we installed this barnboard vanity last week. challenging project in that you have to go with the wood as it is. if you joint and plane it flat, there goes the patina. and what a patina it was. some light hand sanding, and a little very diluted aniline dye on the fresh surfaces made it look like a pretty thing. no finish, as its been outside for a hundred years just fine ..click the photos to enlarge them.
in the second photo down, i have moved the sink to be centered on the space from the corner to the window trim. we had originally thought to center it on the door, but no longer think thats the best place for it.
i had just enough stock
we had originally planned to include some molded details around the panels per the designers request, but they would have exposed more fresh wood and most likely been a distraction from the patina itself.
there was another complication as the whole thing had to be installed in pieces since it went wall to wall in a small room ... it broke down into base, left half, right half and then the face frame and doors last.
fun project!
After a short break for some odds and ends .. fireplace screens, a couple of repairs, a very short one step railng, and some work on a couple more cockatoo chairs, Sam has headed into another big railing project with his builder friend Scott Thompson. This design is one loosely based on a previous project for a contemporary house Scott built in 2008.
These are the first two completed sections and Sam and Jim oiled them up before they left today. I havent been to the house or seen the full drawing, but these two 7 sections will be installed next week and measurements will then be taken for the other 7 section that will connect them and complete the open balcony area. Then I understand there are at least two angled railings that go down the stairs ... I cant wait to see the finished house ....
Heres an end view showing the half posts that will bolt to the inset beams at the ends of the open section. The railings jut out from the posts on short angles so they can attach to the vertical edges of the beam which will provide a secure and rigid connection. Apparently there are some other angled elements on the floor below that suggested this interesting and artistic concept. Ill have to see it when its all finished.
As usual, Sam made the drawings and then Trevor cut a spacing jig on the cnc that enables Sam to quickly and accurately weld up the pieces.....
The angled jigs were a little trickier, but a lot smaller and worked slick ...
so i finished this book a couple of weeks ago. i read a review of it somewhere, i dont remember exactly where, but i thought i would like it. im interested in how the mind works, as mine often seems such a mystery to me. aha moments and all. ive read other books on thinking and drawing and memory and i almost alchoices seem to come achoice with something, at least temporarily. usually temporarily. but i have acquired a personal design library. a lot of the good stuff i like is in there and i think ill add this one to it. i asked the librarian to buy it, which she was kind enough to do, but she also asked me to write a review of it, which this kind of will be. im sure its more than shes looking for, but the book was more than i was looking for too ... anychoice, you can see from my postits (theres a section on inventing them in here) that i thought some of it was important. i go to the library on saturdays and im late with it. i spent a half hour reviewing my postits, and now, here i am writing. im trying to hit the highlights. click the images to enlarge them ...
hold it up over your head when you need it ...
early on he talks about dylan and how he wrote like a rolling stone. well, actually in an interview with ed bradley that i was lucky enough to see when it ran, (you can see it here), dylan says he didnt actually write it. it was a bit of penetrating magic, or as mr. lehrer says, it was like a ghost writing that song.
in the 60 ,minutes interview, bradley asks bob about that and can he still write like that? dylan famously responds something like you cant do something forever; i did it once, and i can do other stuff now, but i cant do that. ... insight, inspiration, the creative process; alchoices a mystery to me, even after this book.
next we spend some time with milton glaser, a titan in the world of graphic design, who discusses drawing and thinking and the fact that art is work. amen. he also hits on the subject of drawing as thinking, a concept dear to my heart .. i wrote about that myself in 2009.
but then next, we have to think about stuff to get creative ... kind of absorb it all, let it rattle around in the brain and let the subconscious (right side of the brain) blend it all together for you and spit it out, someitmes fully formed, or not. thats where the work comes in.
and then, we talk with more musicians like yo yo ma, the cellist and brief discussion of emotion, and performance, grounded in acquired skills and then the risk of creativity, the casting aside of perfection, which brings to mind a couple of our favorite phrases perfectly executed as in dead. the perfect is the enemy of the good ,,, stuff like that. from there mr lehrer goes on to pixar and toy story, 3m and postits, a visit with david byrne and a discussion about letting other stuff in as an inspiration. this guy is rangy ... i loved it . 
and towards the end, he reinforces one of my main touchstones, the sharing of ideas. in our shop, we have the phrase all of us are smarter than one of us, and here lehrer reinforces that truth ... i could go on and on, and i have, but i think personally, for me, this is an important book. other people will disagree, and i have read at least one fairly critical review. fortunately, a book is different for everyone; maybe it will work for you, maybe its not your cup of tea. try and get it from your library first ...
and
