Yes, there is furniture here

No, it's not just Scrabble related stuff that I do. Somehow the tile thing caught on and blossomed into something that's not retro or modern or furniture, but it's still wood.

A current project in its final stages:

A full report on this custom secretary desk is coming. Perhaps the first week of December after I deliver it.

The Headboard

The latest addition to the Nelson series, Project Mike: The Headboard.

This was inspired by a customer's request about eight months ago who wanted a slatted headboard. I ended up not making one for that customer, but went ahead and built one for our brand spanking new kingsize bed.

I often wondered if a mattress really did matter when it comes to sleeping comfort. After all, it's just a thing to lay on, right? And I can fall asleep anywhere -- the couch, the floor, the car, the bus, hard surface, soft surface, whatever. So when it came time to replace our 10 year old queen mattress, the woman suggested we go big. Real big. As in King.

Of course this meant scrapping the queen frame too. Now we've got a king (and a split boxspring) that's planted on the floor, sans bedframe.

And to answer my question about whether a mattress has anything to do with sleepability, I have to conclude with a resounding yes indeedy. Now I sleep completely uninterrupted without waking constantly in the middle of the night -- why I thought waking up constantly was normal, I don't know. Now we frequently have trouble getting up in the morning 'cause this new mattress is just so darn enveloping and soft and warm and cozy and squishy and joyful.

Anyway, to the headboard! Slats, all cherry wood, a couple of coats of tung oil (with lots more finishing to do later), and no frame yet. Due to various other projects piling up on my to-do list (a secretary desk, tons of giant scrabble tiles, various turned pieces, and a custom quadruple size scrabble board (to be played with 400 standard scrabble tiles)), I'll have to wait a while before attempting to make a frame. More details on the secretary desk and the ginormous scrabble board are forthcoming.

Dimensions are as follows:

Length: 80"

Height: 42"

Price: not for sale

Cherry wood. Preliminarily finished in tung oil.

To arrange commission of your own slatted headboard, send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com

The Eames House

Yes, I like Eames furniture. And yes, I admit I had no idea their house was in Pacific Palisades until a few months ago. And yes, I further admit that two years ago I was as ignorant as they come regarding anything that the Eames' ever did regarding furniture, architecture, film, style, life, etc.

In my former life I was a high end audio/video installation professional. In other words, I played with rich peoples' expensive blinky lighted (with buttons and switches) toys. 'Cause he who dies with the most expensive blinky lighted (with buttons and switches) toys wins. And he who has the biggest plasma screen hung on a wall can definitely compensate for shortcomings in other areas. I'm referring to a certain loud-mouthed former NFL wide receiver who will not be named, who just had to own a monstrous 103" behemoth. But I digress.

Anyway, there was a home theater installation I worked on a while back where the guy (not the aforementioned NFL player, but another rich guy with lots of toys) had a cool projector, a bigass screen, and a gagillion watts of speaker amplification in a dedicated theater space on top of the garage. For seating in this home theater, he had a fleet of Eames Lounge Chairs with Ottomans. By 'fleet' I mean at least a dozen of each.

Of course back then I didn't know what I was resting my grubby shoes on, and thought they were just nifty looking matching comfy ottomans with nifty looking matching comfy chairs. They were probably newer repros, but who knows? This guy was oozing overflowingly with wealth that he probably could have gone out and procured a dozen rosewood originals.

The point is that I just didn't know what I was experiencing when basking in the glory of that fleet of fabulous furniture.

Fast forward a few years and after my wife has educated me significantly in the lexicon of MCM, and here we are at the Eames House. Yup, right there on Chautauqua, just a few hundred yards up from PCH. I must've driven up that street dozens of times during my career as an installer, never knowing that right out the truck window there were four (count 'em four) case study houses: Eames, Entenza, West (Walker), and a Neutra.

A few months ago we were watching the second disc of the Eames films collection, the piece entitled House. And then I said, hey I'll google that and see what happens. And yes indeed, this is what I found: http://www.eamesfoundation.org/index.html and it's available for visitation. And we took a visit, just three weeks ago. The only catch is you can't take pictures of the inside.

What was interesting was the little conversation we had with the friendly docent at the door who was somewhat surprised that we're local and from LA. She told us that the majority of the visitors come from out of country and it's rare when a local comes by. Hmm, a comment on the not-so-enthusiastic state of architectural/historical interest among Los Angeles residents?

And during a leisurely stroll through the vast open space in front of the house, we came across some Tonka trucks, seemingly frozen in time. They probably had not been moved since forever as the rust indicated. You could just picture the Eames children (like in the House movie), running around the grounds, then moving some dirt with the Tonka trucks.

Nelson: Project Hotel

This piece has to go now! I have another coffee table that's just being finished now that wants to move into the living room. There's no room for this one. Price now slashed to $300, or best offer.

Nelson: Project Hotel, aka The Square Donut. A slatted Nelson-style coffee table that's square-ish and has a hole in the middle. Part of the ongoing 26-part Nelson series.

This project was proposed waaaaay back in April, was begun waaaay back in May, and whose top was finished fairly quickly (probably waaay back at the end of May). It was the legs that gave me pause since I had no idea what I wanted to do with them. Square legs? Straight legs? Angled legs? Long legs? Spindles? Ah, yes, spindles.

It being over 100 degrees on most days for the past few months here in the San Fernando Valley, a four-part session with the spokeshave to create spindles was something I kept putting off. But lo! And behold! Lathe acquisition! Turned spindles! No more sweat session with spokeshave!

Now the obvious question: why is there a hole in the middle? The running joke around here is that we're gonna invite some kids over, plop them in the hole, give them some knives and meat and a floppy hat, and hold Benihana auditions. So if you'd like to steal the idea, purchase the table, and have at it, then feel free.

Oh wait, better idea -- put a little grill thingy in the middle, have all your guests sit on pillows around the table, and do a little Korean BBQ grill-your-own-meat in the middle of the table thing.

I also keep thinking about that scene in Wallstreet when Gordon Gecko drops the canape plate right through the hole in the faux glass coffee table at Bud's place during the meeting with Bluestar employees...

The real reason there's a hole in the middle? I don't remember. I'm sure I had a grand plan or a grand delusion of being artsy or a grand vision of the future of coffee tables with a built-in place for a trash can, but at the moment I simply can't recall. But I think it looks cool-- you get to see the toothed notches four times: twice on the outer edges and twice more on the inner edges.

Dimensions are as follows:

Length: 35 1/2"

Width: 26 1/4" (alas, not a square, but square-ish)

Height: 15"

Price: $300

Hard maple. Finished in tung oil.

To arrange purchase, send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com

Drumstick

When I hear the word drumstick, I think of ice cream in a cone with the top dipped in chocolate and a sprinkling of nuts on top. But this is about something else.

My lathe is my friend. My spokeshave used to be my friend, but it's been demoted to just an acquaintance. While finishing up some spindles today I came across a skinny-ish piece of ash and said to myself, "Drumstick!" 'Cause nowadays I'm dreaming up all kinds of nonsense that I can make with my friend the lathe: pepper mills, French rolling pins, regular rolling pins, lamps, pens, pencils, letter openers, big wooden spoons and forks, dildos, bottle stoppers, chairs, stair spindles, light sabers, dagger hilts, chessmen, chesswomen, and of course drumsticks.

Anyway, I chucked up the ash, gave it a spin, and out came my best approximation of a drumstick. An approximation was all I could muster 'cause I didn't have a live sample to measure or copy (since I sold my drums and my collection of sticks/mallets a loooong time ago). It's a little on the short side (12.75") compared to a 5A (~16.25"), but it looks right. (The skinny-ish piece of ash was only 13.5" long.) There's a taper, there's a tip, there's a rounded butt, and there's a signature. 'Cause it's not a drumstick unless it's an official Signature Model.

So here it is, the Carlo Signature Stick, model 1138. 'Cause I'm a rock star. With only one stick. I'll be playing one-handed until its twin can be fabricated.

Dimensions:
Length 12 3/4"
Diameter 7/8"

Ash, with a few coats of satin poly
Signed, limited edition (1 of 1)

Price: $1,000,000

Cash only (in a briefcase)

Free delivery to anywhere in the world

Nelson: Project Juliet

Letter J, Project Juliet, Nelson piece number 10, The Shoe Rack.

I call it the shoe rack 'cause that's what came to mind when the dimensions of this thing became evident. What you use it for is completely up to you: a plant stand, a foot stool, a kids' bench, a mini coffee table for those tiny moments of coffee drinking, or even a shoe rack.

Make sure you look at the dimensions at the end of this post 'cause the pictures might make it appear to be larger than it actually is. What it definitely isn't is the size of a regular Nelson bench.

Made from leftover pieces of maple from Project Kilo: The Square Coffee Table (not yet completed), this mini bench is something I threw together 'cause I didn't want to let those perfectly good lengths of maple go to the lumber limbo pile. That lumber limbo pile of mine is growing to unmanageable proportions, so it's best if I find a good use for certain pieces rather than subject them to insignificance and loneliness.

Why these pieces were rejects from the square coffee table is due to a failed planer sled experiment. Without getting into the ugly details, these pieces ended up with a little dip in their centers. If you look at the second picture below, you might be able to notice that the center of the shoe rack is of a slightly smaller width than the ends of it. Slightly. Not a lot. Slightly.

This is an all glue joint affair without the signature notches of some of my previous Nelson-style work. The glue blocks are oriented upwards so that the end grain is visible: this resulted in some chipping of the ends of the glue blocks when attempting to flatten the top with a hand plane. Must rethink my strategy in that regard next time. I think it looks cool and gives the thing some character ;>

Spindles! Lathe turned spindles! I finally got my lathe and these spindles were the first things I spun. I'm loving the lathe so much that my spokeshave just might get a retirement ceremony and end up in the tool limbo pile (which is not as ignominious a destination as the lumber limbo pile).

Below is the shoe rack demonstrating its usefulness in a way befitting its title. As you can see, we have a thing for Keen shoes.

Dimensions are as follows:

Length: 34 1/2"

Width: 7 1/4"

Height: 12"

Price: $150 Sold!

Hard maple. Finished in tung oil.

To arrange purchase, send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com.

The Wall Structure, Part Two

Nelson Bench Project India: The Wall Structure, Part Two

Part Two meaning that it is installed and doing what it is meant to be doing: displaying stuff.

To refresh your recollection, it's a 16 foot wide by 2 foot tall slat structure with four slat shelves. It's a Nelson Bench hung on a wall, only it's not a bench. Hopefully that makes sense. It's broken up into four sections, each section being 4x2. Mounting is with some butterfly through-toggles in the drywall. Rather than bother with hitting studs ('cause my finicky stud finder seemed to not find 16" OC), I opted for equally spacing the drilled holes on the slat surface and just going with the toggles.

More on the Nelson Bench Project.

The original post has some SketchUp renderings if you're interested.

The first six pics were taken just after installation.

Although it's not wood, the metal bar structure was also part of the commission. This is a clothing company after all and the intention is to display a few things on the shelves and to hang a ton of clothes on a rack. During planning for this operation, I discovered something called Speed-Rail fittings for the junctions of the bars. With a few twists of an allen key, yous gots yourself some snug neato elbow fittings, T fittings and flange fittings. MUCH easier to manage than dealing with threaded pipe.

And the two pics below are with accessories in place. Throw up a few purses, slather on a bucket of clothes, and you get magic.

All ash construction. Finished with tung oil.

Dimensions of wall structure:
16' wide
2' tall

Dimensions of each shelf:
22" wide
1' deep

Dimensions of clothes rails:
5' lengths (x3) 1" GRC (~1 1/4" nominal)
55" height
16" offset from wall
Speed-Rail fittings

Price: permanent installation, not for sale

If you have a space that needs similar treatment and would like an estimate and some SketchUp renderings, shoot me an email and we'll discuss.

The Wall Structure

Nelson Bench Project India: The Wall Structure

Construction begins today on the latest George Nelson Bench project, code named India. It's a wall-mounted slatted structure that's 16 feet wide and 2 feet tall, with four slatted shelves.

This one's pretty monstrous - kinda like building a super long Nelson bench and slapping it on a wall. Well, not kinda like, but actually building a super long Nelson bench and slapping it on a wall.

Since the slats are transversely oriented, the Nelson effect is somewhat different. It should, however, work well in the space that it's intended for as it will draw the gaze upward and extend the height of the room.

The finished piece will be written up extensively in a future post along with bunches of pictures.

All ash. So the grain will be like my four foot Nelson.