a custom built in bench

waaaay behind in my blogging ... along with a bunch of stuff in the shop, i have also gotten caught up in a good paddle tennis season, playing more than ever before ... the weather has been perfect; warm for vermont and my body has been holding up surprisingly well ... it's a great, fast, outdoor winter sport. good to get outside and run around ...

we delivered this built in bench about a week and half ago, and though it looks pretty simple now that it's done, there were a lot of things to think about and consider as we put it together ...
we had an inspiration photo and overall dimensions, but no angles which, since you can't tell much by sitting on a drawing, encourage us to make a full size mdf mockup, complete with foam and batting.it took an hour or two, but was well worth it and allowed us to debate the incline of both the seat and the back cushions ...
from there it was on to the cad drawings, which gave us dimensions and an actual plan to work from. the little recessed base was interesting and gave the piece a little more of a 'furniture' look but added a few complications to the construction process start up ... lots of little offsets and surface plane differences to create shadows ...

plywood carcase designbut once the structure was defined by the plywood carcase, it was a little more straightforward as we added the layers.moving along here, about to add the ends and top rail ...
a little oil primer and paint ..

a test fit on the cushions by local upholsterer, isaiah mccauliffe, and we were out the door. in the top picture above, the carpenters will cut the baseboard and fit the bench top to the wall when the clients' table arrives, for the complete built in look .. nice house ...

take an object; do something to it; do something else to it ... part 1

in a recent post, i wrote about refinishing a table i built 21 years ago in a style i am still working in today, and in fact, started working on in 1986. i'll give jasper johns some credit for that as i often use his quote in the title above when talking about a 'design language'. my introduction to 'my style' was by complete accident in 1986. a client/friend who had been living in germany for a few years described this desk she wanted me to build for her based on some furniture she had been living with during those years abroad. i kind got what she was describing and made her desk, as she described it to me. click the photos to enlarge them ...
there it is, in the upper right hand corner, mahogany and black paint with brass hardware. my wife and i both liked the style and since our house at the time was more or less devoid of nice furniture, i decided i would participate in a 'show' at a local gallery and whatever didn't sell (hah !), we would bring home for the dining room. well, we know how that goes, and i have had this lovely furniture in my own home for 25 years now. this was before the internet and before my book collection had grown to include anything regarding the biedermeier style. the desk above we liked, but was too formal for us so we used native natural cherry with the black paint instead of the stained mahogany. presto ... studio style ....that's our table and chairs in the upper left corner above and our sideboard in the top left corner of the top photo. so, what am i trying to say here?. this is a post i have been trying to write for a while about, really, how did i get here? we actually did two custom 'studio style' dining rooms last year, this one, and this one so on we go with it ...
so, here we are ... take an object, or a design, or a combination of woods or colors and try to imagine how they could be different, or similar but different; change a little here; change a little there; change a lot, but keep some stuff; keep at it; keep reading and looking; keep an open mind and keep changing ... when you look back 30 some years later you'll indeed wonder 'how did i get here?' , but you'll be pleased that your designs hang together from the same thread or threads that run through all of it ...

you can add some inlays ... here we have a studio style half round with abalone inlays, which led to some bed headboards with abalone inlays, and we know where that went, which was on to one of our most involved and challenging pieces. more on the 'wood and metal style' in a future post.
wood and steel tables ... the 'bethlehem steel series'.

for more examples of the studio style try this link

21 years later

it's not often that you get to see a table you made 21 years ago that lives 300 miles away. just after christmas though, one of my long time clients emailed to say that their table had sustained some damage over the holidays and needed some help. coincidentally, my shipper was in the area and was able to pick it up and return it to me for refinishing. i regret not taking a photo when it arrived, but i do have one below from early in the refinishing process. the scratch was not small, but neither was it deep, so it sanded right out. this table is one of my early 'studio style' pieces and loyal readers will recognize the style from a recent post on a dining room we completed early last fall. it's a comfort to me that we are still making pieces in a style i originally started working on way back in 1986. nice to know that an idea you came up with has some legs and staying power. click the photos to enlarge them ...
this is a close up of the red abalone inlay squares in the central element of the table design. the black is milk paint from the old fashioned milk paint company and looks as good as it did (minus the dog chews) 21 years ago. it polished up like new.
i had actually forgotten about the square detail, and now that i'm reminded, will maybe do a new piece or two using the square rather than our regular angled look.

regular angled look above from the dining room post last fall ...
early in the refinishing process. the oil finish we used in the early 90's has since been replaced by more durable brush on poly finishes and this client was good about refreshing his finish a couple times a year. theat did create quite an 'oil buildup' that, while it protected the table, proved difficult to remove. the table was also in a sunny south facing room, which created a kind of 'sunburned' bleached surface which was kind of whitish until we got through it.
this picture shows my first wiping with mineral spirits ... more work to do ...
and here it is after the first coat of finish ... i'll be interested to hear what the clients have to say about it after it is returned to pennsylvania on thursday ... it's a cool thing to visit with an old friend ...

a round expanding walnut dining table

all done ... 1/23/12 .. off to new york city in the morning ... great project with local designer amy thebault ... a little hard to photograph, but you get the idea ... nice walnut; crotch figure inlay in the center of the top, continuing on to the leaves ... pretty wild, and we love it ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
with the 2-22" leaves ... 64 x 108 when fully extended ...
with the leaves in ..
center inlay ... photos below are 'in process' ... all for now ...

i see i have been a little lazy here with my writing at the start of the new year ... all those holidays i guess and getting organized again now that they are over ... had some people out sick ... on and on, you know ... anyway, we did start an interesting table this week. it's american black walnut; it's round; 64" in diameter, with two 22" leaves and some fancy crotch walnut inlay in the center. it looks like it's going to be a nice one. click the photos to enlarge them ...
the general idea came from one of my designer clients, amy thebault, of thebault design, inc. down the road a piece in manchester depot. we added or touches and changed a few things and now it's starting to take shape. we started, as usual, with some irion lumber walnut. nice big wide boards makes our life easy. after we glued up the halves, trevor cut them to shape and routed for the inlays. i have some video footage somewhere of that and i'll try to get it up here soon.
he also cut the slightly darker peruvian walnut borders and set them in before fitting up the shop made veneer inlays.
again with the nails for the first step. if you've been reading for a while, you've seen all this before ...
below though is the after cuts from trevors cutting of the main blanks that we then resawed into the .1" thick veneers.
he thought he had it all planned out so that all the triangles would be the same or half of that same triangle but ...
he didn't ... design aliens invaded his programming and caused a malfunction. luckily he discovered it before he cut all of the leaf inlays and there was no harm done, except to his pride.
we glued them all into the table pieces in the veneer bag, and then, for a special treat we took them a mile down the road to our neighbor steve holman's shop and ran them through his brandy newly refurbished sandingmaster 37" wide, wide belt sander ... a wonderful experience ...
that saved some planing and scraping time ... it's nice to have a new machine on the block.
here it is, on the base with the runners, but without the aprons, which are finished but for some reason, didn't make the photo ..
interesting design, but not a lot of structure for when the leaves are in so we're planning to add either some 'aprons' which will run from 'leg' to 'leg' and stiffen the structure somewhat, or add some drop down legs for when the table is fully expended.
we'll know more what we have to do once the base is final sanded and glued up and everything is firmly attached. 108" is a big table on a +/- 40" x 40" base ... stay tuned ... more later this week ...

the year in pictures ... 2011

at my age, 64.5 years, i think that most people would agree, time accelerates (is it already the 15th of january?), memory becomes less able, and when we think back, we sometimes wonder, 'where did last year go'? so, for the last 3 years i have collected relevant (to me) photos in folders on my computer appropriately called '2011', or '2010' or 'recent work 2009'. this morning i uploaded the 2011 folder to my picasa account and it is now online and i can access my photos from anywhere with an internet connection. looking through it, i might have included too many pictures but it makes me realize that the year was actually full of life, full of work, and full of important moments. if you are a new reader, there are dates attached to some of the groups of photos showing the relevant blog post, which, if you are interested, you can access through the archives of my blog.

if you are interested in how to create online slide shows for your ownself and don't have an easily accessible young person, i wrote a blog post back in december of 2010 with instructions for downloading picasa and uploading your pictures ...

it's a beautiful sunny winter day and i am outta here ... on to 2012 ...

stuff in the works

well, 2012 is certainly off to an interesting start ... we finished a stool this week for a client/friend who recently finished this needlepoint project after working on it off an on for a really long time (she claims 15 years, off and on). so, she is really excited to cross it off her 'to do' list after all this time and will be picking it up next week. click the photos to enlarge them ...
next up, next week we'll be transforming this 8 foot claro slab into a dining table that will then be shipped to england .. imagine that .. it's not my first international shipment, but they don't come along everyday .. we'll crate it up, get it to an agent in boston, and off it will go, i presume, by boat. the house will be finished in april so it should get there in plenty of time.
the leg structure is a new design and we're anxious to see it all come together. it's 1.5" thick steel and it will be blackened like others we have built in the past ... there's a model of the completed table around somewhere ..
and after that one, we have a show coming up in february at the southern vermont art center (why put things off til the last minute?) and we're starting to work on our pieces for that effort. i haven't done a show for a while and it's always a good exercise. the slab above is going to be probably a dining table or maybe a coffee table. i'm working on the room layout below. the flat art on the wall will be by marta johansen, and old friend, and we're trying to make things that will complement and not interfere with her work. it's not a huge room, but it looks like we'll have room for a couple of mirrors in the corners, a bureau, a bench and low console, and the claro slab above in one form or another... we'll have to see how we do ...
the bureau is nearly complete ... all the cherry for it came from the same log and it has nice figure.
four drawers and steel legs, like half the bureau we made as part of our bethlehem steel series below.
and, i'm working on a tapered corner mirror belwo that will mount on a wall in the end, but for the show it will have to have a freestanding base.
again, some nicely figured irion cherry...
it will be kind of like this one, only with natural cherry and some steel details.
my other mirror piece, which i have so far only mocked up, will have a fish eye type convex (security) mirror which will (hopefully) reflect all the drawings and furniture in the room in one peek. the base and rod support will need a little more thought and a little more heft, maybe employing some polished firewood ...
i turned and painted this on the lathe from mdf as a prototype. and will added a little gold leaf yesterday morning to set off the mirror from the dark background .. gold leafed mdf ... ha ha ha ! told you you can do a lot with mdf ...
and will's side business, seeders instruments, has banjo #8 in the works .. picolo style; cherry and walnut ...
he also got a repair/restore job from one of his clients. it's about a hundred years old and needs 'some work' ... seeders instruments to the rescue ... more on this stuff as it progresses ...
and sam's stretching a bit to create this half oval balcony. bending flat stock in a horizontal plane requires a great deal of patience, adjusting and care.
he made the oval frame where you stand and the bottom and top of the ailing using the same jig.
bending rectangular flat stock in a horizontal plane requires a series of saw cuts and a bunch of grinding. plus the stock has a mind of its own as it is welded and if you're not careful your piece gets longer as you go ... fun ...
then there's the challenge of keeping things square as you fit and weld and the fine challenge of bending thick stock to fit around thinner stock ... home stretch now ... i saw it had primer on it yesterday ...
also, we've got a couple built in bench projects in the works. one is straight and straightforward, and was primed yesterday, while the curved one is more complex and still in the estimating/approval, finish details stage.
cardboard and 1/4" mdf; micro pins and hot glue ...
a little resawn foam for cushions ...
for the straight bench, the designer added the back after he completed the drawings so it was left to us to decide on the angle ... our mockup was a little too vertical ( in the end we ended up with about a 1/2" seat pitch, front to back, and a 15 degree slope off of that. it seemed to look good with the mahogany side tables trevor was working on the tables below have a 'hidden drawer'
and we're working on a new postcard/handout design .. getting close to ordering them. i'm about out of my old '30 year anniversary' ones from two years ago.
i'll be teaching a short workshop course on digital design and fabrication at green mountain college in poultney this spring. lucas brown, the head of the furniture program there has designed a 'one sheet' desk and stool. after a couple of prototypes and subtle programming adjustments, trevor is nearly finished with his 'classroom' run of 22 tables ( +/- 288 total pieces) .. they are pretty cool, slip together, and require no fasteners to assemble. the concept is similar to others we've done for vew-do balance boards and wagatha's dog biscuits.
and lastly, i passed this slab of claro walnut on the stairs on the way out the door yesterday ... i have to make a quick poplar mockup, cut it down a little, add some butterflies, finish the wood and steel, and send it off to greenwich village ...
whew, how do i keep track of all this? you might legitimately ask ... well, i don't sometimes. it's a constant juggle and shuffle and as time goes by, i rely more and more on my guys to figure it out, help each other, and work as a team to keep ALL of us on track ... i'm lucky to have 'em ...

have a good weekend ... guild of vermont furniture makers meeting at my shop today.