a custom 'studio style' dining room

update 10/31 ... we're on the home stretch on this project now. we'll be delivering the sideboard and table today and the 8 chairs later in the week. coincidentally, we have another dining room coming up next. an oval table (52 x 86), 8 chairs and a corner cupboard ... click the photos to enlarge them ...

the 8 chairs before the arms and the finishing ..

here we have our 'arm adding process'. essentially, we use the mdf too keep the arm blanks parallel to the seat rails until we can do the joinery and the final shaping

the completed armchairs ...

10/16 ... on our website you can see a type of furniture we refer to as our 'studio style', which could also be thought of as a 'signature' or 'default' style ... the kind of stuff we have made for 25 years for many clients and for our own home. it design nidea originated with a client who spent some time in germany and commissioned us to build a custom desk for her like the furniture she saw when she lived there. i later came to understand that what she was describing to me was actually furniture in the biedermeier style. that was in 1986, before one of the definitive books on the style was published about 1992 and, believe it or not, before the internet and google even. so we kind of made it up on our own. these pieces are direct descendants of that german and austrian idea from the mid 1800's. must have been in my german blood. click the photos to enlarge them.

the construction process for these designs requires first building the piece and then completely disassembling it for the painting and varnishing. the pieces above are for the sideboard that is part of this commission. it is identical to one in my own home except that the center detail will be part of an oval instead of the angled geometric one in the photo below.

loyal readers have probably seen this one before ...

here's how it goes ... in the early stages, all the details are left flat so they can be registered with each other and then the shadows and bevels are cut when the individual pieces are disassembled for painting and finishing ...

at this point, nothing is glued, though the web frames are screwed to the insides of the face pieces, and the piece is completely rigid.

we leave the lower rail element uncut at this time too ... and then the drawer faces and the central element are fitted tightly in the holes. the final fitting happens after the case is finished and glued up ...

dovetail time ...

pulls and more finish tomorrow ...

the palette for this project is natural cherry and curly hard maple, with ebony and black milk paint details

here will is reassembling the table base that he made a few weeks ago.

the top and leaves of the table have a curly maple and ebony inlay that we routed out and filled back in. ... here lorne has finished installing the ebony borders before fitting up the 1/8th" central curly maple veneers.

once the bottom of the top is finished, the base is assembled and installed, the table is flipped, and the top is final scraped, sanded, and finished on its base ... runners again from our friends at moin hardware.