Back to Work

Ok .. Holidays are over ... Back to work ... We finished three pieces so far this week. The first was the Art Deco inspired cabinet below ... see the previous post about it in December ...
The inlay from the Art Deco Cabinet ... Inlay by Trevor ... Ebony and MOP pulls by Will ... REALLY NICE SHINY LACQUER FINISH by Steve Holman of Holman Studios, just a mile down the road ... This piece is/was extremely hard to photograph .... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

The Art Deco Cabinet ... Macassar ebony, Gaboon ebony, mahogany secondary and mother-of-pearl ... Got it back from Steve on Tuesday and reassembled it ... All done ... and I'm glad. that one was A LOT harder then it looks ...

Tomorrow Will and I are off to Martha's Vineyard to install the pool table and the light Sam made below. If the pool table clients are close enough, we make the effort to set them up ourselves. They are always in nice places like, for instance, Martha's Vineyard. The last one was in Greenwich, CT ... Anyway, I've never been to the Vineyard in the winter but the client has a guest house for us and it should be as they say 'nice in the off season' ... No problem getting on the ferry I bet ....

The pool table ... Handhewn beams and recyled ?hemlock? rails and blinds ... Virgin timber whatever it was, with beautiful unbelievably fine grain .. I hope to update the Build Your Own Pool Table post I started in December at some point, but it won't be for a minute .... Surprisingly, there are quite a few new inquiries coming in since the holidays ....

Sam's latest from the metal shop ... nice green glass shades

An Art Deco Macassar Ebony Cabinet

Will, signing the piece .. click to enlarge the pictures Be sure to check the comment below from 'Lurch' about the inlay in the inspiration photo ... power of the internet ...

Close up of the finished inlay

All in ... all done ... delivered to the city

12/23/ 08 ... the cabinet is off to the finishers. Shown above, the construction is totally finished and Tuesday Will and I took to a friend's shop (Holman Studios) and disassembled it to the bones to be sprayed with a fine Art Deco style lacquer finish .... Click photos to enlarge them ...

This is a quick update before we rout the doors for the circular inlay. We fitted the doors and edged them with 2/16" strips of ebony so we can sand them for final fitting. The doors themselves are quartered mahogany vertical grain panels panels with 1/16th" crossbanding. The poplar board on the right is a test fit for the rather fussy to locate, (but extremely elegant), knife hinges.

Here the doors have been veneered and the hinges have been cut in .... central inlay tomorrow

11/23/08

OK, here comes another long one ... We're wrapping up a cabinet that is loosely based on a period piece by the French designer Clement Mere who made fabulous Art Deco Style pieces in the 20's ... When my client sent me the picture, her exact words were "Hi, We don't have to copy it exactly, so we'll work with this as an inspiration." ... Good thing ... I'd like to meet the guy who could copy that one .... How did they do that inlay or whatever it is ???? .. Here's the picture .. Click the photos to enlarge them ...

Anyway, I did some trial sketches for the central inlay and we finally settled on part of a design from a Tiffany vase that the client liked.

We tried doing it like the picture with two different ovals alternating around a circle, but settled on four the same.

Drew the inlay and cabinet in our cad program

Trevor made a sample inlay confirming that we wanted the oval designs all the same

We got some Macassar ebony veneer from our friends at Certainly Wood ... They have a GREAT website where you can actually pick the flitch of veneer you're buying, which was extremely helpful for my client.

Veneered some mahogany legs (with ebony corners so we could bevel them a bit) and some mahogany panels for the top, bottom, sides and doors ... see the photo at the top of this post ..

And now we're ready to veneer the doors and wrap it up ... Update later this week or next

And cut the ebony and mother of pearl for the central door inlays.

The central inlay is almost complete

New Design Project

8/24/08 Below is a quick photoshopped mockup reflecting design changes the client has requested. We have entirely eliminated the lace wood under the bubinga tops and on the door panels, opting instead to consider using big leaf maple burl which is more similar in color and less 'contrasty'. I like the new look and is similar to a piece I did a few years ago, for which we won a national design prize from Custom Woodworking Magazine. We may modify/simplify some of the door and drawer face details later if this is the palette we decide to work with. The doors and drawer faces in the photo below were plucked from the original sideboard image. Click the photo to enlarge it ....

Well, after a month or so of putting this on my to do list, I've finally gotten back to working on this project. It took a rainy Sunday afternoon to give me some uninterrupted time to finish the first scale model 3 photos down. The model is 1/6th scale, +/- 7.5" long, 6.5" high and 4" deep, translating into a full size cabinet 45" x 39" x 24" deep. I also made model pieces for the second cabinet with doors, shown in the drawing below and I hope to assemble that one before another couple of months go by. I would have finished it today but the sun came out around 3;30, a friend called, and we just had time to squeeze in 9 holes before it rained again. Click the pictures to enlarge them.

8/6/08
I wonder if the lacewood door panels are too dark and if maple burl might be better there ... The models have been placed in a 'to scale' cardboard 'room setting' which gives an accurate representation of how the pieces will look when they are installed.

Better I think

Unfinished, without hardware ... cherry base, lacewood under top and a bubinga top

With steel hardware photoshopped in ... The 'step in' just above the cabinet base seems too big and will have to be adjusted when we build the cabinet full size [or maybe when we make the other model.

Original Post from 5/4/08
This project involves designs for the second floor of a Philadelphia +/- 1840 downtown townhouse. The room is at the top of the stairs between a library/tv area and a formal sitting room in the front. The ceilings are high and the space is dramatic. We are currently working with conceptual sketches by a local architect and palette of Bubinga and American Cherry. We're seeking a somewhat contemporary/historical combination with simple but elegant detailing to go with the more formal and traditional feeling of the architecture without feeling reproductionist. (Is that a word?) Anyway, here's what I have so far ... Click photos to enlarge ..

Cabinet interiors

Side Elevation



May 31st ... Revised drawing ... cabinet width increased to 44" ...
center table eliminated for now

My first drawing over the architects renderings ...
Pretty literal

I've increased the width of the pieces ...
maybe a bit too much, Maybe 42-44" would be better ...

Photoshopped in a bubinga half oval
and two cherry cabinets with bubinga tops

Went on to add the artwork ...

Links to other posts on models and mockups below

Foam Core Models

Full Size Mockups and Photoshop

The Five Minute MDF Mockup ... 6 photos down