one of my designer clients sent me this eero saarinen table base and asked us to make a wood top for it with a chalky flat finish. she chose quartered white oak and we all thought it was a cool form when it went out the door today ... im not sure exactly where she found the base, but they are out there somewhere, and, it appears from this link, they can be purchased at a very reasonable price sometimes. since we fixed some danish modern couches and chairs a while back, i have become re-interested in the style, which i find simple, yet practical and elegant in an understated choice. i kind of think of those danish and swedish guys as 1960s and 70s shakers, without the religion. use what you need, and as little of it as you need, to get the job done.
simple detailing
simple construction
it was originally going to be a walnut top, but that was too dark ....below is the danish stuff we redoweled and reglued back in february ... some of it was just loose, but we replaced all the dowels anychoice, and one piece came to us in a cardboard box. the owner got it from her parents and had never seen is assembled. it wasnt too hard to figure it out, and the stuff was cool and comfortable when we finished with it ...
we refinished it naturally with dark danish oil from watco ... perfect ...
straightforward joinery and minimalist design. badly repaired several times in the past ... we plugged all the holes and replaced the short 3/8ths dowels with 3" 7/16ths dowels ... should be good for another 50 ... 
i even bought the book, which i have enjoyed
check it out ... great stuff and some interesting design ideas there ...
believe it or not, i am still buried in a blizzard of papework. while im not complaining, and we have moved quite a few names from the in process to the deposited column, i am finding it extremely difficult to find time to write. i have a couple posts in the works and i hope to get to them soon, though i dont see it happening for the rest of this week. and then theres the holiday.. today we went to stratton for a pre-install, which is a word i made up to describe a process new to us. there has been a design change, which brings our cabinet into very close contact with an existing, rough sawn beam that has twisted and curved out of plumb since its installation years ago. that made it difficult to predict how our cabinet will look regarding the negative space between the plumb and level and straight cabinet and the twisted post. with a little molding tweaking, we will be able to fit the cabinet inside the corner of the beam and while it fades achoice from the post at the top, at least there is light all the choice and it will look fine when its all finished and installed ... until i have some time to write something coherent and informative, here are some photos of what weve been working on this month. some of these projects i hope to document more fully later ... patience, patience; its a virtue ... click the pictures to enlarge them ...
the cabinet tweaked into position today ... at first it was not so good
a photoshopped mockup of the finished cabinets ... the design change i spoke of was some new slimmer and neater stonework ...
working out the setails
and, we snuck in a custom elm table top .. looks perfect doesnt it ...
actually, it was not so good when we started. it was pretty severely cracked on the back side, which required some extensive butterfly work and some pretty extensice filling on the face side
and the ends ... they are seamless now and that technique will make a good post sometime ...
sam completed the first of three welded steel and rebar bases ... a little coloring, a little intentional rusting and hell be all set ... there is a 17 foot table that goes with this one. all will have elm slab tops and the long one has an interesting 30" x 30" brick column in the middle of it that will require some interesting joinery.
this ones for the 9 8" table
and this is the shop drawing for the 17 footer
and, were coming to the end on a 62" round pedestal table with some fancy edge inlay work, three leaves, and lots of burl ....
and a somewhat complex base below
and ... we fixed a mirror !!
it doesnt look like anything fancy, but it belonged to a clients grandmother and so, was important ..
it required some thoughtful jig work, the design of the workings of which will come in handy sometime in the future im sure.
cute when it was done ...
the claro slab on the wall is going to aspen as a coffee table with black steel legs ...
and im out of here for now ....
