Welcome New Readers !

sometime around the end or beginning of the month

i often look at my 'stats', a feature of blogger that tracks your

traffic and shows some of the sources of it ... 

recently i have noticed some surprising trends ...

currently over 2,500,000 page views !

and already on the 13th of this month we have had

more traffic than all of last month, which was likely

my biggest month ever ...

so, thanks for reading, and since there are almost a thousand

posts, below i give you links to some of my favorites  ...

leave a comment or drop me an email if you like .
 

below is a post from January, 2023 

titled a 'few of my favorites'.

 

 conveniently listed on the home page of my blog

are, according to blogger, my 'popular posts' ...

 the one at the top of that list has been viewed 

more than 35,000 times, which does make it 'popular',

at least in my book.

below i list not my 'popular posts', but some of my 'favorite posts'.

ones that feature projects that i enjoyed writing about,

and/or feature projects that i am proud of.

here we go .... lots to read here ...

'all the pretty pool tables'

at the time i was writing this post i was also reading

a cormac mccarthy book titled 'all the pretty horses'.

hence the post title, which explains what that post is about ..

the duck bed

i could go on and on about this one, 

and in the duck bed link above, i do ...

 

'chance to be a hero'

this was a rather miraculous repair if i do say so myself ...

we were able to get all the veneer pieces back to flat 

without disturbing the original finish ..

 

some libraries we have built

at least 6 of them there ... one of them took

nearly a year from cutting the trees to installing it

on the upper east side in new york city ...

some big projects there ...

 

all claro, all the time

about a dozen live edge tables in the blog post at that link

and about 45 more at this link

 

algebra and geometry in the workplace

 
a real, deep, head scratcher here ..

create the supports for a conical ceiling ... 

here are the 'plans' from the architect

Ensure Slope Matches Side Wall Angle for Conical Ceiling'

at 2 and 1/16th x 12

and there is always the onsite variable where

the concrete wall on the right is maybe on 2 and 3/16ths x 12

instead of the required 2 and 1/16th x 12, which in

7' adds up!  crazy stuff !

 
a 1/8th" to the foot scale model ...

and your basic algebra here ...

and in 2010 we collaborated with a 

friend to build two rather large conference tables

at 20' x 8', this is the 'small one'

'small' because this one is 26' x 9'

about 2' of granite hangs out over the base pieces
we cnc'd and joined the knockdown parts, 

we did the steel that supports the granite

 and did the wood borders around the granite pieces ...

our friend steve did the finishing and onsite assembly.

                                                                             the crow bar  ... below

i think this will do it for today ... 

more 'favorites' to come sometime ...

and a few more favorites at this link

 

and there are literally thousands of photos in the 'slide shows' 

Libraries We Have Built Over The Years

I ran into some long time clients yesterday at the local hardware/general store. We were talking and they mentioned they were considering building a library next year and could I send them some pictures ... I rounded up a few and realized that rather then send them in an email, I would post them here with some comments and explanations. Most of the these projects were before I started writing this blog so there is not much in the way of construction photos .... They are not all libraries, but exhibit some of the various book storage design possibilities ... Click the photos to enlarge them ... More pics later ....

This stained cherry library had some beautiful details...The soft lighting for the miniature decoys over the windows, a fly tying desk., a 'secret' gun cabinet with lighted storage and opposite the wall shown above, a complete home office ... I have that picture somewhere ...
A classic natural cherry home office and bookcase circa 2004 I think. The clients and I got a couple design awards for this one, a portfolio award from Custom Woodworking Business magazine and one from the VWMA.
The opposite wall with a custom, built in fly tying desk ...
A mini library. This room was about 8' x 10' but we squeezed in two walls of floor to ceiling bookcases, a desk and a beautiful door with stained glass ... This wall is adjacent to the one above with the door in between them.
Not a library per se, but a really fine cabinet full of stuff. Down lighting on each shelf, uplighting on the top of the case ... An incredible collection of objects and only a very small portion of the client's extraordinary all original decoy collection.
My largest project ever and my favorite drawings ever ... This was way before CAD for me and I recently stuck these to the ceiling of the closet in my office ... If you enlarge this one, you can see the whole room. The photos below really don't do the room justice. For this project I had to take on a partner, Andrew Pate of Andrew Pate Designs in Cambridge New York for this one ... He had a much larger shop than I did at the time and more experience in long distance built ins than I ever want to have ... Yikes! What anxiety. Will this thing fit? It's four walls, floor to ceiling in a Upper East Side Pre War ... I mean, really ...
A. from drawings above ... Well it all fit ... It was a huge installation and four of us had to spend more than a couple nights in the city ...
B. from drawing above ... Lots of details ... The wood was cut from the clients' Vermont land; dried in New York State; fabricated and assembled in Arlington and Cambridge; finished before delivery; and delivered to NYC and installed there ... It was also the year we moved from Arlington to Dorset .... Did I really do this? I guess.
C. Lots of details ... The stereo all pulls out; the vertical 'drawers' on either side of the tv pull out and hold boxes of flies ... Not shown, wall d. above, and the fly tying desk and custom rod and reel storage. The arrow in the sketches above points to a view of the room ceiling if you're lying on the floor. There was a challenge there to make that all make sense too ... Wonderful clients, wonderful project ...
And, you can always paint them ... This project we finished this summer and it actually has a blog link ... The Wall
The installation day
In the shop ... See the blog link for more info on this one
And here we have a totally minimalist approach ... live edge curly maple and fir supports ... All for now ...