two cherry side tables

heres a quick little project.  a little trickier than it looked at first, but happy in its new home now.  the challenge was to make a pair of tables for either end of a couch in a 30 degree bump out in a clients home.  we made a quick, screwed together mockup below to check our angles and used that to formalize the final joinery.  click the photos to enlarge them ...

 after placing the mockup at the clients home, we decided to make the tables an inch and a half wider across the front and added an inch and a half along the angled sides.

these two views show the challenges of the joinery more clearly.  the right angle joints were made with traditional mortise and tenons on the apron.  the pattern for the tops, with joinery shown on both sides to make a pair, is in the background of the photo above, with the grain orientation cut plan shown.

the angled aprons were joined with loose tenons cut parallel to the faces of the legs ... the tapering of the legs was the last thing before gluing them up and all legs read an inch and a half at the top tapered 7/8th" at the bottom.  clampng was a trick, and in fact, the angles were just fitted snugly, glued, pushed together and left to set overnight on the table saw in the picture below.

i sent this photo to the client and he questioned whether we actually had a pair of tables, or two the same,  i had to go look in the finish room to confirm that they were, indeed, a pair.  you figure it out.

relaxing in their new home ... all is good ...

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Upcoming Shows Under Control

Well, we got er done ... Three new pieces this week, in time for the show tomorrow. This Skinny Console started out as a shop joke. The top is made from two bookmatched edge scraps from the English Elm oval table that we made earlier in the summer. They were too nice to cut up for kindling and I waved them around for a while until I finally glued them up ... I mocked up a plywood prototype base and the rest, as they say, was history ...
We can see many places where a table similar to this could be just the right accent piece ... use your imagination ...
Ahhhh ... Dancer #1 ... welded steel by Sam ... locust by Dan and Trevor ... Artfully arranged pieces that were also too good to throw achoice. the concept on the board ...
the critical eye ... the base is a rough cut locust slab and the steel is unfinished so this sculpture is good to go, inside or out ..
The finished bench ... I kept trying to add stuff to the base, but, in the end, less is more as Meis, I think said. Hand hewn chestnut from a sleeper log, also good to go inside or out ...
red was the wrong color for this one
nixed the bridge like elements
too fussy for a rough thing ... all for now ... fun stuff in person, all of it ....

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two chestnut cabinets

we finished one up yesterday that weve been working on for a while. it was good to wrap it up since we first started with our design work back in april. there were delays along the choice while the stone was changed on the fireplace, which added to my work and required some additional site visits, but all in all, they look about the choice i imagined them in my photoshop paste up below ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
heres the before shot. the clients purchased this house last winter and remodeling started in earnest in the early spring ... sam made about 65 feet of new steel and wood railings for the stairs and the balcony; we made an expanding pedestal table in chestnut, and this pair of cabinets. nice job ....
heres my photoshopped mockup using a picture of a cabinet we built back in 2002 ...
the cad drawing showing the interiors of the cabinetsone of our first design issues was accommodating a tv that was wider than the space between the retracting doors. we made a couple of mockups using our standard sanus bracket, with different choices of mounting the bracket and decided on the sidewall approach, which worked fine ...
we also had some fitting issues as the client requested that both cabinets be identical in width. after they changed the stone on the fireplace, that increased the width of the space and thus the cabinets, and brought a twisted spruce beam into play that was previously not an issue.
the tops and molding backer boards actually slid into a slot created in the masonry
we also had to revise our installation plan from a grouted board against the existing stone to a slot created by the masons when they reset the facing. that made me define my spaces pretty exactly and while it was fussier to install made for an elegant look of the cabinets integrating into the whole fireplace surround ... looks greatwhile we were checking the twisted post, we also mocked up a paneled end, which is what you see when you come down the stairs.
tight fit; twisted beam; all ok in the end ...
we also had a kickspace heater on the job and had to integrate a design for the grill into our finished cabinets, as well as make the heater accessible from the top for later repairs.
so, a removable floor was installed,
and the drawers in the lower case are in a separate cabinet that slides in and out of the main cabinet.lots of door parts, something like 85 or 90 pieces, plus the panels.we finished and assembled everything in the shop before loading it up for the jobsite.
below you can see the choice we accommodated the 46" tv in the 44" cabinet opening with the retractable doors....
and yesterday, we installed the turnstyle hardware that arrived last week from england.
the finished interior of the left cabinet ... its a wrap ....
with the big windows to the right, this was a hard project to photograph so i have included these two other images. the sunlight sort of emphasizes the orange in the finish that is much more subdued in person. a challenging project, all in all .. below are a couple pictures of the original cabinets that inspired them, and here is a link to my website listing on them ...

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What Im Reading Now

Yowza! ... What am I reading now ??? Hmmm ... Im all over the map these days. Click the pictures to enlarge them ... Upper left corner is David Mathiass excellent new book on Greene & Greene furniture ... Im kind of picking my choice through it, savoring it a couple pages at a time, admiring his detailed photos and written observations on both the Greenes and the talented makers of their designs, the Hall brothers. Without the brothers talents, the Greene brotherss furniture would, in my humble opinion, have looked assuredly different.
To the right there, a classic from my design library that I visit over and over and encourage my guys to consider from time to time ... It was written by David Pye, I believe in the 70s and has been a sort of guide for me over the years. Its all about the mark of the hand and how a design without that mark is different from one with it ... Keeps us all from obsessing too much, and helps to eliminate the danger of a perfectly executed (dead) object. Its many other things too ... design + art, seeing beauty, seeing in general ... its all there ... try it, youll like it ...
ahh Carl Haiisen ... this one had characters from The Ocean Reef Club, a place on Key Largo where I lived for the winter of 1970...classic light, humorous entertainment ... suspend disbelief, laugh ... Classic Carl ... See here too ...
The New Yorker article on the new surge in uranium mines. A psychological mystery about people who actually want to have uranium mines in their towns even though some of their relatives died early and horrible deaths from the last round of it .. go figure...
And then a serious article in Rolling Stone on glacial melting ... absolutely frightening ... ditto with BP and bankruptcy ... These folks are digging pretty deep and doing some excellent writing about it ... Im a returning RS subscriber who lapsed when Hunter Thompson died a few years back ... Now I remember .... They are good.
And, Islands in the Stream, a Hemingchoice classic I missed somehow. Some of the finest writing on deep sea fishing, family, friends, war .... the big picture ... For the first time, I got a serious linear connection between Hemingchoice and another of my favorite storytellers, Cormac McCarthy ... A fine piece of writing that stirred some deep thoughts on the creative process. Phew! Those folks drank a lot though ...
And lastly .. one of my clients sent me this one ... Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford. Crawford is an educated man with several advanced degrees who has gone from working in a think tank (knowledge work), to working with his hands as a motorcycle mechanic and electrician. He compares knowledge work with manual work and makes the point that the manual kind has been somewhat demeaned in todays hierarchy of education goals. He discusses the kind of diagnostic thinking and brain action that come with working and learning with your hands ... Hes preaching to the choir here, and it was a bit of a heavy sled, but I stuck with it. Hes got a point. I find my work as a designer/craftsman/builder/maker/customer relations person totally and completely engaging. I didnt need to read the book to know that, but its nice to have it pointed out to me and my employees by an obviously very smart person, that we are indeed on the road to intellectual fulfillment if not that big pile of dollars in the sky. I cant imagine myself behind a desk full time, or in a situation where, at the end of the week, I couldnt point to some concrete evidence of the effort I had put in for that week ... Its Friday; it was a good week; we worked on a ton of different stuff and I feel really good about all of it.
This is one in a series of post I have written on this subject. For others, heres a link ... and here, another ... Get out of the shop from time to time ... read a little

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first fall open studio

this weekend is the first vermont fall open studio weekend .. saturday and sunday, october 1st and 2nd, 10-5 ... there are a few fewer participants than in the typical spring event, but there are still plenty of things to see. just in our area, bennington to west pawlet, there are 19 artistss studios you can visit as well as some incredibly beautiful vermont foliage. the peak viewing according to the foliage experts usually happens around now or a little later, and take my word for it, it looks pretty good and will be even better in a couple of days. stop by if youre in the neighborhood. look for the yellow signs and then pick up a map with a driving tour at the first studio you stop at ... for more background, heres a link from the spring event with more pictures and info .... the usual suspects will be here: kit will be showing her handmade jewelry, penny viscusi will have her local pastel landscapes, banjos by will, metalwork by sam, and ive got a ton of projects completed and in the works in the woodshop ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
in the shop now ...
an expanding cherry table with a curly maple and ebony inlay
a sideboard to go with it
a steel and black round expanding table
a recent fish in montana belt buckle by sam ...
iand will is making a new neck for a circa 1900 banjo using the original inlay design that he found in a picture on the internet ...
and these projects are waiting to be shipped ... a fumed, quartered, eucalyptus table base
a 17 elm slab table
and a 10 footer too ...

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