A buddy of mine recently did up his garage. Floors, insulation, drywall, lighting, a new door, air, new electrical, a pop-down attic ladder, a sink, etc. A new baby can do that to a garage, especially if there're only two bedrooms in the house. This is not to say that the baby can do construction work, but that the baby causes the need to do the construction work. The 2nd bedroom becomes the baby room and the old office moves to the garage.
We went over to visit this new fangled garage office/den and I discovered two trash cans full of wood scraps. Cut up pieces, all about a foot long and a foot wide, that came from the old interior of the garage. Apparently they were long and wide planks running horizontally where stuff could be screwed or nailed to like lawn equipment, shelving or other miscellaneous garage junk.
I picked out a few choice pieces, planed 'em down, and thought to myself, "Self, what should I built out of this?"
(If anyone can tell me what kind of wood is/was used as random garage wood in the 1950's, then please feel free to email. It's a softish kinda wood, probably pine? Or doug fir? They're all 3/4" thick with widths varying from 6" to a full foot. Hmmm...)
The result is another entry in The Reclamation Project:
The End Table
The reclaimed garage wood was used for the leg structure only. The table top came from an old side table I built 10 years ago that no longer had a home in the house. It used to be a rectangle, but I oblonged it so it fit more with the look of the legs.
I didn't want to bother with a router roundover bit, so all edge easing was done with a spokeshave. There's something about that little tool that just does it for me.
Inspiration for this piece is the Bradshaw line of tables from Room&Board.
Here are my dimensions:
Length of table top: 23"
Width of table top: 17 1/2"
Height: 22 1/2"
Top is made of repurposed pine. Legs are made of reclaimed garage wood. Could be pine? Could be douglas fir (like 2x4 wood, but thinner and from the 1950's)?
Price: $150
To arrange purchase, send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com
Project Alfa: The Piano Bench
Project Bravo: The Nelson Bench
Project Charlie: The Other Piano Bench
Project Delta: The Footstool
Project Echo: The Plant Stand
Project Foxtrot: The Spindled Bench
Project Golf: The Nelson Door
Project Hotel: The Square Coffee Table
Project India: The Wall Structure
Project Juliet: The Shoe Rack
Project Kilo: The Fence (proposed)
Project Lima: The Piano Bench, Part III (proposed and desperately needed)
Project Mike: The Headboard (not for sale)
Project November: The Six Foot Nelson Bench
This is an extensive tribute to the George Nelson Bench, which was first introduced in 1946 for Herman Miller. The picture below is from the Room and Board website: a fabulous example of an officially licensed place that sells Herman Miller / George Nelson reproductions.
While I do not intend to just build regular Nelson benches which are available through numerous retailers (both with Herman Miller's permission and without), I do intend to do a sort of theme and variations on the Nelson style. More to the point, each of my creations will have slats of some sort.
This will be a 26-part series, with 26 unique builds. Why 26? Because there are 26 letters in the alphabet and the designation system I chose utilizes the military letter system: Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, etc. Why this lettering system? Because it's cool.
All work is custom built to your specifications. While the projects pictured above and the projects linked to above are all possible creations for you, let your imagination run wild and propose something out there and wacky and unnaturally dimensioned and even without slats.
Every proposed build comes with free 3D Google SketchUp renderings. This way you can get a real feel for what the end product will look like, and sort of wrap your head around the concept. These drawings being 3D, it is then a literal wrap around.
To order something like the benches above, or to propose your own bench, send email to craigwoodworks (at) gmail (dot) com
