Amanda Vanity
Here’s a nice one. My customer needed a wall hung vanity. There are a million of them out there so why take a custom route; color, quality, specific size and so on, plus they had just done a custom tile shower and it was thru seeing photos of that job which brought me to using the 3D aluminum tile that is being used for the drawer fronts. Here’s the CAD rendering: The tile comes supplied in 12X12” squares with aluminum extrusions glued onto what appears to be a nylon mesh. After going back and...
read moreRoll Another One
Roll Another One Just like the other one, but in Maple. By the way, Home Depot now sells reasonably good quality rolling door hardware.
read moreCanvas Stretchers
How about a new way to make canvas stretchers? For my lovely and talented niece, Sophia, only innovation and a custom made canvas is sufficient, and rightly so. The most long-lived paintings are actually made on panels, but canvas or linen are the standards, and they are bouncy, so very nicely bouncy when you hit them with a loaded brush, or a clenched fist, whatever the situation demands. The problem is that when the canvas stretches or sags the paint doesn’t, and that leads to cracking, so stretchers are made with...
read moreDoors 2
And a new Festool Domino DF 700 machine to do them with. Mara bought me the machine, I can’t remember why, but I’m not asking questions. This is the big one which I found can be modded to do the work of the little one, the DF 500. Anyway, I went a little tenon happy but in the end the machine will do the tenons for a door in about 15 minutes. The photo below shows 6” long tenons for an upper rail in another chevron style door except this was a double door. Here are the Double doors, unfinished as yet and made...
read moreNew Blue Box
Mara has a post: I had what I thought would be a enjoyable and easy job using skills that had not been exercised in awhile. A faux painting job on a beautiful simple case that needed a new base to elevate it higher and take out a sag in the middle. I was excited by it and the client really loved what I did on an old filing cabinet rescued from under the airport that got a very subtle deep red treatment. The client wanted teal and then thought the red would look good with it. The client is a creative colorist of a...
read moreThe Doors
This summer I had a number of doors to do, apparently a chevron design has become popular. The first set was made with the old door standby, Fir, but the later ones were made of Alder and then Soft Maple. The Fir is not cheap and loves to explode big chunks when under a shaper cutter, but all of that was hidden because the tear outs were in the grooves. However after seeing this I've finally gotten rid of the most hated machine in the shop, my old Craftsman shaper, and replaced it with a Delta machine, I’m told it’s the last...
read moreBidness
Bids and more bids. Will one of these come thru? How about some CAD drawings—anyone need a CAD drawing? Aluminum Tiled Mirror. Tha actual tile looks much, much better. Ten foot Media Credenza with sad choice of pulls. Polar Vortex Aquarium Stand with Block of Frozen Fish. Arizona Sun Picnic Table Big Likeable Nightstand Jetson's Computer Office Tiresome Pink Granite Misproportioned Cherry Table * Most of these are provisional, not fully developed and drawn quickly for bidding...
read moreSince Summer
My, it's been a while since I've updated the blog, since August 2013 to be exact. For my friends at Hiatt & Kramer I've made a few pieces as well as re-familiarizing myself with cabinetwork. I worked in their shops for 2 months on cabinets for 12 apartments which once again revealed that I'm not especially fond of straight cabinetmaking. On the other hand I've learned a lot about how cabinets are done today as opposed to how they were done during the 70's, and of course it is fun working with a team, especially...
read moreSunny’s Sofa
Actually, it's more of a divan than a sofa, and the first time I've built a sofa in all my years of woodworking. Long ago I had a memorable art teacher in San Antonio and her daughter asked me if I could build a sofa for her new futon mattress. This was to be low budget, but I reckon I had a debt of gratitude and friendliness to take into account so I scoured the shop for parts from old projects, left over materials, and other bits and pieces. The design intent was to be "Moroccan" but it seems to have migrated toward Greece...
read moreCredenza Done
Here are some photos of the completed (minus the marble top) credenza. It looks bottom heavy without the top, but maybe I'll get a few shots later that include the top. And, while I had my doubts, The piece as a whole is pretty impressive. The colors are multiple layers deep so it's really rich and variegated looking. Mara used up to 5 different treatments; stains, sealers, glazes, top coats.
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