BH | Studio Amboise Arched Tall Cabinet

Before built-in closets, the tall cupboard, or armoire, was the great storage piece of the French house, holding linen, clothes and the best china behind a pair of doors. Many provincial armoires were crowned with a gentle arch, borrowed from the doorways and windows of the rooms they stood in, and that curve gave them their grace.

This one is a tall, round-topped cabinet with two full-height doors meeting at the centre, each with a long, slim vertical pull. Inside are two adjustable shelves and one fixed shelf, so you can set the spacing for cereal boxes, tall bottles or stacks of towels, and the doors close softly rather than with a bang. Short rounded feet with non-marking glides lift it off the floor and keep it steady. It has a wood-grain finish in Oyster or Jet that lets a faint grain show, and needs some assembly.

Use it as a pantry in a kitchen or breakfast room, holding jars, cereal and table linens, or as a linen press in a bathroom or upstairs hall. In a living room it hides household odds and ends, from vacuum attachments to wrapping paper. In Oyster its pale colour keeps a tall piece from crowding a small room, and with sage walls, a rush-seat chair and a bowl of lemons beside it, it has the look of a French country kitchen.