the worms crawl in the worms crawl out

wormy recycled chestnut ... i love it ... were currently working on three or four projects where we will be using it ... a snatch of a childhood song came to mind today as we were cutting a log that will be used for a mantle in one of those upcoming projects .... when we cut it to length, we happened to hit on an extra wormy cross section. for some reason, you can see the tracks where the worms went in and then round and round in the log ... ive never noticed it before, and i thought it was cool enough to share ... kind of made me think of a brice marden coloring ... click the photos to enlarge them ..
the mantle log .. 7 x 9 x 72"
brice marden
the hearse song

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i thought this was pretty good ... 

click the photo to enlarge it ... i still flunked it though, just like 48 years ago ...

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Goodbye Old Friend

My college graduation gift was the Porter-Cable 1-1/2 HP router kit. It came with a single motor, a D-handle base, a plunge base & a small router table. It was my first power tool. While it still serves me well, Ive moved on to bigger routers with soft starts and dust collection. Router technology improved, and so did my collection.

The DeWalt 12" Dual-Bevel Sliding
Compound Miter Saw.

A few months later the first power tool I bought myself was a DeWalt 12" Dual-Bevel Sliding Compound Miter saw. I bought it at Home Depot when my wife and I went into closing on our first house (how, after all, can anyone work on their house with a 12" dual-bevel sliding compound miter saw?). Once in the house, I built a bench for the saw. That was in early 2001. The bench was 10 long and 37" deep to accommodate the travel of the saws rails. It served as a miter saw bench, a work bench and an assembly table.

The DeWalt takes up 37" from the
front of the handle when turned in
to the back of the rails.

Two years ago when we moved and my shop was squeezed into a 911" x 22 single car garage, the 37" deep bench became un-workable. There was just no choice I could give up all that space along a wall. Shortly after moving I sold the bench and the 3 custom made rolling carts that fit underneath it to one of my co-workers. The saw stayed with me. It spent most time folded up in the corner. I had to unfolded it and set it on a folding table in the drivechoice for work.
Ive known that the depth of the big old DeWalt was too much for the new shop, but when compared to the newer saws on the market today with less rear projection, I didnt see the same types of improvements as occurred in routers. I still think my 10 year old DeWalt is nicer than most saws on the market.

Packed & Ready to go.

My hesitation in replacing the DeWalt ended this week when we needed a saw at work to crosscut 12" wide strips of plywood for the 100 or so custom curbs were building for the skylights on a condo re-roof project were doing. I immediately offered up my 12" DeWalt, Forest Chopmaster and all. Work bought it with no haggling and the DeWalt quickly set to work making skylight curbs.
Now I approach a weekend of home improvement (PVC fascia & window trim installation) with no miter saw. Im not sure how Ill do it. Using a track saw to cross cut 16 PVC 1x6s to length seems the most accurate choice left to me and also like so much more work than with a miter saw. To remedy the situation Ill be scoping out miter saws at Woodworking in America next week (thankfully theyve added power tools this year). I know Festool will be there with a Kapex and Im hoping the new Bosch Gliding Miter Saw will make an appearance. Ill cross reference them both against the new Makitas and hopefully one will come out a winner. Then my shop wont feel so empty.

My old saw in her new home.

What power tool do you feel lost without?

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A Classic Parsons Table

Google Parsons Table and you get dozens, no thousands of images of flat toppped, four legged tables. And in Wikipedia we find ... "While the form is generally credited to Parsons The New School for Design in New York City, according to an article in The New York Times that referred to archives at the Parsons School, the table developed out of a course taught at the schools Paris branch by the French designer Jean-Michel Frank in the 1930s.

As the article states, "Frank challenged students to design a table so basic that it would retain its integrity whether sheathed in gold leaf, mica, parchment, split straw or painted burlap, or even left robustly unvarnished. What grew out of Franks sketches and the students participation was initially called the T-square table ... " The first example, as recalled by Parsons instructor Stanley Barrows, was constructed by the schools janitor and displayed at a student show.

Well, simple to design for sure. Kind of like a little kids drawing ... Think about making one that will have a smooth glossy fancy finish and the problems multiply. No Seams ! was the instruction from the designer we are working with. No Seasonal Movement ! is what I heard when she said that. We chose 1" veneer core maple plywood for stability and had at it ... Click the photos to enlarge them ,,, First we made the hollow legs, mitered them to a point and cut off the unmitered corner with the chop saw...

A little glue and some spacer blocks at the bottom and we had our two short ends below
We used dominos in the joints of the short ends but they caused more trouble than they were worth when it came to clamping up the long sides so we just made two pieces of mdf below, clamped the short ends to them and fitted the long rails while they were clamped up ... Theory is theory, reality is reality ...
This was definitely the choice to go ...
It all worked out fine ... a little sanding tomorrow and out the door to New York for the special finish ... I hope to see a photo when theyre done ... Looks easier than it was ...
Ready to roll 11/18/2010 .... 2.75" square legs and aprons, 15 x 66 x 36 high ... dimensions by Elizabeth Bauer Interiors ...

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home stretch on the new metal shop

 when last we visited this project back in september, the carpenters had just finished getting the slate on the roof ... after that it was on to the siding and window trim outside, and the insulation, second floor radiant heat,and sheetrock inside.  click the photos to enlarge them ..

it was kind of a thrill when the lights went on and siding was mostly finished ...

we still had to have the concrete professionals back to pour the slab for the 

steel/blower/compressor shed .. 

 and we had to build the rather elaborate 20 long rack to store all the small in size, but 20 to 24 long raw materials ... fortunately, the carpenters were called achoice on another job for a day, which gave us time to figure out the rack before the roof went on .. mucho easier that choice ..

the shed is fitted here with a bronze color standing seam roof by donnie dorrs metal shop ..

 and inside, we did some coloring, and reconfigured the chop saw tables into a mockup work table so we could figure out where to hang up the welding fume extractor.  we ran the pipes to the blower thursday ..

 boilers these days are amazing ... this little guy puts out 80,000 btus, enough to heat both floors, (+/- 1500 square feet in a vemont winter), and provide domestic hot water for the sink and bathroom.  exhaust out in pvc pipe.  no chimney ...

 ahhh, the doors .. nobody made a cheap standard unit three doors wide, so we had to cobble these together with parts from a company whose name escapes me now .. we made up some quicky transoms from 8/4 pine and ordered up some custom thermopane to fill them.

 there were a couple reasons for that configuration .. #1, you can open the doors totally in the summer like below, and should we move on at some point, the openings are framed to accept regular 9 x 7 commercial overhead doors .. presto, a heated, two car garage with a mother in law apartment above  ... the plumbing and radiant for the second floor was roughed in before the sheetrock went up ..

 

 a few notes below on the quicky transoms ...

 9 3" x 16" plus the frames

 essentially, the frames are butt jointed, timberlock construction, with applied moldings to accept the glass .. framed in the shop and screwed in over the door units .. cheap, easy, and fast ... you dont get that combo often enough ...

all for now ... sam is moving in this week

the steels there waiting for him

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the spaces we make

we make furniture, one piece at a time, its 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 okeefe colorings 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.  theres 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 alchoices 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 rams head detail in the carpet design ..

 

loyal readers have seen this one before, but its 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 owners 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 bookflapanother good one im 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

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