These reproductions of Hans Wegner’s CH23 chair and CH327 table are scaled 70% for a toddler’s play area. Crafted on the occasion of her second birthday, this set will likely fit until she is six years old.
Both pieces are white oak with traditional soap finish. The chair seat is woven paper cord. Departures from the original, due to the smaller size, are the lack of Wegner’s iconic cruciform caps which conceal the CH23’s seat back fasteners in the production version and the dispensing with knock-down fasteners to attach the CH327 legs to the apron. Instead, these joints are doweled and glued.
These low, coopered stools (made from black oak, ash, and elm) are my own design but based on a German peasant’s kitchen stool from the Biedermeier period, a form and object ironically at odds with the fantasy style and elegance of the time. My sister’s children - aged 2, 3, and 4 years old - are the recipients of this first-semseter project.
This wall cabinet is a literal and figurative expression of a student's audaciousness to attempt new things. My desire to push the limits of my skills as a woodworker is mirrored here by the the protruding features, reaching beyond the safety of the central enclosure.
The brown oak, as rich and visually compelling as it is, is a brittle and unforgiving wood to work with. The protruding half-blind dovetails do not offer the safety net of grain consolidation during final planing. Even the composition of the piece, asymmetric and unconventional, challenged me to create a form that moved beyond my predilections and first inclinations.
I named it "Throughsie" as there are many projecting, protruding, and intersecting elements.
Made of brown oak and American chestnut with Macassar ebony pulls, stops, and shelf consoles and finished with shellac.
Designed in 1950 by Børge Mogensen, with cross-bonded, vacuum-formed, plywood seat and back.
With six weeks remaining before the Spring exhibition at the Highlight Gallery, I decided to build a pair of these chairs as my third and final project of the school year. Starting with an existing design saved considerable development time. However, the chairs provided the opportunity to study this classic design, solve some interesting assembly problems, and create vacuum-formed plywood pieces - something I had done while building skis but never with furniture.
Made of quarter sawn white oak with wedged through tenons, blind floating tenons, and doweled joints. Finished with Liberon Finishing Oil.
A client requested a bench to fit at the foot of a queen-sized bed, made from walnut to coordinate with several other walnut pieces in their home.
After several mockups and prototypes of leg proportions, joinery details, edge treatments, and seat types, we decided on an understated design with elegant proportions and a paper cord seat to match the client’s set of Danish chairs.
All joinery is mortise and tenon with no fasteners. I wove the seat with unlaced paper cord. My preferred supplier of cord and supplies is The Caning Shop in Berkeley, CA (www.caning.com).
The walnut is finished with a clear satin oil-wax.
A local family asked for a custom solution for their twelve-year old’s bedroom. The small fainting room on the third floor of a Mission District Edwardian was to be repurposed from an office to a bedroom. The size of the room precludes fitting both a twin bed and a small desk. However, a combination Murphy bed and mechanical desk allowed for optimal functionality and most economical use of the space available.
The casework is 1” and 1/2” thick Baltic Birch mutli-ply plywood with quartersawn maple veneer. Except for the fasteners and gas springs, I fabricated the metal hardware from scratch.
The design is based on the Italian manufacturer Clei’s Kali Board wall bed system but adapted for an American twin mattress. When the bed is opened, a four-bar linkage system stows the desk underneath the tray holding the mattress.
Inspired by Greg Benson’s modern take on the classic Adirondack, I took a step back from his recycled plastic version and built a pair in weather-resistant Afromosia or “African Teak” (Pericopsis elata).
Here are a pair of Krenovian sawhorses in tanoak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus). An elegant and highly functional set of tools, these sawhorses showcase a number of joinery techniques, including wedged through tenons, blind tenons, and double-notched joints.
This massive solid walnut table is a custom design for a client’s kitchen. Extending out from a marble-clad island, the counter depth leg wraps around the island as a secondary dining and working space.
13 feet long and 40 inches wide, the table is 2.5 inches thick with an under-beveled edge to lighten the profile. Powder-coated welded steel brackets secure the table to the knee wall with steel legs supporting the cantilevered dining table end.
Certainly the largest piece I had built to this point, it weighed a challenging 300+ pounds after glue-up and before cutting to length and under-beveling.
