Ideas Wood working

A client sent me some links recently to tables that she had seen online that she kind of liked but not exactly ... The size she was looking for (60 x 86) was not a standard one for most manufacturers so, I made a drawing for her. Working with ovals to define the curves, I played around with the proportions until I arrived at something that had some promise .. I got her ok for the concept and gave the drawing to Trevor, who cncd up a quick 1/6th scale model to look at. After a little more back and forth, we came to an agreement and we were off. Click the photos to enlarge them ...

The 1/6th model is on top of the bottom of the English elm table we finally finished this week ...
Without the top showing the interior flower kind of concept ...
We started with 4 really nice wide boards of walnut from Irion Lumber ...
and after the top was glued up started in on the 16/4 pieces for the base. From the model drawing, Trevor made full sized patterns to help layout the cuts
After mitering them on the tablesaw, we added 3/4 inch hardwood dowels that passed through the center of each section to allow us to later run timberlock bolts up through the x cross base and into the four sections.
Before gluing up we also added some long grain walnut to reinforce the short grain out near the ends of the arcs. We tried a bunch of different approaches to clamping ...
and then hit on the idea of a cut out piece of plywood collar, clamps on the bottom, and cross clamps on the top, which allowed us to view the place where the four miters came together ... It all seemed good until we added the actual glue which for a minute turned the whole process into a small wrestling/clamp juggling match which we eventually won ...
Before adding the crossed base elements, Trevor routed and glued and screwed in a half inch baltic birch play reinforcing spider that gave us all confidence in the integrity of the glue up ...
A little more sanding and it will be off to the finish room next week ...
Were liking it and have already discussed a couple of variations on the theme ...

second post in a planned series ...

its hard to believe because snow now covers the bench seats in the photo above, but were only about two and a half months from this opening photo. at our house, its all about the sunshine, all the time .... this side faces due southeast, which lets the morning sun come into the bedroom and bathroom below on the right end, and the afternoon light shine in the left end living room, and opposite side of the house. our previous house, from 1974-1996 was on red mountain road, about 15 miles from where we live now... that house was in a beautiful spot with a nice valley view, but was tucked up fairly tightly against a sizable bump in the landscape called, fittingly, red mountain. we were on the wrong side of the mountain .... in the winter, the sun was gone by 2:30 or so.

this time, either by luck or a dogged persistence, or both, we ended up with a house and shop that get very early morning sun and some of the last sun in town ... in designing both the house and the shop, attention was paid to maximizing that sunlight .... it is vermont, and winters are long and in general, tend to cloudiness. so, when you, have some sun, you want to get as much of it as you can .... our garage, for instance, is close, but detached, so as to get that morning light into the bedroom and bathroom below .... personal, (but imho, worthy), obsession ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
but, at all times of a sunny day, its a delight ... lighting the spaces and the furniture ... yeah ... the cherry bureau was for our own house ... the first piece of real furniture i have made for us, intentionally, (not a prototype or mockup), in a long time. talk about a special spot ...
morning sun in all of these photos ... kitchen, dining and living room here ... like the shop, which we built and lived in first, we designed this house to be, wherever possible, one room deep, meaning you can look in the front window from outside in front, and out the back window on the other side ... a principal i think i picked up from a book i get from the library every once in a while, called a pattern language by christopher alexander. one of my favorite quotes from that book goes like this:

"At the core... is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets and communities. This idea... comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people".

—Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language, front bookflap

he also goes on to say inside that the patterns are regarded by the authors not as infallible, but as hypotheses. meaning to me ... read em, but do what you want with them as ideas ... we did ... great book, but expensive last time i looked ... and mirrors ... you cant say enough about them .... this one was born of a need to squeeze a full length mirror in somewhere handy. its tapered, and angled, slightly, so the out of verticalness of it lends interest but yet doesnt distort the reflection.... we have another of these in a small half bath by the front door ... they infallibly make the room seem bigger ..
amaryllis with prayer flags ... and for a really nice interior design effect, you cant beat a good houseplant .... this one kit picked up cheap at the local shaws grocery and this is its second four flower effort ... $5., well spent for about 3 weeks of flowering so far ...