A Painted Library

We're underway on our next project, which involves a number of pieces for a historic house that is being restored in a nearby Veront town. It's a beautiful brick Federal style with many period details still intact ... This week we will be installing the upstairs library cabinets which will be painted in a Farrow and Ball Winbourne White. The baseboard and ceiling molding will be installed onsite .. Click the photos to enlarge them ...

Installed 9/17 ... We had some serious out of level issues in this 1841 house ... 2" total from the near end of the cabinet to the far right corner. The carpenters have been dealing with this throughout the house and will handle the baseboard and crown molding installation now that we're gone ... They have mastered the art of blending the impossible to make it look natural ... An old house can not and should not be 'perfect' ... part of the charm ....

Level across the hole ... didn't check till the end ... we were lucky

The architect's original elevations

My interpretation after consultations and site visits

Underway last week

Door construction

The cabinets as of yesterday, before priming today ... applying the finished ends

When You Know You're Working On The Right Job ...

Some folks just have to do an extra special job no matter what it is they're doing. We just finished installing the library cabinets in the previous post and I knew I was working on a classy jobsite when I visited the porta potty ... Landscaped and everything ... I missed the best shot yesterday before they dug the trench for the electric. I have photoshopped in the original gate post .... Nothing but first class all the way .... And, the finest porta potty yet ... spanking clean with a Purell hand sanitizer dispenser ... Click the picture ...

Simple Things

Nakashima had it right ... Get some nice wood ... Make some stuff to hold it up that doesn't distract from it, put a nice finish on it, ship it out. We finished the table for the 'Porch In My Finish Room' project. It's a slab of wood with two pieces of 16/4 walnut and some angle iron holding it up .... Minimal ... Stunning ... KISS ... Keep It Simple Stupid ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...

The whole table 34 x 92 x 14 high

the top and the 16/4 support

Close up of the butterflie keys on the crack

The chairs it goes with

A Curly Maple Queen Size Bed

Yesterday, Sam and I delivered a queen size bed to a client in Saratoga Springs. She liked a cherry Sheraton style single bed from our website ... We expanded it to a queen and it all worked out fine ..... The curly maple was particularly nice. Lookin' good now that it's all finished ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

Will roughed out the legs using our Vega duplicator which he tuned up to produce absolutely INCREDIBLE results right off the cutter. This minimized the time he had to spend cleaning them up after the duplicating process .

That's a four foot one piece shaving from the curly maple posts he turned

Action !! What he did exactly was grind the cutter to a sharp angled point rather than the small radius that comes standard on the diamond cutters. The difference in the results were incredibly dramatic ... the chips flew ...

Trevor made a sample headboard in mdf to confirm the stretched design ..

Drilling the bed post bottoms for the tenons on the turning tops

The bed assembled with the mocked up headboard

Considering the foot post proportions ... good to go
Better photos of the completed bed later ...

Gotta Get Me Some ....

From this week's New Yorker ... Sept. 14, 2009

Fooling Around

Labor Day .... Start of the Fall ... The seasons chase themselves along. We already have a bit of foliage showing in the red maples down by the pond and the nights are starting to get crispy. It was about 50 this morning. We took a four day weekend to refresh ourselves before we head into a large project Tuesday. Last week while working on the table for the cockatoo chairs, we accidentally ended up with some extra rolled steel pieces that needed a home. Sam and I kicked a few things around and came up with the idea of a concept for a bench. Saturday, Kit happened on a thick pine plank at a tag sale and yesterday I planed it up and put the 'bench' together. It may be a prototype, or it may be the real thing. I'm not sure. We've talked about gold leafing the steel and doing a bubinga plank seat and base, but I'm kinda liking the informality that is happening here now. I may just paint the whole thing and stick it outside for a while and see how I feel about it as time goes on ... I am doing a show in Woodstock Vermont in a couple of weeks and it would be good to have something new for that ... Hmmmm ... Let me know what you think ... Click the pictures to enlarge them.

The table we were working on with the rolled steel parts

The rough idea of a concept mockup

The primed steel parts ... rust never sleeps

The tag sale plank and concept seat pattern

Making it make sense ... getting rid of the flare

Putting it together ... the underside .. 1/2" lags,1/2" bolts

In the garden

The gold leaf and bubinga concept (4/08)

Moving it around a bit

Later ....

Full Size Mockups

I've been working with a client on designs for a bar cabinet for The Walnut Paneled Room for a couple of months now. Nothing serious, no great urgency, typical back and forth ... sketch here, cad drawing there ... arm waving here and there, but now we think we're homing in on it. So, knowing the client was going to be here this weekend and having just had a really good experience with a full size mockup with another client I decided to make a cardboard model of the bar. I had to deliver some other stuff to the house last week anyway. It turned out ot be very helpful for all of us. I think it took about an hour and a half total effort, and, in the end, you could probably mix drink on it to try it out. Drawings are great, but the 'real' thing, real size, is usually better ... Click the pictures to enlarge them.

The cardboard model in the shop. If you double cardboard up with glue between the layers it gets pretty stiff when the glue dries ... I also glued and stapled thin strips of wood the the corners in the front to strengthen the legs ...

Most recent CAD drawing .. I'm still working on the riser backboard stepping design

The table leg and paint/wood combination we're considering. We're thinking about maybe a red for the carved legs and a lighter, more natural color chestnut or recycled oak for the top.

Side view of the model in place

Head on

The last on site sketch

Previous CAD drawing