Furniture Making and Interior Design

let us now talk about interior design and furniture making. they are related .... i have always thought them to be separate disciplines, but in looking through my 'on site photos' folder recently, i realized that making a piece of furniture, particularly a piece for a particular client, for a particular spot, with their design input, is more than furniture making. if you get it right, not only have you manifested their vision, but you have created for them a 'special place', a place where they too can see 'their vision'. powerful stuff, when you think about it .... so, that said, i will be adding a new category to my blog, interior design, where occasionally i will post a few photos of successful collaborations that i feel meet the criteria above. like the sideboard above, some are from my own home, where the realization began; others from my local clients' homes.

click the photos to enlarge them ...this is one of my favorite before and after rooms ... the challenge was to take a little used guest room/fly tying spot and turn it into a husband and wife home office/fly tying spot ... lots of conversations, lots of drawings, lots of changes ...  before above ...

after

we did, in the end, receive a couple of design awards for this one ...

 

the spaces we make

we make furniture, one piece at a time, it's true, but, we also sometime make spaces, often intimate and personal spaces, that can have a deep meaning for us and for the clients we work with.  i visited the space in the photo above yesterday, to discuss some new work in an upstairs office, and was struck by the peacefulness and beauty of it.  the client was the designer and she has an impeccable eye.  we applaud her taste in custom furniture.  the two pieces we made in the photo, the large kas tv cabinet in the background, (back when big tvs were still big), and the custom pool table in the foreground, both look great over 10 years later.  both were challenges on a lot of levels, but looking at them now i remember the challenges as both fun and considerable.  click the photos to enlarge them ...

this piece was for another special client who was, to say the least, a collector.  he pointed me to set of random shelves with items arranged lineally and told us to, as i recall'  'make them make sense'.  the individual shelves are lit, the objects are all in original finishes, and while almost all were antiques, there were some most arresting, contemporary, maria martinez pieces in the mix.  the duck decoys are all 'top shelf' and represent just a tiny part of his 100 plus piece collection displayed throughout other areas of the house.  it was also my first experience of seeing diebenkorns, milton averys, stuart davises, and georgia o'keefe paintings in a private home.

and in preparation for a recovery from a hip transplant, we created this round and tapered tv stand in a corner of the bedroom.  this was one of the first flat screen tvs i had ever seen and he encouraged me to stretch a little outside the box on the design.

 

the next four images, including the greene and greene style desk and chair above, are for a husband and wife who are long time (25 years) clients, and for whom we have done many, many pieces.  there's generally a discussion or two, a sketch or two, and then a negotiation or two, and than we do it .. in the end, the pieces always seem to feel just right for their spaces.

table and chairs, 1987 

coffee table, 1989 ... the challenge here was to not obscure the amazing carpet.  i saw it this holiday season and the rug is as vibrant and arresting as ever.  we took our main design cue from the 'ram's head' detail in the carpet design ..

 

loyal readers have seen this one before, but it's from the same house as the three photos above.

in this kitchen we took our cue for the stools from the verticals on the island face, using a frank lloyd wright inspired stool design and a cherry counter top with a walnut and curly maple stripe down the center.

and in the next room, we built an entire greene and green inspired dining room with a custom sideboard and mirror, some wall sconces, an expanding table with 8 chairs, a hanging lantern and a corner cupboard that you can see reflected in the mirror.  this work was all done in 2003, and the client liked it so much, we did another very similar version of this room in 2008,  for another house he built in greenwich, ct.  the detailing of the sideboard construction for that dining room was our most popular blog post ever.

 

in 2003, we also created this double chest in quartered sycamore, along with a bed , side tables and a reclaimed chestnut tv piece.

this cherry and burl dining room set was another commission that created an intimate dining room on long island.

and, working with the manager at the equinox hotel in manchester a few years back, we designed and fabricated this lighted corner display case where the hotel features its events. sometimes a little used, awkward corner space can become highlight of the area.

 

and this piece was another 'ambiance piece' for a local hotel, the dorset inn, where it lived for almost 20 years until the inn changed hands recently and it went off to the former owner's home, one of, i believe, the only pieces she retained when the inn was sold.

     and sometimes, folks just want to have fun .... why not have your own custom home bar.  we would have liked to make the stools too, but i think that would have been a stretch after the bar project.  one of the most rewarding things we get to do in our work is to work with clients to produce their visions, and then visit those spaces later, after the fact, to see how they use and enjoy them ...

are we interior designers?  not really, and certainly not all the time, but occasionally we get to start from nothing and create a warm and personal space for our clients with our designs, and that is a most rewarding experience.

below is an intimate dining table in a park avenue apartment that the clients helped me to design and they tell me still that they use it 'every day'  ..

more on interior design and a brief discussion of the influential book 'a pattern language' by christopher alexander at this link


"At the core... is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets and communities. This idea... comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people". —Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language, front bookflap

another good one i'm reading right now is 'at home..a short history of private life' by bill bryson.

my own office at work

a custom home office, danby, vt

entry hall, manchester, vt

interior design 2

second post in a planned series ...

it's hard to believe because snow now covers the bench seats in the photo above, but we're only about two and a half months from this opening photo. at our house, it's all about the sunshine, all the time .... this side faces due southeast, which lets the morning sun come into the bedroom and bathroom below on the right end, and the afternoon light shine in the left end living room, and opposite side of the house. our previous house, from 1974-1996 was on red mountain road, about 15 miles from where we live now... that house was in a beautiful spot with a nice valley view, but was tucked up fairly tightly against a sizable bump in the landscape called, fittingly, red mountain. we were on the wrong side of the mountain .... in the winter, the sun was gone by 2:30 or so.

this time, either by luck or a dogged persistence, or both, we ended up with a house and shop that get very early morning sun and some of the last sun in town ... in designing both the house and the shop, attention was paid to maximizing that sunlight .... it is vermont, and winters are long and in general, tend to cloudiness. so, when you, have some sun, you want to get as much of it as you can .... our garage, for instance, is close, but detached, so as to get that morning light into the bedroom and bathroom below .... personal, (but imho, worthy), obsession ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
but, at all times of a sunny day, it's a delight ... lighting the spaces and the furniture ... yeah ... the cherry bureau was for our own house ... the first piece of real furniture i have made for us, intentionally, (not a prototype or mockup), in a long time. talk about a special spot ...
morning sun in all of these photos ... kitchen, dining and living room here ... like the shop, which we built and lived in first, we designed this house to be, wherever possible, 'one room deep', meaning you can look in the front window from outside in front, and out the back window on the other side ... a principal i think i picked up from a book i get from the library every once in a while, called 'a pattern language' by christopher alexander. one of my favorite quotes from that book goes like this:

"At the core... is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets and communities. This idea... comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people".

—Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language, front bookflap

he also goes on to say inside that 'the patterns are regarded by the authors not as infallible, but as hypotheses.' meaning to me ... read em, but do what you want with them as ideas ... we did ... great book, but expensive last time i looked ... and mirrors ... you can't say enough about them .... this one was born of a need to squeeze a full length mirror in somewhere handy. it's tapered, and angled, slightly, so the out of verticalness of it lends interest but yet doesn't distort the reflection.... we have another of these in a small half bath by the front door ... they infallibly make the room seem bigger ..
'amaryllis with prayer flags' ... and for a really nice interior design effect, you can't beat a good houseplant .... this one kit picked up cheap at the local shaw's grocery and this is its second four flower effort ... $5., well spent for about 3 weeks of flowering so far ...

a few of our favorite things

for many reasons, things come and go from the 'popular posts' list over there to the right.  there are some posts though that i call on over and over when talking with potential clients.  and some of these posts, for whatever reason, are popular with me, but have never made the list.  'the duck bed' shown above and below was a collaboration between one of our favorite clients, our younger son will on the turning, carving and finishing and the older son sam on the metal 'carving' and patinas. 

i got to do the cad drawing and lead the design parade.  there are four posts total in the construction description, but you can access all of them from the link above.  carving spirals, cnc work on the inlays, waterjetting the actual metal parts and patinas are all covered there.

this one's got it all .. three posts total, from adapting an existing design below to a new space, cross country contractor and architect communication, custom steel railings, secret compartments, shipping details to palo alto, on and on .. lots of headscratching ... much fun.

and this 1989 project is the original staircase we built for local clients that the palo alto folks found on my website.  we recently added the railing so there is a blog post about it at this link.  a version of this project was posted on facabook by a radio station in mississippi and it has been shared i see 567,855 times .. go figure

a greene and greene style sideboard .. drawings, construction details, fabricating the hinges and the pulls, the works ... many more photos here.

ahhh, the trout desk, dovetailing 28" wide walnut planks, 'houndstooth' dovetails, and more, and below,

the 'bridges bench'  both are part of our bethlehem steel series combining the efforts of sam, will and i to create collaborative pieces in wood and steel ... 

more pieces in this series at this link

and another example of the bench above for a local museum garden

another member of the bethlehem steel series by dan, sam and will

lots more stuff here along with thoughts on interior design and custom furniture

and then we've got our on line slide shows at this link  six years of work with albums on claro walnut tables, furniture from reclaimed lumber, stuff you can do with a cnc router, some of my digitized sketchbooks with sketch and finished piece ... thousands of photos there ..

the 11 foot copper top table

loads of fun .. new processes

pool tables ... always a pleasure .. i think we are working on number 17 right now

five easy pieces  .. in addition to this fun zebra wood dining table, there are four others in wenge, hickory and steel.  one of my first ever substantial blog posts.

more photos here

as always, you can consult the 'categories' section for specific interests and the 'popular posts' section for other things that m ight catch your eye ... happy reading.  comment with your questions and i'll try to get back to you shortly ..
 also, there are slide shows available at this link that contain literally thousands of photos of our work ..
enjoy!!

Architects + Artisans

Dorset Custom Furniture got a nice mention and post about our work on the blog Architects + Artisans ... 'Thoughtful Design For a sustainable World' ...
"Architects + Artisans is a sophisticated, well-informed provider of content, images, and knowledge concerning excellent architecture, artisanship and sustainability for the 21^st century. It is not just about designers – but about the people and products that make a well-designed place ring true. It is written and edited by J. Michael Welton, whose work on architecture, design and travel has appeared in The New York Times, Interior Design, Dwell, Green Source and Travel + Leisure. "

Michael titled his post about us 'Clients as Friends, Friends as Clients'. Since we're currently working on a wall of cabinets and a fireplace surround for our friends who own Mother Myrick's Confectionery, his post is very appropriately titled. Our first project with Ron and Jacki was in 1983 when they opened their candy store in Manchester and we have been friends ever since. I appreciate his publishing our work and encourage you to check out his blog.

The Mother Myrick's Confectionery store in Manchester, Vermont, 1983

Our current project for them, a wall of bookshelves, a place for a tv and a fireplace surround ... It will be installed this week sometime ...

a spessart oak bookcase

'long post ahead' warning applies to this one ....
well, ok, we finished one up today. it's been in the works for a while and involved a lot of precise hand and machine work, and considerable back and forth with our client on the design details ... we left the hard choices up to him and he was, in hindsight, on the money 100%.
it's made from a wood we have not used before, fumed spessart quartersawn oak from talarico hardwoods (great wood story at that first link) in mohnton, pennsylvania ... my client selected the wood type for this bookcase from the website and i was only too happy to try it out ... it was beautifully sawn and dried, and a pleasure to work with ... we used a natural varnish finish and the brown black color and figure is extremely beautiful, yet at the same time, not easy to capture in a photograph ...
you can sort of see the mix of tones and figure if you click on this photo above and enlarge it... the 'saturns' are an element i had used on an earlier piece for this client and one he always liked .. one of the design quandries that was debated up to the final end was 'where do they go, and how many of them are there?' we eventually figured it out by photographing a sample inlay, cutting out a bunch of the actual size pictures and double stickying them where we thought they might look good. the thought of 24 of them seemed like overdoing it but when we looked at the photo of the piece with the little pictures taped on, it all made sense. what i feel it did for the design was to #1., accentuate the through tenon joinery details and #2., draw the viewer's eye from the top pediment and abalone of the front of the case around to the side, up and down, and back to the front .... there is a lot to hold your interest on this piece ...
we started with a 'phases of the moon' theme ...
the joinery was precise and fussy, yet masterfully accomplished by trevor on the cnc. housed shelf ends and through, very nicely clearanced tenons that had no play, yet hammered together relatively easily and with just enough room for glue.
close up .... we debated squaring up the mortises and tenons, but realized the handwork involved would probably actually take away from the precision of the fits and we decided to go with the 1/8th" radiused corners, right off the router. .. glad we did; we would still be chiseling and fitting...
the bordered star vs. the solid star ... the 10 piece border and green abalone center star won out. we actually did the front inlays on quarter inch thick strips so that the inside, outside, and face edge of the verticals all show quartered figure ... the wood is so straight grained, the joint there became virtually invisible.
trevor and will had a nice time laying in the green abalone lines from our new favorite supplier, andy depaule, at luthier supply. imho, the best source for abalone and other shell, both raw material and precut patterns ...
trevor also worked his magic on the 9 piece multi level main pediment inlay above and below.
the moons are cut from the back side of gold abalone blanks ... not gold, but not really white either... moon color, actually ...
this photo shows the pasted on pictures described above ...
as we were finishing off the pediment, it occurred to us that we had an excellent place for a 'secret compartment' ... it's a dead simple mechanism. the ends of the supporting side cleats are beveled back for the last two inches so that when you push down near the outside of the case, the center pops up and you just lift off the top. as they say, 'i could tell you where the piece is going, but then i'd have to kill you' ... pretty spacious in there ... and you can see the cleat bevel in the photo below ...
we debated leaving the tenons a bit proud, but in the end, flushed them off; another completely correct client decision in hindsight ...
this is the 'tahdah' photo before the finishing started. we completely disassembled the case, completely finished all the shelves and interior of the case and backboards before glue up; to the outside of the verticals and the last 1/4" of the tenons with the inlays already on them, we applied one coat of finish so the inevitable glue squeeze out could be cleaned off, glued up the case, resanded the tenons perfectly flush, and final finished the outside of the case. good to go ... a challenging, design, nicely executed by the boys in the shop ...