chests

The furniture items we now call chests were once made with small tills and drawer boxes inside. Large drawers that fit into the lower part of the chest were added, and eventually, chests became tiers of drawers with a by then anachronistic lid on top. These chests lost their lids in the mid-17th century (as did many angry European Catholics and Protestants, albeit over entirely unrelated issues) and became known as the aforementioned chests of drawers.

Alternative evolutions to these chests were chests of drawers that became known as tallboys, highboys, or lowboys (the suffix boys is an adaptation of the French word bois, which means wood). Chests remain popular today as alternatives to bulkier dressers, as bedroom chests are often thinner and shorter than their counterparts. Once little more than lidded wooden boxes, chests have become lovely complements to standard household furniture. For more on this transformation, see our chest articles below.